The vote on putting $275 million (and maybe more — see below) in city money into a new Calgary Flames arena doesn’t take place until tomorrow, but it’s already becoming clear which way the council is going to go:

The majority of council members have indicated support for the deal, including Mayor Naheed Nenshi, who last week said the arena would create public benefit through “intangibles.” “It’s about bringing community together. It’s about uniting people,” Nenshi said. “This deal makes sense on its own merits.”

Also, councillor Jyoti Gondek said a new arena was needed so that people could watch e-sports like League of Legends and Fortnite. With a straight face, presumably, though the Calgary Sun doesn’t say.

Meanwhile, a bunch of economists have noted the same thing I did here, which is that projecting $400 million in new city revenue over 35 years is not the same as $400 million today, which means the city will almost certainly be taking a loss on the deal — and that’s if taxes on new spending don’t simply cannibalize taxes on old spending, which will almost certainly be the case given that this is just a matter of moving an arena a few blocks away. Also, it’s not counting any cost overruns, an agreement on which “still needs to be worked out,” according to the Toronto Star, but the “expectation” is the city would be on the hook for 50% of them.

If that’s all somewhat confusing and seems to call for a more in-depth examination of the numbers, well, tough, because the council is voting tomorrow. This is kind of an amazing ending to a years-long arena debate where the city seemed set on holding firm against any significant public subsidies, but also kind of not amazing, because that’s how these deals tend to happen: not for a long, long while, then all at once.