It’s the talk of Brampton: the head-scratcher of a decision by city council to spend $1.5 million over three years to bail out the obscure ECHL Brampton Battalion.

Wait. Not the Battalion — that’s the Ontario Hockey League franchise that abandoned Brampton in 2013 because it could not make enough money to sustain itself. It must be the Bulldogs. No, that’s the American Hockey League team that left Hamilton in 2015 before being replaced by an OHL team with the same name."

The Ice Dogs? No, that’s the OHL team that abandoned Mississauga in 2007 because . . . well you get the point: it’s as hard for a second- or third-tier hockey franchise to make a go of it in the GTA as it is to name the team that currently plays in Brampton.

The Brampton Beast — that’s the team that established itself in Brampton to great fanfare in 2013, promptly lost about $4 million in the time since, and got the city of Brampton to agree to pay it to stay this month.

Of course, the city councillors who voted overwhelmingly to subsidize the team are insisting that’s not what they did. The deal “is not a ‘bailout’ as has been characterized,” Councillor Jeff Bowman tells my colleague San Grewal. See, it’s a “marketing, communication and promotion package”! Why, for its $500,000 a year over the next three years, the city gets to advertise on the side of the team bus and on the rink boards at the arena.

I’m no marketing expert, but call me skeptical. As it happens, the naming rights to the arena the team plays in are up for bidding next year, and I’ve read estimates they may be worth around $600,000 a year. Why would you buy a rinkside ad for half a million when you could put your name on the rink itself for only slightly more?

Ah, but see, the city also gets a few hundred tickets to every game! If you bought those at box office prices, they might be worth $200,000 — that’s if you don’t discount the bulk order, nor consideration of the fact that right now the team is leaving a few thousand tickets to each game unsold, so the team likely faces no actual marginal cost in providing the tickets. In any event, looking at a deal where the government buys unsold inventory at inflated prices in order to prop up a failing business, a term comes to mind: bailout.

And whatever they’re calling it now, a bailout is pretty clearly what the team was looking for when it came to city council with its hand out in January. Then, it asked council to cover its projected losses of up to $1.5 million next season, or it might have to leave the city.

It’s not entirely clear that the city itself — the people of Brampton — would mourn the loss of this newcomer franchise that has consistently been a bottom-tier team in a third-tier professional league. If you ask me, municipalities ponying up dollars to subsidize for-profit professional sports teams is always a crappy proposition, but at least in the case of long established, beloved big-league institutions (like the Leafs or Blue Jays in Toronto) there is an argument to be made that they are intangible emotional assets — rallying points for civic pride that would be lost if cities didn’t compete for their attention. No such civic attachment exists in Brampton for this three-year-old affiliate of the Montreal Canadiens. It’s the lack of support from the people of Brampton that created the money-losing situation the team is in.

But for a politician, maybe, there’s a different kind of pride on the line. For members of a city council always trying to establish or maintain an identity separate from Toronto next door — for them, a local sports institution could feel like an important symbol of independence. And to those who’ve recently seen the Battalion move on, and the Brampton A’s pro basketball team decamp as well (in a city that has recently produced NBA players Tyler Ennis, Tristan Thompson, and Sim Bhullar). To lose another team?

“If you let the Beast go, this city is never getting a pro hockey team again. Never,” the Brampton Guardian reported councillor Michael Palleschi saying.

I can certainly understand the fear. And recognize that as much money as it is, $500,000 a year to buy some perceived civic bragging rights is not absurd on a capital budget of over $600 million. But this is a city, too, stung by spending scandals and financial disarray and facing steep tax increases. Many citizens may not see the value.

So councillors voted 8-2 to subsidize the Beast, while dressing the deal up to look like a mutual transaction instead of a handout. The mayor, who opposed doing so, says it’s a disturbing precedent, handing out cash to a for-profit business. And it’s a good bet the precedent will soon enough be invoked by the team itself. In all likelihood, if the Beast are to stay in Brampton indefinitely, it will need to be subsidized indefinitely.

Already the city is looking into another request from the Beast, to buy the arena they play in from its private owners so that they can give the team a better lease deal. Beyond that, the city report that recommended against providing this cash to the team suggests the Beast have no reasonable prospect of becoming profitable in the foreseeable future. “Based on the available information, it appears that funding losses in one form or another will be required for some time,” it says.

It seems likely that this bailout-by-any-other-name is either just the first installment of many in the City of Brampton’s financial lifeline to the team, or that it is a very temporary forestalling of the team’s inevitable move elsewhere.

Either way, it’s hard to see why Brampton city council thinks it’s worth it.

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Edward Keenan writes on city issues ekeenan@thestar.ca . Follow: @thekeenanwire

Clarification - April 12, 2016: This article was edited from a previous version that said the American Hockey League’s Hamilton Bulldogs left Hamilton in 2015 because the team could not make enough money to sustain itself. According to Michael Andlauer, the previous owner of the team, and current owner of the Ontario Hockey League’s Hamilton Bulldogs, a lack of funds was not the reason for the sale of the team and its subsequent move.

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