Field of Schemes

October 30, 2004

A half-billion here, a half-billion there

The D.C. council's main response to Thursday's day-long barrage of stadium opposition, it appears, will be a minor tweak to raise tax rates on the top-grossing businesses. It's unclear as yet whether the extra revenue would be used to lower the rate on smaller businesses, to pay for cost overruns, or what.

Council finance chief Jack Evans, meanwhile, dismissed Mayor Anthony Williams' last-minute (and much-derided) proposal to create a TIF district around the ballpark to raise funds for unspecified "community benefits." Said Evans to the Washington Times: "The community benefits plan is still really at an elementary stage. Can this really work? I don't think we know yet. I'd rather work it through, find something really doable, and come back to that later. It doesn't have to be attached to the ballpark bill right now."

Regarding the 200-plus people who testified on Thursday, Evans added: "I just hope they all come back during budget time when we're actually talking about serious money."

October 29, 2004

Bring on the hoi polloi

Yep, you read right: Readers of fieldofschemes.com can now post comments to news items on the site. Just click on the "comments" hotlink at the bottom of the item in question (a valid e-mail address is required for security purposes).

This is an experiment for now, but if the discussion can remain relatively civil and spam-free, I hope to make it a permanent feature of the website. Let the kibitzing begin...

Long hearing's journey into night

The D.C. stadium hearing that wouldn't end finally did at 2 am this morning, as the last of more than 230 members of the public got up to speak on the mayor's $440 million - or is it $530 million? - Expos stadium plan. While reports of the public testimony are sketchy - it looks like most of the assembled press went home, or at least filed their stories, not long after the public portion of the hearing began at 3 pm - the tone was clearly negative, with the Washington Times' Eric Fisher describing it as a "hostile reception." Then there was this tidbit from D.C.'s NBC affiliate:

As the hearing dragged on, many witnesses got cranky. One resident angrily demanded a reduction in his taxes, then pulled out a checkbook and began offering Evans money to change his vote. "How much money does it take to buy back this city council?" he demanded.

In somewhat of a surprise, three of the 13 D.C. councilmembers decided not to attend the sole hearing on the stadium issue: including lame-duck pro-stadium members Sandy Allen and Kevin Chavous, plus Sharon Ambrose, whose district would play host to the new stadium. Fisher reports that five of the councilmembers present "expressed serious problems with the stadium" - two short of the seven votes necessary to kill the bill, but still more opposition than had been projected by local pundits.

Eyewitnesses to the hearing are invited to post their observations on the brand-new Field of Schemes comment board (click on "comments" below). In the meantime, here's my testimony (as presented by Shawn McCarthy of League of Fans), and that of Angela Jones of D.C. Action for Children.

October 28, 2004

D.C. stadium hearing update

At just after 3 pm EDT, WTOP news radio reports that five hours into the D.C. council's stadium hearing, the public has only just begun to be allowed to speak. With over 200 people signed up to make three-minute statements, that would take the hearing well past 1 am, at best.

New Penn Station to contain MSG?

New York's Farley Post Office, which local pols hope to spend $910 million (much of it in federal money) to turn into a new Penn Station, to replace the old Penn Station, which was torn down to make way for a new Madison Square Garden, which--

Let me start again.

Two of the four developers vying to turn the Farley Post Office into a new entryway to Penn Station have, for some reason, included a new sports arena to be built within the walls of the classic structure. That would be along with the skylit entry hall in the middle of the building, and the existing post office at the eastern end. (Most of the building was used for back-office operations, which relocated to a new facility several years ago.)

While the new arena would presumably serve as the new home of the Knicks and Rangers, the team's owner, Cablevision, says it plans to move ahead with its own $300 million renovation of the existing Madison Square Garden, which sits directly across 8th Avenue from the Farley building. So either this is a weird backdoor effort by the city to bribe Cablevision into backing off of its opposition to a new Jets stadium nearby (as the New York Times speculates, and the mayor's office denies), or Cablevision has something up its sleeve that no one is aware of ... or developers just really dig sports arenas. My money's on the latter.

Who's your Buddy?

If Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer isn't getting big campaign contributions from Magic owner Rich DeVos and the NCAA, he's not getting his money's worth. Dyer devoted a large swath of yesterday's state of downtown address to the need for new sports facilities.

First up to the collection plate, the NBA Magic, who have been griping about their old digs at the Orlando Arena almost since it opened in 1989. "It is clear that we must find, build or renovate the existing home for our anchor tenant at the Orlando Arena, the Orlando Magic," said Mayor Dyer. "The present Arena configuration does not lend itself to producing the revenues they need to survive as a franchise." (According to Forbes, the Magic turned a $13 million profit in 2003.)

Next, Dyer turned his sights to the Citrus Bowl, which he said "desperately needs not a band-aid solution to mollify a bowl game or series but a complete makeover of the facility. ... Now, the bad news - that overhaul will cost us about $150 million dollars and today I cannot tell you where the City or the County will find $150 million dollars." Once somebody finds the money, though, he insisted, "the Citrus Bowl will be one of the pre-eminent facilities for football and soccer and certainly an adequate facility for baseball."

Concluded the mayor: "Many here today will say it canít be done. There will always be one side of town pitted against another Ö the haves and the have-nots. To those of you who share these views, I remind you of the poets words and I say, 'Happy are those who dream dreams and have the courage to make them come true.'" Well, he got it almost right.

D.C.: Money for everybody!

