March 31, 2003
Cities ante up for Expos
As the baseball season opens, details are slowly starting to trickle out about the stadium proposals being offered by Washington, D.C., Portland, Oregon, and Northern Virginia in an attempt to become the new home of the Montreal Expos:
- D.C. officials have proposed spending about $275 million in public money toward a $430 million stadium, using a combination of stadium sales taxes, player salary taxes, and a city business tax. It's unclear which would be new taxes and which a diversion of existing tax revenue; deputy mayor for economic development Eric W. Price has refused to reveal the plan's details, saying: "If we negotiate in public, we undermine our proposal."
- Portland stadium boosters have promised to fund $300 million of a $350 million stadium with city and state money, to be raised via taxes on player salaries, plus - maybe - hotel taxes, ticket taxes, and the sale of seat licenses.
- Northern Virginia, meanwhile, has promised to finance $285 million of a $400 million stadium-shopping mall complex, to be raised by a complex series of new and existing taxes: sales and income taxes at the stadium (including a special tax on the salaries of players and team officials), a ticket tax, rent payments on the retail space at the stadium, and a new regional hotel tax.
None of the plans have been approved by local governments yet (or in the case of D.C., the U.S. Congress, which controls the district's purse strings). MLB has said it hopes to pick a new home for the Expos by July, but hasn't ruled out keeping the team in Montreal next year while holding out for filthier lucre.
Meanwhile, even as government officials announced the stadium plans, protestors demonstrated against them: In Virginia, demonstrators picketed a Virginia Baseball Stadium Authority news conference, while supporters of the D.C. library system rallied carrying signs reading "Books Not Baseball."
March 17, 2003
Selig: Yadda yadda yadda
Saturday: Oakland A's owner Steve Schott announces he won't be re-signing AL MVP Miguel Tejada, to save money. Sunday: MLB jefe Bud Selig declares Oakland needs a new stadium to be competitive. Monday: Doug Pappas notes: "That didn't take long."
March 14, 2003
Golisano to buy Sabres
Billionaire businessman and failed gubernatorial candidate Tom Golisano has reached an agreement to buy the bankrupt Buffalo Sabres from Adelphia Communications. This should end the purchase efforts of Mark Hamister, who was the early front-runner but suspended his attempts in February after failing to get $40 million in government subsidies to help with the purchase price. Golisano says he'll seek no government aid.
March 13, 2003
Cubs, Selig slam Wrigley landmarking
Chicago Cubs CEO Andy MacPhail and MLB kingpin Bud Selig both lashed out this week at proposed landmark designation for Wrigley Field's historic elements, including the scoreboard and bleachers. At a public hearing on Wednesday, MacPhail dropped vague threats to move if landmarking is approved, saying, "Ballparks that don't respond to their fans' needs - particularly 89-year-old ballparks - soon become endangered." (Though the chances of a Cubs move out of Wrigley seems remote at best, the mere threat is already pissing people off.) Selig chimed in with a letter asserting that "No city in America has ever used a landmarks designation as an effective means to preserve a ballpark. Modern ballparks must be flexible to address the changing desires of fans if they are to remain competitive."
Though Chicago Mayor Richard Daley had intended the selected landmarking as less restrictive than full landmarking of Wrigley, the Cubs tore into the plan, with club attorney Ted Novak slamming the proposed landmark protection of the ballpark's ivy-covered walls as history's "first-ever landmarking of vegetation." It'd be funnier if it were true, Ted.
Missouri committee cuts stadium ramp funds
Missouri's House Budget Committee voted to cut $12 million for a highway ramp for the St. Louis Cardinals' proposed new stadium from the state's 2004 budget on Tuesday. The full House could still reverse the decision, and the state transportation department could still build the ramp with other funds.
The Coalition Against Public Funding for Stadiums, meanwhile, has launched a referendum campaign to require a public vote on any new county stadium subsidies, following its successful ballot move for a similar requirement on city expenditures last November. Cardinals management is still insisting it will have its $275 million private share of the planned $402 million project in place by May. We shall see.
Portland stadium deal kayoed
There will be no casino-for-stadium swap to bring the Montreal Expos to Portland after all: Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski has said he's not ready to approve off-reservation gambling, effectively killing the proposal.
Newark arena deal looks dead
The plan, five years in the works, to build an arena in Newark for the New Jersey Nets and Devils is "on the verge of collapse," according to the Newark Star-Ledger. Negotiations over the $355 million project, which would have included $210 million from the city of Newark, have broken down in the face of a $5 billion state budget deficit and worsening economic fortunes of YankeeNets, the teams' corporate parent. If the arena really is dead, the two teams would likely re-up for a lease extension at the Continental Airlines Arena, where if nothing else they'd have some interesting company.
