It’s too cold to type an intro! I miss the Earth before we broke it. But anyway:
- It’s Super Bowl week, so we get articles on how Atlanta spent a lot of money on sports stadiums and NFL stadiums cost a lot of public dollars and the Los Angeles Rams‘ new stadium will be “transformative,” and Roger Goodell is “hopeful” the Oakland Raiders will decide “soon” where they’ll play this fall, none of which really provide in the way of much new information, but the Atlanta one has some good quotes from economist J.C. Bradbury, at least.
- And if you thought you could avoid the Super Bowl just by not living in the city hosting it and studiously ignoring the NFL — okay, maybe that’s only me — know that an unspecified amount of your federal tax dollars will be going to provide security help for the event, including flyovers by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Defense Department aircraft. Somebody tell the feds that the Atlanta stadium has a roof, so should already be safe from blimp attacks.
- Some D.C. officials don’t want Washington’s NFL team to move to the RFK stadium site, and some do. Also, audio clip of me for some reason!
- Newballpark.org blogger Marine Layer has calculated that the cost of building a gondola to any new Oakland A’s ballpark at Howard Terminal will amount to $12.60 per each round-trip ride, which either means fans are going to have a huge extra cost or local government is going to end up subsidizing the rides, neither of which is a great solution.
- Tottenham Hotspur stadium opening date update: nope, nothing yet.
- Nashville S.C. will begin play in the MLS in 2020, initially making the Tennessee Titans‘ stadium their home, because NFL stadiums are totally fine for hosting MLS matches so long as they’re not standing in the way of an owner trying to demand a soccer-only stadium.
- The Detroit Pistons still can’t get anyone to go to their new arena, though one local sportswriter says the building has been a success because a 13-year-old won a figure skating championship there, and how can you put a price on that?
- The Texas Rangers owners’ decision to install fake turf at their new stadium that they built to replace their old stadium because the old one didn’t have air conditioning may be unpopular, but rest assured that it’ll be fine because “technology and data are changing baseball — and the world around us — at an unbelievably fast rate.” I am not sure Tug McGraw would be assuaged.