Ready, set, $60 million.
Kelowna’s hosting of two regular season Canadian Football League games next spring will provide a big economic jolt to the city, civic and tourism leaders say.
“This will be the largest sports event ever held in Kelowna and the Okanagan region,” Mayor Tom Dyas said Monday at a press conference promoting the two games.
The BC Lions, temporarily vacated from BC Place because of the World Cup, will play the Calgary Stampeders on June 27 and the Edmonton Elks on July 4 at a greatly-enlarged Apple Bowl stadium.
Plans are to boost the stadium’s current capacity of about 3,000 spectators to between 17,500 and 20,000 for the two CFL games. It has not yet been announced how much the temporary expansion will cost, nor how the expense will break down between the Lions and the City of Kelowna (see related story).
Initial expectations were for an economic impact in the tens of millions of dollars, Lisanne Ballantyne of Tourism Kelowna said. But an updated forecast predicts spending on such things as hotels, restaurants, wineries and various attractions at $60 million, she said.
The estimate is based on the $17 million economic impact said to have been generated in Victoria when the Lions played a home game in that city in 2024. Kelowna will have two games, Ballantyne noted, and there are plans for an elaborate week-long football-related festival, expected to draw many visitors from throughout B.C. and Alberta.
“The timing of the event is going to jumpstart our tourist season,” Ballantyne said.
Knowing they’d need to find a temporary venue to play some home games next year, the Lions had been considering a variety of options, club president Duane Vienneau said. “But we always gravitated to Kelowna,” he said.
In such circumstances, teams sometimes choose to play home games at large stadiums that already exist in other cities. But team owner Amar Doman said there was “not a chance” the Lions would go that route, Vienneau said.
“The Lions represent the entire province of B.C.,” said CFL Commissioner Stewart Johnston, who also attended the Kelowna press conference.
Other non-CFL cities to have hosted CFL games include Halifax, and Moncton. “I love seeing our game reach new communities,” Johnston said.
Nathan Rourke, the Lions’ Canadian-born quarterback and this year’s CFL MOP, said it will be “super cool” to play two games at the supersized Apple Bowl in Kelowna.
He joked that he hoped the outcome of the two games wouldn’t be similar to the Lions’ season-ending loss in the CFL Western Final this year in Regina, when the team gave up a lead in the dying moments.
“We want to make sure it doesn’t come down to the final 17 seconds,” Rourke laughed.
Tickets for the games go on sale in February.