This week, the newspapers were all talking about Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone’s not so veiled threats that Montreal needs to invest in its racing infrastructure, not so much the track itself but the amenities surrounding it. The city was quick to point out that this falls on the shoulders of organizer and promoter Normand Legault.
Every first or second week of June, I am reminded of the fact that our great city thinks that one weekend of tourist-influx madness is worth putting up with such blackmail.
Yet, seeing 20 or so professional baseball teams parade into town for 3-4 nights for 81 home games is not, or rather, was not.
If you do the math, 50 or so people that each club brought into town x 4 nights x 81 games = 20,000 people, or 2% of the city’s population, all coming in over a period of 6 months. That’s just the club entourage, you can add out of town fans, reporters, etc. and the numbers add up.
Frankly, my dad - who owns a hotel in the city - tells me that the F1 weekend is a mixed blessing: crazy for a weekend at the expense of the surrounding days… something tells me that dollar for dollar, the economic windfall of a baseball club added a tad more than that of a weekend of hedonism.
But, maybe that’s just me…