Mosaic Stadium has posted a surplus for the first time in its history.

According to the City of Regina’s latest annual report, presented at the Executive Committee meeting on Wednesday.

The $278 million stadium posted a $578,000 surplus in 2021.

This is the first time since opening in July 2017 that the stadium has posted a surplus. Previously it had posted deficits ranging from $417,000 to more than $6 million.

Reasons for the surplus range from the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ return to play, in which the City receives a $12 facility fee from every ticket sold, with revenue growing by $2.3 million.

Another reason for the surplus increase is the increasing property tax that has been applied to the stadium and an increase to the mill rate, which determines the tax per dollar of a property’s assessed value. The City saw a revenue boost on the stadium of $9 million.

The surplus also exceeds expectations, as it was anticipated by the report that the stadium was expected to see losses in its first ten years of operations.

Mayor Sandra Masters says that with debt on the stadium still over $84 million, the surplus comes as a nice surprise.

“If you think about two years of a pandemic and being shut down and the circumstances of all of that, anything we can do to continue to pay down and retire that debt is good news,” she said. “The viability of that stadium is frankly crucial important, considering we do carry a significant amount of debt for that stadium.”