Quebecor buys naming and management rights to Quebec City arena

Quebecor Inc., the media powerhouse that is Quebec's largest magazine publisher and operator of the Sun Media chain in English Canada, has bought the naming and management rights -- including profit sharing --  for the proposed arena to be built in Quebec City as a lure for a National Hockey League franchise. According to an online story from Canadian Press,carried by Canadian Business

The media company has also been granted exclusive rights to manage the facility under terms of the deal, announced at a wide-ranging news conference Tuesday.

If the building fails to attract an NHL team, Quebecor will pay $33 million for naming rights for 25 years, another $3.15 million per year for management rights, and it will also hand the city 15 per cent of profits from the building.

Those terms would sweeten considerably if the city landed a team — with the fee for naming rights jumping to $63.5 million.

In return, Quebecor gets to manage an arena built entirely with taxpayers' money; the estimated $400 million cost is, so far, being footed exclusively from provincial and city coffers since Ottawa has not yet jumped aboard.

The irony here is that Peladeau rarely fails to play the private enterprise card in his publishing, wireless and television businesses, bridling at regulatory interference, yet is quite prepared to benefit from a facility built by the taxpayer, whether or not the federal government chips in.

The arena is expected to be built by 2015, but the NHL has so far shown no signs of thinking that moving a team to Quebec City is a high or even remote priority.