Moose Jaw Warriors, city reach lease agreement, extending to 2028

(Left to Right) Warriors General Manager Jason Ripplinger, City Manager Maryse Carmichael, Warriors President and Governor Bob Dougall, Mayor Clive Tolley. (Brit Dort/CTV News)

The Moose Jaw Warriors and City of Moose Jaw announced a new multi-year lease agreement for the Moose Jaw Events Centre on Monday.

The negotiated items in the agreement include: new terms for the annual licence fee, sponsorship, advertising, naming rights, ticket sales, and scheduling.

“I’m glad we’ve gotten to where we are. For some context of the agreement, this year the Warriors I think are going to put over 120,000 fans in the seats. We’re also going to pay a licensing fee for selling advertising in the arena section, and we’re going to pay twelve percent of our ticket revenues over to the city,” Bob Dougall, Warriors president and governor, briefly explained.

According to Dougall, the city will pick up costs related to security and ticket takers while the team will end up paying a little less advertising area due to licensing fees.

“In all we’ll save a bit, it’s not significant but we’ll save money for sure,” he added.

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City Manager Maryse Carmichael said the community is looking forward to next season.

“I think from the get go we had an understanding that we were going to be successful,” she said. “Both the Warriors and the city have a really great partnership. Some of the important factors are scheduling for the games, practice, and the work that goes between management and the event centre.”

“I think the city is quite ecstatic [about the new agreement] and can’t wait for the first round of playoffs,” she added.

The new agreement went before Moose Jaw city council for ratification at its regular meeting on Monday.

It is retroactive to Sept. 1, 2023 and will be in effect until Aug. 31, 2028.

“We did a comparison approach with other teams in Western Canada and for us to understand exactly the relationship. And to be honest there’s not that many community owned teams that have the same combo as us, community owned team and city venue,” Carmichael explained. “We looked at that and it was important to be fair with them. As well as looking at the specificity of the Warriors and the City of Moose Jaw.”

According to a Warrior’s news release, the team has contributed $9.3 million in revenue sharing, rent, building upgrades since 2006 on top of the pledge to the new downtown facility.

Both sides shared there are no immediate plans to change the name of the building.