With just hours to go before what promises to be an epic D.C. council hearing, two huge new developments in the Expos stadium controversy:

D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams has floated a last-minute proposal to create a $400 million"community benefit fund" by establishing a tax-increment financing district around the new stadium. (The actual mechanism, if you care, would be to sell city bonds that would be repaid by TIFs.) Aside from the bizarreness of offering to raise money that would be flowing into city coffers anyway, Williams' plan sounds awfully optimistic: It would be more than three times the size of all of D.C.'s TIFs to date, one of which - the Gallery Place mall - already had to be expanded to encompass a larger area when initial revenue projections proved insufficient to pay off the bonds.
Meanwhile, D.C.'s chief financial officer has reported that the projected stadium cost would be $91 million more than previously expected, mostly for additional roads and infrastructure costs. "As a result of the increase in project costs, more money will have to be borrowed and debt service will increase," Natwar Gandhi wrote in a letter to D.C. council chair Linda Cropp outlining the expected costs. If accurate, the new expenses would push the project's total price tag from $440 million to about $530 million - more than could be covered by the $500 million in bonds contained in the mayor's stadium bill.

California dreaming

When a stadium-hungry sports team owner is asked whether they plan to move their franchise, the approved answer is: "I don't want to go, but I can't rule anything out." That's why Minnesota Vikings owner Red McCombs' comments to Sports Illustrated this week were a bit of a shocker:

"Let's face it. I would love to be in L.A. But I just can't pick up and go to L.A.; that's a league issue. I'm a team player, so I'm not going to test the courts and run off in the middle of the night."

McCombs quickly backed away - sort of - from those move threats, telling the Minneapolis Star Tribune: "If you asked me if I would like to see a stadium proposal from Los Angeles, the answer would be yes. If you asked me if I would like to see a stadium proposal from Minnesota, the answer would also be yes. We don't have a stadium proposal from anywhere - Los Angeles, Minnesota or anywhere else." (He added that the NFL has told him to "work it out in Minnesota," where the most recent stadium bill died in May.) McCombs failed to remind readers that the main reason he wants a new stadium is so he can get a bigger payday when he sells the team.

Marlins: We'll pay bigger share of larger pie

The Florida Marlins owners have told the city of Miami that they'll increase their payments to a new stadium from from $157 million to $192 million ... while simultaneously hiking the building's estimated cost from $367 million to $420 million. Marlins prez David Samson explained that the rejiggering of the numbers was designed to "allay the public's concerns that the Marlins will be unable to cover any cost overruns. By increasing the project cost from the beginning, it is reducing the potential cost overruns."

Of course, this also means an additional $18 million that the Marlins wouldn't cover, and that would have to be paid by county hotel taxes. Other outstanding issues include the $30 million in state funding that both the Marlins and Miami plan to lobby the legislature for next year; and Tuesday's mayoral election, where one candidate, County Commissioner Jimmy Morales, is an outspoken opponent of public stadium funding.

Meanwhile, the Marlins appear to be taking one bargaining chip off the table, offering to extend star third baseman Mike Lowell's contract for another two years. Lowell's current contract is set to make him a free agent on Monday if no stadium deal is in place, but with state legislative action stalled until at least next spring, the "Send money or we'll shoot our third baseman" strategy wasn't working out too well.

October 27, 2004

New report on D.C. stadium economics

Sports economists Dennis Coates and Brad Humphreys - known for their study of Baltimore's Camden Yards that found it was costing Maryland taxpayers $11 million a year in lost revenues - issued a new report yesterday (full PDF file here) critiquing D.C.'s $440 million Expos stadium plan. I've only begun looking through it, but some of the highlights:

"A report from the District's Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development claims that the team and ballpark will 'create 360 jobs earning an annual total of $94 million.' That amounts to an astounding $261,111 per job."
"Spending on sports may have a much lower local multiplier than spending on other entertainment goods. In other words, nonsports entertainment spending has a bigger ripple effect in the economy than sports-related entertainment spending." [NOTE: This is the effect I have referred to as "George Steinbrenner doesn't shop at Bronx bodegas."]
"[In Coates and Humphreys' own studies of 37 cities over 37 years,] the presence of pro sports teams tended to raise wages in the hotels and other lodgings sector by about $10 per year. But it tended to reduce wages per worker in eating and drinking establishments by about $162 per year."
"On average, the arrival of a new basketball franchise in a metropolitan area increases real per capita income by about $67. But building a new arena for that basketball team reduces real per capita income by almost $73 in each of the 10 years following the construction of the arena, leading to a net loss of about $6 per person. Similarly, in cities that have baseball franchises, the net effect of an existing baseball team playing in a 37,000-seat baseball-only stadium (the average capacity of the baseball stadiums in our data set) is a $10 reduction of real per capita income."

Coates is scheduled to testify at tomorrow's D.C. council hearing - I'll be posting a report as soon as I hear anything.

Sox get first Fenway reno okay

The Boston Red Sox took a step toward their most significant expansion yet of Fenway Park yesterday, getting approval from the Boston Landmarks Commission to increase capacity by 3,700 fans over the next two years. Only about 1,000 new seats would be added, by expanding roof boxes from four rows to eight; the rest would be new standing-room tickets to replace those eliminated when the team added seats atop the Green Monster and the right-field roof over the last two years.

So is Scalia a Cowboys fan?

That other election may not be the only one thrown into doubt by questions about electronic voting machines: Early voters in Arlington, Texas are griping that they failed to cast votes against the Dallas Cowboys stadium referendum because they couldn't find it on the ballot. (Apparently it's on a second screen that can only be accessed by pressing a "NEXT" button.) Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has already spent $5 million on pro-stadium ads, which is what we here in New York call chump change.

