Field of Schemes: Saints offers come marching in

October 18, 2005

Saints offers come marching in

New Orleans is finally dry, which apparently means it's open season on its sports teams. On Sunday, San Antonio Mayor Phil Hardberger said he plans to open talks with Saints owner Tom Benson after the season to "have the team stay here permanently." The Saints are playing three home games at San Antonio's Alamodome this season, and there's no sign of whether the New Orleans Superdome will ve ready for play in 2006 - or if it is, whether anyone will still live there to go to games.

The big question, meanwhile - after "How do you sleep at night when you're trying to steal a team from a city that's been struck with disaster?" - is how much boodle San Antonio will be expected to cough up in order to lure the Saints. The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports that Texas Governor Rick Perry said he's willing to consider spending state money on a $200 million upgrade of the Alamodome; state senator Jeff Wentworth, meanwhile, has suggested tapping the $146 million remaining in the state's economic development fund - and all this before Benson has even asked for anything specific. That's not the kind of hardball negotiating that gets the best bang for the public buck, according to, well, me.

COMMENTS

Nice quandry here for those like me who hate public finacing of stadium projects: Does the city of New Orleans, who needs all public financing just to rebuild the infastructure of the city itself, pony up money to refurbish the Superdome which incured at latest count, a few hundred million dollars of damage; or does the city of San Antonio offer a crazy tax ladden incentive package to get the team? Either way tax payer money will build Benson the home of his dreams- it will either be federal or local monies. As a side note, Benson fired Finkelow, his ticket salesman this week. This guy had made public statements to the effect that the Saints owed something to the city and state and should not move. It should also be noted that the Saints procured their longest sellout streak during his tenure despite making the playoffs only once in the past 5 years. Finally, under Finkelow's leadership the Saints, while 32 in the league in gross revenue were in the top ten in net revenue.
Posted by: Ben at October 19, 2005 10:51 AM

More on the Fielkow firing today in the SA Express-News (www.mysanantonio.com/sports/stories/MYSA101905.1C.FBNsaints.benson.12b15b28.html) and the NO Times-Picayune (www.nola.com/sports/t-p/index.ssf?/base/sports-20/1129704535198130.xml).
Posted by: Neil at October 19, 2005 10:57 AM

Benson = capitalstic pig?
Posted by: Bertell Ollman at October 19, 2005 09:52 PM