If Mosaic Stadium is such a 'bad' place to catch a football game then why on earth are the Riders shattering attendance records? Perhaps the ol’ facility isn’t as dire a place to catch a game as the pro dome crowd likes to suggest.

Consider the Riders’ recent 54-51 overtime thriller against the Alouettes. According to the CFL’s web site, the Riders sold out the home opener with a stunning attendance of 30,945; a mere 1,494 less fans than Edmonton’s league leading week one attendance mark.

Naysayers will point out that all across pro sports, it’s quite common for a team to sell-out their home opener. True, but consider what Riders’ CEO Jim Hopson noted in the team’s 2009 Annual Report about last year’s attendance figures.

On page 3 of the report, Hopson notes: “Our on-field success helped lead us to another record breaking year on the business side of the club. A regular season attendance record was established in 2009 after averaging 30,717 fans per game.”

The facility is so ‘bad’ that it set a record attendance mark for 2009. Apparently it wasn’t an anomaly.
According to the Riders’ web site, there was an “all time high” for both season ticket sales and regular attendance in 2008 as well.

Clearly, as imperfect as the Riders’ current home is, it’s still attracting fans in droves.

Now, let’s not kid ourselves, the place certainly needs some fixing up. According to a report obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, $6 million worth of repairs are required to give the facility another ten years worth of use.

Compared with the $430 million price tag for a dome, the repair bill is a bargain. Even better, the repairs could easily be covered without requiring any tax dollars.

You see, the Roughriders’ 2009 Annual Report also notes “An additional $923,658 was collected from the facility improvement fee and allocated to the Stadium Improvement Fund helping to grow the net assets available for Stadium enhancement to $5.2 million.”

Thus, all the Riders have to do is collect another $800,000 and they’ve got the funds to give their facility another decade of use.

Critics will of course raise complaints about toilets and other amenities that “need upgrading,” but wouldn’t be covered under the $6 million repair bill. Rather than look to taxpayers to shorten the bathroom lines, perhaps the Riders could look to develop the additional space on the plot of land on which the stadium currently sits. The proceeds could be used to spruce up the place, shorten bathroom lines and add other amenities.

There are endless possibilities. Imagine putting an apartment building or condo complex at the south east end of the stadium. Additional seats could be added to the roof of the building just like apartments outside of Wrigley Field in Chicago. With a bit of imagination even better ideas could be developed.

Most importantly, if there is such demand for a $430 million dome, extending the life of the current facility by a decade would give the pro-dome crowd a full decade to round up the necessary private funds to build a dome.

In the mean time, record attendance levels seem to suggest the old girl isn’t so bad a place to catch a football game after all.