The Tour of Alberta won’t be making a pit stop in Okotoks this year.
Town council turned down a request from organizers of the six-day, world-class cycling event for Okotoks to be a start location for one leg of the event later this year on Feb. 22. At issue was the $100,000 in rights fees the Town would be required to pay.
Duane Vienneau, CEO of the Tour of Alberta, was disappointed by council’s decision but said he understands the reasoning and plans to approach council in the future.
“We were hoping it would be this year, but we get it and we’ll adapt,” said Vienneau.
Under the Tour’s business model, the rights fees would see the community highlighted on international broadcasts with the hometown celebration, two 30-second commercial spots that day, as well as signage along the course and being included in printed materials.
Okotoks was a host community in the event’s inaugural year in 2013. Rights fees were not charged to host communities in the first year.
In 2013, government grants allowed the Tour to operate without charging communities to host an event they had never heard of.
Vienneau said it is not surprising it may come as a shock to council to be asked to pay $100,000 to host the event a second time, after hosting it for free the first year.
“You couldn’t charge a rights fee that first year because people didn’t know anything about it,” said Vienneau. “It would have been like selling a cup of coffee and handing over an empty cup. It hadn’t brewed yet.”
The Tour of Alberta is a local version of the Tour de France, featuring 120 of the best cyclists in the world.
He said the race has generated about $20 to $25 million in economic impact and boasts a television viewership of 47 million people in the past two years, bringing attention to start and finish communities each day.
The rights fees help pay for the tour itself, which costs about $6 million to run, he said. Funding comes from government grants, community support and rights fees.
“There is a benefit to those fees, because there is a positive economic impact for the communities we visit,” said Vienneau.
With budget deliberations already closed for 2016, Okotoks council did not want to commit to any portion of the fee for hosting the race.
“From my perspective, we do a lot of big sporting events and we’re interested in doing them, but at a price tag of $100,000 that’s a pretty big ask,” said Coun. Tanya Thorn. “It’s a hard amount of money for us to juggle things around and find the finances somewhere.”
Council asked Tour of Alberta organizers to return with their event information earlier in the fall, to allow the Town to make it part of future budget decisions and plan ahead, she said.
There is economic impact and positive exposure in hosting major events, she said, though she is not sure a one-day event carries enough benefit for a $100,000 expense, plus volunteer hours.
She said events like the Grand Slam of Curling, scheduled to come to Okotoks in October, are more worthwhile investments because they last four or five days and boost the local economy.
“I think we need to be very careful about how we’re spending taxpayer dollars, especially in this economy,” said Thorn. “We can spend that money and have a far greater impact and benefit in the community than just a one-off event.”
