September 30, 2004
New Jersey Mets?
You let one city steal another's team, suddenly everybody wants to get into the act. Yesterday it was San Jose, today it's New Jersey, where acting-governor-in-waiting Richard Codey says he wants to lure the New York Mets to a new stadium built in the Jersey swamps.
The plan, according to Jersey sports czar George "no subsidies for billionaires" Zoffinger, would be for the state to use the proceeds from the sale of two racetracks to build a $350 million stadium, which the Mets would then repay with annual rent payments. If the Mets wanted to do that, though, they could just go to a bank - it's not like New Jersey could even offer a tax-exempt bond rate to sweeten the pot, thanks to the 10% private-activity bond limit. If anything, Jersey's offer is only likely to provide leverage for the Mets (and Yankees) to extort more money from the New York treasury with the threat of jumping across the Hudson.
That's actually the likely goal of Jersey's stadium plan, according to the Newark Star-Ledger's Matthew Futterman. (In fact, Zoffinger pretty much said as much back in March.) Writes Futterman:
If New York has to spend money on the Mets and Yankees - who want to build a new Yankee Stadium and have requested some $250 million for transportation improvements - it will have less money to spend on venues for the Nets and Jets, increasing the likelihood of those teams remaining in New Jersey.
I think during the Cold War they had a different name for this strategy.
