Province would consider selling B.C. Place to Whitecaps: Kahlon

Дата публикации: 24-07-2026 00:14:40

Who needs a lease or a management contract if you can just buy the whole stadium?

Основное содержимое страницы с новостью.

The Whitecaps still need a new owner, and as far as we know there’s still no one even warming up on the sidelines to take on the challenge, but it’s still remarkable how good the vibes around Vancouver’s pro soccer team have become.

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And all it took was a massively successful World Cup in Vancouver, showcasing what a tremendous stadium B.C. Place is.

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How could Major League Soccer abandon this stadium with a straight face? The players said it was great, the fans said it was great, soccer officials big and small, from FIFA and CONCACAF down to Canada Soccer and you and me all said it was great. Heck, even MLS officials conceded the scene was great. League commissioner Don Garber once said the Whitecaps’ future at B.C. Place was untenable. They couldn’t make enough money playing there.

The World Cup is a very different beast from an MLS game on a Wednesday night, but the roaring success of B.C. Place still gives you pause.

And so the eternal questions remains: who will own the Whitecaps and where will they play?

For all the jabber about Hastings Park, for Main and Terminal, for the Jericho Lands, for the south shore of False Creek, maybe the answer is just what’s already here, in the prime location, with a fabulous makeover.

Maybe it’s just B.C. Place.

“Maybe lease, maybe purchase,” Ravi Kahlon, B.C.’s minister for jobs and economic growth, said to Postmedia in an exclusive interview Thursday about what the province has discussed with the Whitecaps about their future at B.C. Place.

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Lease, manage, we knew. But outright buy the place? That’s new, a little stunning — and intriguing.

We’ve all been focused on where else the Whitecaps might play, but the simplest answer may proved to be right where they are.

“We’re open to the conversation,” Kahlon said, “if the parameters are there.”

Of course, such a transaction wouldn’t be cheap. The province has poured hundreds of millions into upgrades to the stadium, over the past decade-plus. The debt servicing costs on those upgrades aren’t going anywhere. (Nor are the broader costs from hosting the seven World Cup games, but Kahlon said he’s confident that the hotel tax enacted two years ago and which will stay in place till 2030 will go a long way toward fully recouping those costs.)

So if the Whitecaps are interested in taking on a proper purchase of their downtown home, it’s clear the government is all ears.

“We’ve gone from butting heads to finding solutions,” Kahlon, a self-admitted Whitecaps fan, commented. In the last few months, he’s been in many meetings with the Whitecaps and other community stakeholders, looking to build out a future for the soccer team.

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“It’s about having several options,” he said of what the government understands are the Whitecaps’ needs. They’re still looking to find new investors at least, new outright owners at most. And so offering a long-term lease with management possibilities, or an outright sale, or perhaps some other arrangement, these are all on the table.

“They’re going to have the same challenges and opportunities that we have,” he said, if the team does sign on some kind of dotted line to secure a new relationship with their current home ground. So far the concepts have been discussed. The Whitecaps still need to put forth a fully detailed plan, he admitted.

“Maybe (we) can find a way that can help them, when we see that detailed proposal. We look forward to it.”

Last week in this space we confirmed that the Whitecaps have finally broached the idea of running the stadium for themselves, a deal which would see them take on the costs of the stadium in exchange for ultimate management ability and paying a share back to the government, just so it’s clear it’s not a sweetheart deal, rather one where the public purse wasn’t hit and in fact if the Whitecaps were able to deliver on what they think they can manage, would leave everyone better off.

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Buying the stadium would send the team’s valuation into the stratosphere; they’d instantly become one of the most valuable teams in MLS.

“There’s a lot of MLS teams not making profits but that’s an MLS problem,” Kahlon said. But he does believe his government can help fix the Whitecaps’ problems. They need bigger support from local business and Kahlon said he’s doing what he can to encourage the business community to step up in tangible ways through sponsorships and the like. And that is, obviously, why they’ve met so much about how B.C. Place can play a role in the Whitecaps’ future.

“We want to keep the team here … be successful and thrive,” he said. The World Cup laid bare for everyone to see what a force Vancouver and B.C. could be for the future of Canadian soccer.

“I want to see more kids from B.C. at the next World Cup,” he declared. “This team will play a big part in that.”

VEGAS NO MORE? Asked about whether the possibility of the team being sold and moved to Las Vegas has been broached at all in the talks, Kahlon said he’d not heard a peep about the idea since that option was first reported in late April. Since then Garber has said the group there remains on course and have a strong proposal to put a team in Sin City, though he did admit last month that the potential ownership group has yet to secure the land they’d need to build a stadium. … There is a rumour going around MLS circles that the Gustavson group, who have put themselves forward as MLS suitors, may now be focused on an expansion team. Did they get scared off by the idea of paying a relocation fee on top of the cost of purchasing the franchise?

pjohnston@postmedia.com

Read More

1. 

   Provincial government ready to hear Whitecaps' proposal to run B.C. Place

2. 

   Whitecaps, B.C. government, local First Nations set to meet

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