October 26, 2004

D.C. at the bat, cont'd

New developments in the Expos-to-D.C. controversy, with two days to go before Thursday's council hearing:

Brian Saulsberry, a Tennessee investment banker who plans to submit a bid to buy the Expos, says he'd fund the stadium himself if granted exemption from D.C. property taxes. This would be an amazing deal for D.C. - a publicly owned stadium wouldn't pay property taxes either - but it does raise the question of how Saulsberry could build a stadium and still have enough left over to pay MLB's expected $320 million asking price for the team.
Mayor Anthony Williams' stadium plan got raked over the coals at another public meeting yesterday, with residents of Southwest D.C. telling the exquisitely named city administrator Robert Bobb that they want no part of the project. "I've never seen anything like this in my life," said local resident Doris Barnes. "We need schools, jobs and homes. We don't need a baseball stadium."
According to the Washington Post, D.C. councilmember Jim Graham is set to offer an amendment to the stadium bill increasing both the business tax and the ticket surcharge, and using the proceeds to fund libraries and neighborhood recreation centers. While an additional business-tax surcharge would have no real impact on the stadium deal per se, raising the ticket tax from 10% to 12% would marginally increase the team's private costs - according to my quick back-of-the-envelope estimates, maybe an additional $1 million a year.
The Washington Times reports that "the Department of Health and Human Services also will hold a pro-D.C. baseball rally in Rockville today with Expos infielder Brendan Harris." Guess it's good to have friends in high places.

Nobody goes there, it's too crowded

Take it with the same grain of salt that you would the usual anecdotal reports on how stadiums are great for local businesses, but now there's anecdotal evidence on the other side: Business owners in San Diego's Gaslamp District are griping that parking problems on game days at the Padres' new Petco Park are driving away their regular customers. Among the comments from local restaurateurs:

"There isn't enough parking on game days. That's really hurting us. The parking lots are expensive, and the valets take business from us." --Veronica Covey, Greystone Steakhouse banquet events coordinator

"It's horrible. We get a ton of cancellations on game nights. People don't want to come down here then." --Michelle Kveen, general manager of Chive Restaurant

"I don't think it will benefit us at all. [Petco Park] is a beautiful structure, but the people who go to the games come at 5 o'clock, park, take up the spots, and eat at the park. The worst times were the day games. We were empty. This is not really my cup of tea." --Jack Turner, manager of Asti Ristorante

When elephants fight

The New York Jets' proposed Manhattan stadium would already be the most expensive in history at $1.4 billion; now the PR battle over the project is setting spending records as well. Common Cause reports that the stadium debate has already generated $11.5 million in TV ads and lobbying expenses, most of it from the Jets ($3.3 million) and from Knicks and Rangers owners Cablevision ($8.2 million), which is bankrolling the plan's opposition. While Guinness is sadly silent on this subject, the total already blasts past such monuments to vote-buying as the $9.2 million Seattle Seahawks owner Paul Allen spent to stage and lobby for a 1997 referendum giving him $325 million in public funds for a new football stadium.

Despite being outspent, Jets owner Woody Johnson isn't necessarily at a disadvantage in the battle for hearts and minds, according to Common Cause director Rachel Leon, who notes that both Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Gov. George Pataki have backed the plan: "You can never underestimate the power of incumbency. Anytime the mayor or the governor says anything, it's news. It certainly matters in a debate like this."

On another battleground in the Development Project That Ate Manhattan, meanwhile, city comptroller William Thompson has an op-ed in today's New York Post fleshing out his earlier objections to the city's back-door borrowing scheme for funding the Hudson Yards project. Writes the comptroller:

The city will need to spend as much as $3 billion for infrastructure such as expansion of the No. 7 subway line and construction of a deck over the Eastern Rail Yards and other improvements. To pay for this, the city intends to sell $3 billion in bonds. Plus, since the project won't generate revenue until at least 2012, the city must sell another $1 billion in short-term notes to cover the interest payments on the bonds.

This is fairly routine practice for major construction projects, as part of the city's capital budget process, which involves the City Council and the comptroller. But this project was never approved by the City Council and is not included in the capital budget. [Instead] the city wants to guarantee the notes and bonds through a little-known public-benefit corporation called the Transitional Financing Authority (TFA). ... If the project doesn't meet revenue targets, the TFA has the ability to use our tax revenues to pay all of the interest and principal on the bonds and notes before funds are released to pay for vital services.

What's more, this financing plan sets an extremely troubling and inappropriate precedent. Any mayor, at any time, could elect to establish a local development corporation, as Mayor Bloomberg has done with Hudson Yards, to divert funds from the city's operations without City Council consent. In short, the mayor has proposed a backdoor financing scheme that not only is fiscally imprudent, but also flouts the principles of responsible government.

If the West Side development project is worthy of the city's investment, it should be included in the city's capital plan. There it can be fairly and rigorously evaluated against other important projects, such as building new schools or senior centers.

In short, Mayor Bloomberg is proposing a new end run around legislative oversight to match those already used by the state. No word as of yet from city council speaker Giff Miller - a likely opponent to Bloomberg in next year's mayoral race - on how he feels about being cut out of the approval process for a billion dollars in city spending.

October 23, 2004

tnirp ot tif s'taht swen eht llA

Further reminder that one should always read the New York Times backwards: Buried way down in the 22nd paragraph of a "politlcal memo" in today's Times - largely dedicated to the proposition that New York Gov. George Pataki is letting down Mayor Michael Bloomberg on his Jets stadium plans - is this nugget:

Further, the Jets have complained to Bloomberg and Pataki officials that the governor has not pushed Peter S. Kalikow, the man Mr. Pataki appointed to head the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, to compromise on his demand that the Jets or the city pay him full value for the development rights over the West Side railyards, at a cost of up to $700 million. The city and the Jets had hoped to resolve the issue with the M.T.A. months ago.

Read behind all the trash-talking about Pataki, and what you have is the first published confirmation that Jets ownership is trying to get out of paying market value for MTA land - something that both deputy mayor Dan Doctoroff and Jets president Jay Cross had promised was a sure thing. Competitive bidding is sounding better and better...