March 10, 2003
If we don't build it, you'll still pay
New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon says he doesn't intend to seek city subsidies for a new stadium right now: "The economy is such that we don't think it's realistic to even ask for a ballpark at this very moment." City subsidies for not building a stadium, now that's another story: in a deal approved in the waning days of the Giuliani administration, the Mets and Yankees are getting $5 million a year apiece from the city to fund "planning" for new buildings, even if they never get built.
March 09, 2003
Padres change plans in midstream
When the San Diego Padres were getting voter approval for a publicly funded new stadium in 1998, they promised to surround it with low-rise buildings and a public park. Now the team says those plans are "no longer viable in today's real estate market," according to the San Diego Union-Tribune, and wants to scale down the park and build a 22-story office tower beyond the right field wall. Local property owner Bud Fischer, who had two parcels of land taken by eminent domain for the project, called the change in plans a "travesty."
Catching up
A few items that slipped under the radar in recent weeks:
- The Chicago Cubs are still haggling with the city of Chicago over proposed landmark status for Wrigley Field. (The team, intent on an expansion of the bleachers, is opposed to landmarking.) A public hearing is set for March 12.
- A Hamilton County commissioner is suing the Cincinnati Bengals for being a lousy football team. According to county commissioner Todd Portune, in return for a taxpayer-built stadium, the Bengals promised to field a competitive team; last year they finished 2-14, their worst record in history.
- Virginia stadium authority head Gabe Paul Jr. and sports economist Rodney Fort engaged in a nice point-counterpoint over the economic benefits of baseball stadiums.
March 06, 2003
San Diego challenges Chargers "trigger"
San Diego Mayor Dick Murphy, in response to yesterday's move by the San Diego Chargers to initiate the "trigger clause" in their lease that would let them move out of town, has demanded financial records from both the team and the NFL to see whether the trigger conditions were legally met. (The conditions involve a complicated mechanism comparing team payroll to NFL revenues.) Meanwhile, city council members are taking an increasingly hard line against building a new stadium with public money: "The Chargers think the language means, 'We trigger, so let's talk about a new stadium,'" councilman Michael Zucchet told the San Diego Union-Tribune. "I certainly don't see it that way."
Dodger stadium-boosters float trial balloon
The L.A. Times (incredibly tedious registration required) is reporting that if News Corp. sells the Dodgers, new owners might choose to leave Dodger Stadium for a new downtown stadium near the Staples Center. This according to "real estate experts," "enthusiasts," and "luminaries," none of whom deigned to give their names. "It would be an unbelievable opportunity for the city!" enthused a "leading figure in business, law and politics." No word on whether these unnamed sources might own, say, some unnamed property in the vicinity of the Staples Center.
March 05, 2003
Reds stadium finished under budget
Construction on Cincinnati's Great American Ballpark - the name's a naming-rights purchase, not a nod to post-9/11 patriotism - is all but complete, and Hamilton County's final bill for the new home of the Reds has come in at $279.3 million, a whopping $700,000 under budget. The not-so-good news: the sales tax hike that's supposed to be funding both the Reds stadium and the Bengals' Paul Brown Stadium is projecting shortfalls of upwards of $100 million over the next 20 years. But hey, at least their Sims will have a new hangout.
Chargers trigger non-threat threat
The San Diego Chargers, jonesing for a new stadium, have initiated the "trigger clause" in their lease that allows them to move to another city, but team officials insist they want to stay put - at the right price, of course. "For the Chargers, the purpose of the renegotiation process is to ensure the long-term future of the team in San Diego," the club's lawyer, Mark Fabiani, said in a statement. "The start of this process does not signal that the team intends to leave San Diego." Whether it intends to use the spectre of leaving San Diego to shake down the city for stadium money, well, that's another story: the team now has 90 days to negotiate with the city on a stadium deal, after which a 180-day window opens where it can try to cut a better deal with other locales. Given the state of the other locales, San Diego might be well served to call the Chargers' bluff.
March 02, 2003
Ilitch: My bad
Detroit Tigers owner Mike Ilitch, who led the charge to abandon historic Tiger Stadium for Comerica Park in 2000, appears to be having second thoughts. At a spring training game in Lakeland, Florida's newly renovated Marchant Stadium, Ilitch told the crowd: "We just got done spending $300 million for a stadium, and I'm telling myself, 'Mike, why didn't you take a detour, come down to Lakeland and get some advice?'" Actually, Mike, you wouldn't have needed to leave Michigan.
