November 15, 2005
Backbone found in D.C. council storeroom
Eleven months after they signed off on building a $581 million stadium for the Washington Nationals, D.C. officials appear to have noticed that the deal, well, sucks. With Wall Street financiers breathing down their necks, the district is now preparing to demand lease concessions from the team (still owned by MLB, which bought them when they were the Montreal Expos in 2001), including a $24 million line of credit to guarantee rent payments in case of an interruption to the baseball season - oh, like that would ever happen - plus $20 million to help pay for new VIP parking spaces.
No comment yet from the Lords of Baseball, but it appears that D.C. has MLB over a barrel: It can't sell the Nationals, and reap an estimated $450 million in booty, until the lease deal is done. And it's not like they can just take their team and go home, what with the earth thoroughly scorched in Montreal. Of course, that was true a year ago, too, and it didn't stop the D.C. government from signing off on the lease deal then. As one unnamed local official told the Washington Post of D.C.'s line in the sand: "We'll provide parking spaces, but if baseball wants them to be fancy, then they have to pay." Viva la revolucion!