October 22, 2004

Dead in the bayou

The New Orleans Saints' plans for a new taxpayer-subsidized stadium look deader than ever, with Gov. Kathleen Blanco declaring: "I'm sensing that the momentum is moving in this community away from a new stadium and towards renovation. While I can't declare it dead, it looks like it's on its last breath." Saints owner Tom Benson has called a news conference for next week, with speculation being that he will present a new plan for a renovated Superdome - presumably still to be paid for with public money.

Four out of five economists agree

Ninety economists from across the country have signed on to an open letter to the D.C. council criticizing Mayor Anthony Williams' $440 million Expos stadium plan as economically unjustified. They write:

A vast body of economic research on the impact of baseball stadiums suggests that the proposed $440 million baseball stadium in the District of Columbia will not generate notable economic or fiscal benefits for the city. Most studies find that new sports stadiums do not increase employment or incomes and sometimes have a modest negative effect on local economies. The reason appears to be that sports stadiums do not increase overall entertainment spending but merely shift it from other entertainment venues to the stadium.

Research also suggests that a baseball stadium alone will not revitalize the Anacostia waterfront. Because sports stadiums are not used most of the year, they do not stimulate much development outside the stadium.ÝMost modern stadiums include restaurant and other entertainment offerings, limiting the money that goes to neighboring businesses.

A new stadium cannot be expected to generate a net increase in economic activity in the Washington metropolitan area, but it may shift some entertainment spending from the Maryland and Virginia suburbs into the District. Nevertheless, the economic benefits to the District are not likely to outweigh the large stadium subsidy proposed by the District. At least 80 percent of the costs of the $440 million stadium are expected to be supported with public funds.

In short, it is dubious to justify the use of public funds to subsidize construction of a DC baseball stadium on economic development grounds.

No-fly zone

No actual public money has been shed as yet in the interstate battle over the New York Jets, but the war of words is certainly heating up: New Jersey sports czar George Zoffinger denied New York mayor Michael Bloomberg permission to land his helicopter at Giants Stadium for last Sunday's Jets game, instead suggesting he take the bus; this prompted Bloomberg's press secretary to call Zoffinger a "complete jerk." More news on this breaking story as events warrant.

October 21, 2004

Piling on the Jets

New York City comptroller William Thompson, echoing earlier findings by the city Independent Budget Office, has decried Mayor Mike Bloomberg's multi-billion-dollar Hudson Yards stadium-and-development complex as an "extremely risky" plan that could leave taxpayers on the hook for $1 billion if projected revenues fall short. Using the city's Transitional Finance Authority to float short-term bonds for the project, Thompson wrote to the mayor, "is a back door financing scheme which is not only fiscally imprudent, it also flouts the principles of responsible government."

Thompson's letter grabbed the headlines, but possibly more important was an item hidden in the body of the news stories: The city has dropped plans to use Battery Park City PILOT payments to fund the city's $350 million share of an expanded Javits Convention Center, realizing it would never fly with state assembly speaker Sheldon Silver. A mayoral press flunky told Newsday that Bloomberg would decide on an alternate revenue source "in a couple of months"; of course, we've already been waiting close to two years for the mayor to say where $600 million in public funds for the accompanying Jets football stadium would come from, to no avail...

Meanwhile, the public transit advocacy group the Straphangers Campaign has called for the state-run Metropolitan Transportation Authority to put the proposed stadium site up for public bid, saying that it could generate as much as $2 billion to help the cash-strapped agency hold off bus and subway fare hikes. The MTA insists it will charge the Jets "fair-market value" for the site - after decking over existing rail yards at no charge - but plans to rely on appraisers, not an open bidding process, to determine what that value might be.

49ers funds no sure thing

Plans by San Francisco 49ers owner to tap $100 million in city funds for a new stadium/mall project may not be as simple as he made it sound. City financial analyst Joel Ventresca, who led opposition to public stadium funding when it was first proposed way back in 1997, told the San Jose Mercury News: "If they're serious about moving ahead with the project, I'd anticipate another ballot fight to reverse the zoning and the tax subsidies." The initial 1997 vote passed by a hairsbreadth after a heavy lobbying campaign by the team, and was marked by allegations of vote fraud by the administration of then-mayor Willie Brown.

October 20, 2004

Foregone conclusion for D.C. stadium bill?

The D.C. council isn't scheduled to vote on its $440 million stadium bill until November 9, but already opponents seem ready to concede defeat: "Our chances, if we had a vote today, are pretty slim," anti-stadium-subsidy activist Ed Lazere told the Washington Post, while D.C. councilmember Adrian Fenty added: "At this point, I don't think that there's going to be enough to stop it. The mayor and some council members are so far out on a limb on this one, almost nothing could stop it." It's looking more and more likely that the most the council will do is to add some community-spending language to the current bill, either coming out of additional taxes or being skimmed off of the revenue streams targeted for the stadium.

If so, the best remaining hope for Montreal Expos fans is the pending RICO suit filed by former minority owners of the team, charging a criminal conspiracy by former owner Jeffrey Loria and MLB to destroy baseball in Montreal. An arbitrator's ruling is expected on November 15, at which point the team's future should either become much clearer or much muddier.

(NOTE: Since it's impossible to predict the outcome of court cases, the Expos Relocation Odds chart has been put on hiatus, effective immediately.)

The roof, the roof is frozen

The cost of the Milwaukee Brewers' Miller Park never seems to stop rising: Latest word is that the team will have to limit use of its retractable roof during the 2005 season so as to keep the mechanism from locking up. Cost of replacing the balky "bogies" that let the roof roll: $9.44 million. The public stadium district and roof builder Mitsubishi are already suing each other over who'll pay the $87 million in cost overruns that the troubled roof has rung up to date.

