Sin City Back In The Sports Limelight

I know that it has taken me awhile to talk about this but with the Super Bowl and the Olympics, I thought it was appropriate.

Wouldn't you just know it. Right before we start the debate about an arena (Whatever happened to the 25,000 seat CFL stadium we were looking at), another sports extravaganza is to hit our City and put us on the map.

Sin City will become the Canadian HQ for the WWE's Wrestlemania 23 in Detroit and we better get on board now!

Has our Mayor run to Council yet and asked Council to spend the money to be a sponsor of Wrestlemania as he did with Super Bowl? Is Roger Penske involved in this to make it even more urgent to do so? I did see Eddie do the "process" thing again. "The reaction has been very, very positive," Francis said. "Now what we're going to do is spend the next two to three weeks to sit down with the WWE and see if we can formulate the same type of work plan that we used for past events."

I wonder who will make the first suggestion that we should expect to generate "X" millions in revenue. Do you think it will be $100 million, the amount suggested by Eddie at first for Super Bowl rather than the much smaller amount we actually made? I suspect that both the Tunnel and Bridge will not expect the throngs to come and staff up since they were so disappointed by the sharp reduction in traffic over the Super Bowl weekend

Here is the hype so far as reported in the Press and WWE website:

• “The biggest event in sports entertainment history... “It’s the biggest sports event in the universe.”
• More than 78,000 fans are expected to pack Ford Field in Detroit on April 1
• The event is also good news for the southwestern Ontario city of Windsor, located just across the river from Detroit. The Canadian city enjoyed the financial benefits when the National Football League's Super Bowl XL was held at Ford Field last February, and Windsor is certain to get another nice boost next spring.
• WWE Canada estimates that at Wrestlemania 18 in Toronto in 2002, 81 per cent of fans in attendance at SkyDome were from out of town...It's going to have an incredible economic impact on the city of Windsor, which is just two minutes away," DeMarco said. "All the hotels will be filled, the restaurants will be busy - it's going to be a really positive thing."
• Get ready for thousands of WWE fans coming to Windsor from all over the world for WrestleMania 23 in Detroit
• WWE is a marketing gold mine generating millions in revenues from television, merchandise, books, videos, video games, tickets and music.
• We have the power of our television shows to drive things in Windsor and we are looking to do that," said DeMarco, noting at least 20,000 Canadians are expected to be part of the crowd of more than 78,000 at Ford Field.

Interestingly, the event takes place on April 1. Is that an omen?

As for me, I wish Chyna was still around.