Yes but you either don’t get the point of it or else don’t want to admit it. Luxury boxes = $$$.
Player’s salaries are the biggest expense of have a winning team and the salaries are determined by the overall market. Certain teams have huge sources of revenue to draw from (huge local fan bases, corporate sponsors/side deals, tv deals, wealthy free-spending owners, etc.) that drive up the player salaries. Pittsburgh is not a large enough population base to sell tickets in peanut heaven for $200 a seat while markets like NY, Chicago, Boston, etc. are large enough to demand those kinds of prices and more (as the cost of living in general in those places are also considerably higher). Pittsburgh does have a decently large base of deep pocketed corporations and firms that are willing to shell out large amounts of money for luxury boxes. So 16,000 fans in an arena with 40 luxury boxes is going to bring in considerably less money than one with say 16,000 fans and 100 luxury boxes, or even one with 40 bigger (higher priced) luxury boxes.
The igloo lacks space to put in the number/size of luxury boxes that corporations are willing to shell out the big bucks for (and thus help provide the revenue to keep a competitive team onthe ice), thus why a new arena needs to be built and why just doing some remodeling on the igloo is not really a plausible solution.
DUDE I FUCKING GET IT!!! Doesn’t mean i have to agree with it. i know its about the money… what the average fan doesn’t get is they are the ones that are subsidising the rich even more by beggin for these places.