Big yellow taxi squad

Even as the New York Yankees prepared for last night's ALCS, Bronx borough president Adolfo Carrion was announcing his plans to gut Yankee Stadium and fill it with buildings and a Little League field, as part of $1-billion-plus plans to build a new stadium in nearby Macombs Dam Park. The Yankees, meanwhile, would prefer to turn the House That Ruth Built into a parking lot, according to the Daily News.

Details of the plan, first leaked back in July, are still hazy in the extreme - the public's share of funding has been reported as anywhere from $100 million to $450 million - but the New York Sun did indicate one important consequence of George Steinbrenner's hopes to site his stadium in a public park:

The plan to build the stadium at Macombs Dam Park would require taking nearly half of the park's 28.4 acres and an additional 2.9 acres in John Mullaly Park, with a number of ball fields, tennis and handball courts, a running track, and a soccer field being demolished. To remove a city park, the state Legislature must approve the measure, and in exchange, a park of equal size must be built in the same community. This means the Yankees and the city and state must locate a new park in the same South Bronx neighborhood and fund its creation, and the move must be approved by the state Legislature.

Whether the gridlock-prone state legislature would sign off on a plan to funnel state money to a city stadium project is impossible to guess. Suffice to say that assembly speaker Sheldon Silver's 2006 just got even more interesting.

October 18, 2004

Stadium news from all over

With Fox having turned itself into the 24-hour baseball network, I'm too bleary to write separate entries today. So, on with the bullet points:

The Toronto Argonauts have found a backup school to those deadbeats at the University of Toronto, lining up York University to help pay for a $70 million football stadium. The federal and Ontario governments will pay for $28 million of the cost of the stadium, which will also be used by the school.
San Francisco 49ers owner John York says he'll soon reveal details of a plan to build a $550 million stadium for his team next door to the Monstrosity. York said he'd use the NFL's G-3 loan program and $100 million in public money - approved by city voters way back in 1997 - to pay for some of the cost; the rest is as yet uncertain.
The good-government group D.C. Watch has called for an ethics investigation of Mayor Anthony Williams' office for issuing a request to city employees to "obtain as many signed letters of support as possible" for his proposed $440 million Expos stadium project. Dorothy Brizill of D.C. Watch accused the mayor's office of "using D.C. government employees to lobby another branch of the District government." The D.C. council is expected to hold its one and only hearing on the stadium plan on Thursday, October 28, with the first of two required votes to follow on November 9.
The NFL commissioner, Roger Staubach, and the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders are all in support of Cowboys' owner Jerry Jones' plan for a $650 million stadium, half of which would be paid for by the city of Arlington. In related news, it looks like President Bush has picked up a key endorsement.

October 14, 2004

Ahoy there!

First it was the Minnesota Twins complaining about having to share digs with college football, now it's the Toronto Argonauts griping about the roommates. Depending on where they finish in the Canadian Football League standings, the Argos might have to reschedule a playoff game because the SkyDome is already booked for weekend concerts by the kids-music group The Wiggles, a scenario that led team president Keith Pelley to grumble: "This is another reason why we need our own stadium." Now, now, boys - if you don't share nicely, we might have to sic Captain Feathersword on you.

Barry to bar ballpark?

D.C. presumptive councilmember-elect Marion Barry made his strongest statements yet yesterday on the city's $440 million Expos stadium plan, telling the Washington Times: "I'm going to do all I can to stop it at the council level and at other levels. ... I'm going to stop this baseball stadium and take the money and spend it on housing and schools."

The question is, can he? As previously noted, a 7-6 vote for a stadium bill could turn into a 9-4 vote against once Barry and the other two new councilmembers take office in January - enough to override a mayoral veto. But if the lame-duck council has by then already passed a stadium bill, will that horse already be out of the barn?

A read of the actual stadium legislation sheds a bit of light on this. According to the Ballpark Omnibus Financing and Revenue Act of 2004, the council is to set up a "Ballpark Revenue Fund" within the city treasury, to receive tax revenue directed to pay off stadium costs. Once that's done, the mayor is authorized to sell $500 million in bonds, and pledge the money in the city's ballpark fund to make the bond payments.

Once the bonds are sold, the city enters into a contract with bondholders that the mayor has set up to be incredibly hard to break. Perhaps with an eye toward St. Louis, where community activists are trying to pass a referendum to cut off public payments to stadium bondholders, the D.C. bill contains this language:

The District does hereby pledge and covenant and agree with the holders of the Bonds that, subject to the provisions of the financing documents, the District will not limit or alter the revenues pledged to secure the Bonds or the basis on which such revenues are collected or allocated, will not impair the contractual obligations of the District to fulfill the terms of any agreement made with the holders of the Bonds, will not in any way impair the rights or remedies of the holders of the Bonds, and will not modify in any way, with respect to the Bonds, the exemptions from taxation provided for in this act ... To the extent that any acts or resolutions of the Council may be in conflict with this act, this act shall be controlling.

That's pretty clear. (Well, clear as legislative language goes.) The challenge, then, will be for the lame-duck council and Mayor Williams to both pass a stadium bill and sell stadium bonds before the new council meets for the first time in January. If they succeed, D.C. will be contractually bound to keeping the new stadium taxes in place until the bonds are paid off - no matter what Barry, D.C. voters, or Barry's hat have to say about it.

October 13, 2004

Ward 7 residents: Schools, not stadiums

D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams attended a community meeting in Southeast D.C.'s Ward 7 last night, and was met by a barrage of questions about why he plans to build a $440 million Expos baseball stadium instead of putting the money into the city's schools and hospitals. As the Washington Post tells the story:

"I'm concerned that you're fighting for baseball and we do not have a public hospital" east of the Anacostia River, Jauhar Abraham, 36, who volunteers at social service centers, told Williams (D). "People are getting stabbed and shot, and they have to go wait in an ambulance at George Washington Hospital or in Prince George's County. I'm concerned with the priorities. I'm not opposed to baseball, but I want to hear you talk about that, sir."

Williams replied that the government is negotiating with Howard University to build a hospital on the campus of D.C. General, which was closed in 2001.

"Can we get that first?" someone in the crowd shouted, as an organizer called an end to the meeting.

Magic: We're glad to stay, we must be going

Speaking of Orlando, the Magic are reheating their own arena demands this week, saying they want a new home soon - or else. Magic president (and billionaire owner Rich DeVos' son-in-law - there seems to be a lot of that sort of thing going around in Florida) Bob Vander Weide told the Orlando Sentinel: "We're not a threatening type of ownership. But if another opportunity came along, we've got to look. That time is coming over the next two years." Not-so-veiled threats are another thing going around in the Sunshine State.

Private arena easier said than done

It was three years ago that I interviewed John Christison, former director of the Orlando Arena, and he said:

"You rarely see buildings being built without substantial public infusion of cash. And the reason for that is pure economics. In some cases, these revenue centers just simply don't generate enough revenue to cover debt service and operating cost."

That point was driven home again yesterday when Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez announced that he was withdrawing his plan to use public bonds to lend $67 million to a private developer for a downtown arena. The apparent snag: financial experts were skeptical that investors would be willing to gamble on privately backed stadium bonds, and Chavez didn't want to guarantee the bonds with public funds.

While developer Arena Management & Construction was still insisting that they'd try to find alternate financing, Chavez sounded pretty certain that any arena deal was off, telling reporters Monday: "We're pulling the plug. This project is over. I'm killing it. It's killed. Without the administration's support, it's not going to happen."

October 11, 2004

Sweat socks of heroes: Priceless

In other D.C. stadium war news, Dave Kindred of the Sporting News insists that even a $440 million stadium is "a bargain at twice the price." Why? Because a baseball player once said hi to a teenager pushing a laundry cart. (No, I'm not making this up. You think I could make this up?)

D.C. landlord: Stadium a drag

At least one Southeast D.C. property owner says he plans to file a court challenge to the city's plans to seize private property to clear the way for an Expos baseball stadium. "I have the money and the resources to challenge the city, even if I have to go to the Supreme Court," Bob Siegel, owner of several buildings in the gay nightclub district that would be demolished for the stadium, told the Washington Blade. A lawyer for the D.C. chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union added that if the adult entertainment establishments are forced out and not given an opportunity to relocate elsewhere in the city, that could also be challenged in court on civil liberties grounds: "If the zoning rules are drawn in such a way that there is no place left for them, the courts can overrule that."

The threatened businesses, according to the Blade, include two nightclubs, a gay porn movie theater, an adult video arcade, and "the Zeigfeld's nightclub, known as the city's preeminent showplace for drag performances." Which raises another question: How much tax revenue is D.C. currently getting from these establishments, and shouldn't this be counted as an additional cost to the city if they're forced out of business, or out of town?

October 10, 2004

Same cake, new icing

It's looking more likely that the only change the D.C. city council will make to the Expos stadium bill will be to tack on some additional funding for social services, without reducing MLB's taxpayer windfall. According to Eric Fisher, token sane reporter at the Washington Times:

Plenty of other potential tweaks are being discussed privately, including the possible creation of a tax-increment financing district around the proposed site in Southeast, with the new funds generated being similarly pegged for libraries and other underfunded social services. Some of the political trades may be more personal, with committee chairmanships forming part of the currency.

Turning the stadium bill into a stadium-and-puppies bill is unlikely to placate the deal's opponents, who are planning rallies outside the homes of pro-stadium councilmembers Sharon Ambrose and Jack Evans next Saturday. The D.C. council's hearing on the stadium bill is currently scheduled for the last week of October.

October 08, 2004

Jets stadium still on runway

Not much may be happening of late with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's $5-billion-plus Hudson Yards plan, but at least the legislative calendar is starting to shape up. Once the city finally submits its finance plan - now overdue since June, with a whopping $600 million budget hole remaining for the state and city's share of a Jets stadium - the state-run Empire State Development Corporation must wait 60 days before holding a public hearing. At that point, the ESDC board will vote; since ESDC chair Charles Gargano is one of the main backers of the plan, bet you can guess how that vote will go.

Less certain is the outlook in the state legislature, where House Speaker Sheldon Silver has raised objections to the plan, while Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno has said he expects another $300 million in state subsidies for his upstate constituents as a quid pro quo for backing the stadium.

Given the New York legislature's legendary reputation for deadlock, it's looking likely that the state still won't have moved forward on its portion of the plan by the time the city council must vote to approve zoning changes in January - the only chance city elected officials will have a chance to weigh in on the plan. For that matter, deputy mayor Dan Doctoroff may still not have finished the financing plan by then: his spokesperson told the New York Post that "we hope the general project plan will be ready shortly," but then, we've heard that before.

N.O. says N-O to stadium funding

After meeting with local business and political leaders yesterday, Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco said that the consensus appears to be for a $150 million renovation of the Superdome, not a $400 million new stadium as the New Orleans Saints would like. Not so much to save money, mind you, but because a new stadium would get in the way of expanding New Orleans' convention center. "Phase four of the convention center is the most important economic project in this city," said Stephen Perry, who just happens to be president of the convention center. "It's what drives the business of the city." (To be fair, convention-center expert Heywood Sanders did cite New Orleans as one of the few possible exceptions to the rule that convention center expansions don't pay - emphasis on "possible.")

Not to say that money wasn't an issue with the Saints' stadium wishes as well: Both Blanco and state and city legislators said the team would need to chip in for any Superdome renovation, citing Louisiana's expected $400 million shortfall in health-care funding next year, thanks to cuts in federal funding. New Orleans councilperson Renee Gill Pratt, whose district includes the proposed stadium site, told the Times-Picayune: "I can't see the state ... paying for someone else's project. If [Saints owner Tom] Benson wants a stadium, that's fine. If he wants to build something, that's fine. But he needs to use his own money."

October 07, 2004

Williams: Let them have cake and eat it

Yesterday the stick, today the carrot: A day after accusing stadium opponents of "populist grandstanding," D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams played to the crowd himself, suggesting that he could raise $20 million a year toward "community benefits" to ease the sting of spending twice that amount on an Expos baseball stadium. "My goal would be to try to generate around $20 million that could then yearly go into a community benefits package," said Williams. "I'm not fixed on what exactly it's got to go to, as long as it goes to things the community thinks are important."

According to the Washington Post, Williams insisted that the money could be raised without taxing residents, without specifying how exactly he'd manage that. One possible solution, suggested by D.C. councilmember Jim Graham: Use any surplus in the dedicated stadium taxes to fund social programs. One problem: Under the current plan, that surplus is supposed to go to retiring the bonds early. Another problem: It's also there as a buffer so that bond buyers don't freak out about potential cost overruns or revenue shortfalls. A third problem: It's extremely unlikely the surplus would be as much as $20 million a year.

Graham also suggested increasing the business-tax portion of the stadium bill, to free up stadium sales-tax funds to use for other purposes. With local businesses already not entirely thrilled about the stadium tax, this should go over real well - not that D.C. businesses should be setting tax policy, but if Williams' argument is that this tax isn't lost city revenue because businesses would only accept it for a stadium, why would they be okay with using it to free up other taxes for non-baseball uses?

October 06, 2004

Crapped out

Stadium opponents often bemoan the traffic that accompanies pro sports facilities, but now questions are being raised about (warning: cliched journalistic wordplay ahead) flow of a different kind. New Jersey Attorney General Peter Harvey and the state's Department of Environmental Protection have asked New York City to redo its environmental impact statement for the proposed Manhattan Jets stadium - the current report, charges Harvey, notes that untreated sewage would flow into the Hudson River from the project, without indicating how often this would happen or what the city would do about it. "We think it'll have an impact on our shoreline and on our tourism industry," wrote Harvey in a letter to the city planning department. "But this report glosses over that issue."

In related news, a visit to D.C.'s proposed stadium site along the Anacostia River revealed some shoreline impacts of its own. "When they flushed the toilet at the White House yesterday," environmental lawyer Lawrence Silverman told Washington Post columnist Angus Phillips, "this is where it came out." Local environmentalists estimate it would cost $1.2 billion to build underground sewage holding tanks that would keep raw sewage out of the Anacostia - too bad there's no way for D.C. to come up with that kind of money.

Damn the populace, full speed ahead

About 100 people from a wide range of community groups rallied outside D.C. City Hall yesterday, insisting that the city has better things to spend its money on than a baseball stadium for the Expos. "We say to this mayor and some members of the city council that you will not get this stadium when people are sleeping on the streets and schools are crumbling," said Damu Smith of Black Voices for Peace. "You are not going to have an easy way to get this stadium through."

D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams dismissed the protest as "Williams (D) dismissed the protesters, calling the demonstration "populist grandstanding," telling reporters that the city "can do this [stadium] and make the kinds of investments we can make in schools and recreation." No, Tony, actually it can't.

October 05, 2004

Williams' voodoo economics

Last week, I broke down D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams' stadium plan and determined it would create an annual loss to taxpayers of about $30 million a year. On Saturday, Williams announced that his plan would create a net gain of $12 million a year for city coffers, saying: "I believe it's going to bring new people and tax money to our city ... new tax dollars to fund other important priorities, like schools, hospitals, police stations and social services."

Let's break down Williams' figures, as reported by the Washington Post, and see if they make sense:

Sales-tax revenue from fan spending outside the stadium: $2.7 million
Hotel-tax revenue from out-of-town fans: $2 million
Income taxes from players and team employees living in D.C.: $3.5 million
"Other sources": $3.8 million

D.C. officials are projecting 2.5 million fans a year for the new team - probably generous, especially once the honeymoon effect wears off - and that 80% of fans would be coming from Maryland or Virginia. Of course, whether fan spending is counted as "new" to the local economy doesn't depend on where fans live, but rather on where they'd otherwise be spending their money; presumably a large percentage of these folks work in D.C., and would be eating dinner there even if there weren't a baseball game to stick around for before heading home. Let's be generous, though, and count 70% of fan spending as new (versus the 50% figure I used in last week's Baseball Prospectus analysis).

D.C.'s restaurant tax is 10%, its general sales tax 5.75%. Let's again give Williams the benefit of the doubt and assume that baseball fans spend all their non-stadium money at restaurants, and not buying bags of peanuts at the local convenience store. This means that to generate $2.7 million worth of tax money, those 1.7 million new fans would need to spend a total of $27 million outside the ballpark - or almost $16 per person. If even half of them choose to forgo a sit-down meal altogether and instead partake of ballpark hot dogs - sales taxes on which would be redirected to stadium financing - then the remaining fans would need to spend $32 a person to meet Williams' targets. (Eat your steak, son! The D.C. economy needs you!)

The D.C. hotel tax is 14.5%, so to generate $2 million in new tax revenue, fans would need to spend $13.8 million a year on hotel rooms within the District. Given all the other options in the region, this seems optimistic, but without more information it's hard to say if it's overly so.

Income tax: The D.C. income tax tops out at 9.3%, meaning that to generate $3.5 million a year in new income taxes, team players and other employees with salaries totaling $37.6 million a year would have to live in D.C. proper. (Congress has barred D.C. from imposing a "commuter tax" on out-of-state residents.) Everyone who thinks a significant number of D.C. baseball players - right now the Expos' entire player payroll is about $38 million - are going to choose to live in D.C. instead of across the river in Arlington, raise your hand.

The bigger problem, though, is that Williams refuses to accept that the $300-million-plus in tax revenues that would go into the project count as a public cost, arguing, as the Post put it, that "those [taxes] would not exist were it not for the stadium project and thus cannot be viewed as diverting money from existing city services." As I discussed in detail last week, this is economic doubletalk: in fact, a large chunk of the stadium sales tax revenue would be diverted from existing spending, while the proposed business tax would carve out a large portion of D.C.'s potential tax base and dedicate it for stadium costs.

Even giving Williams his $12 million a year in new tax revenues, then - dubious as they may be - D.C. would still be looking at about $18 million a year in red ink on the new stadium. It'll be hard to fund any hospitals or police stations with that.

October 04, 2004

Give the people what they want

FoS reader Andrew Ross writes:

Longtime baseball-for-DC booster Thomas Boswell has a column in Sunday's Post praising everyone to high heaven for this supposedly wonderful Expos deal. What made my jaw drop was this quote near the end:
"The [Fred] Malek group helped convince the mayor that his only chance to get the Expos, and use them as part of his urban development initiatives, was to demand of baseball, 'What are your exact terms?' And then stun baseball by meeting them."
The "terms" crack kind of made me think of this...

Marlins: We'll take our ball and go, er, somewhere

With the Florida Marlins gearing up for another stadium-funding campaign, the team is rattling that move-threat saber again. "Baseball is losing patience," team stadium-wrangler David Samson told the Miami Herald. "Everyone realizes as soon as the Expos [were] announced, the likelihood of the Marlins relocating without a stadium significantly increases."

Added MLB COO Bob DuPuy:

"I agree there will be very attractive runners-up in the Expos effort who will still be interested in obtaining a team and who will no doubt pursue franchises that are not fulfilling their potential. While a decision to allow the Marlins to pursue relocation is, of course, up to the commissioner, there's a high level of frustration [that] three different regimes have been unable to obtain a new facility."

Not so loud, Bob - you'll give the President ideas.

Sharing the wealth

Amidst all the Expos-to-D.C. hubbub last week, I missed reporting on the latest developments in the current home of the former Washington Senators: The Dallas Cowboys agreed to set non-binding goals of giving one-fifth to one-third of their stadium construction business to minority- or women-owned firms. "This stadium will belong to everyone," Arlington Mayor Robert Cluck declared, "and therefore everyone should have a role in its construction." Everyone, presumably, who owns a construction company.

Following the announcement, the team further showed its support for civil rights by holding a pro-stadium rally with a mariachi band at a Mexican restaurant, and for women's rights by bringing along the Cowboys cheerleaders.

Everything's up for vote in Kansas

The Kansas City region continues to debate the "Bistate 2" sales tax hike that, if approved by voters next month, would funnel about $360 million to the Royals and Chiefs to fund stadium renovations. Meanwhile, over in Wichita, a 1% sales-tax hike to fund a new $184.5 million arena looks to be headed to defeat, with polls showing almost 2-1 opposition among local voters, despite a high-powered "education" campaign by Wichita government and business leaders.

Wichita Mayor Carlos Mayans says if the arena bill is defeated, he'll move ahead with plans for a $55 million renovation of the existing Kansas Coliseum, funded by property tax hikes, warning: "I think the public has to realize that if they vote ëNo' on the arena downtown, they are voting 'Yes' to spend $55 million at the Kansas Coliseum, and that is also tax dollars." Looks like we have another mayor who's still unclear on the concept.

"Budget relief" tax to aid Colts?

How do you raise public money for a football stadium when your city is already facing a huge budget deficit? If you're Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson, you propose one big tax that would funnel money to budget-balancing and to building a new Colts stadium all at the same time. Proposals being kicked around include a 1% sales tax hike and a 0.3% income-tax hike, or even legalized gambling; previous proposals to raise stadium funds have included restaurant, hotel-motel, and car-rental tax hikes. Of course, without a $500 million stadium as part of the package, Indianapolis could either raise taxes less, or stop such policies as borrowing to pay pension benefits - but the idea that spending public money one place means it can't be spent elsewhere is one that mayors seem to have a hard time wrapping their brains around.

October 02, 2004

Please give to the needy

It might be time to revive the annual Ten Dumbest Reasons: After today's Minnesota Twins game was suspended in the 12th inning so that the Metrodome could be readied for tonight's college football game, manager Ron Gardenhire fumed: "We're in the middle of a mess now. We don't need a stadium? C'mon." Let's see: $535 million so that every 20 years when the Twins happen to be playing the same day as the Minnesota Gophers and their game goes extra innings, they don't have to wait until the next day to finish the game? Tell me where to sign the check!

Battle of the bills

D.C. council chair Linda Cropp introduced Mayor Anthony Williams' $500 million stadium bill as promised yesterday - and was promptly met by the promise of a competing bill to tell the Expos to play in the existing RFK Stadium, or lump it. D.C. councilmember Adrian Fenty, a staunch opponent of public stadium funds, told the Washington Post: "Where else are they going to go? They've already left Montreal. And no one else has a stadium ready." Fenty also called for the city auditor to review the mayor's financing plan.

Fumed councilmember Jack Evans, the leading proponent of the mayor's stadium plan: "Are you willing to kill baseball? ... We do not play at RFK. It's not on the table. That's been negotiated away. It would break the contract." Actually, Jack, it's a non-binding agreement; only a city council vote can create a binding contract, which is why you and your council friends are debating this, remember?

Other new revelations from the 32-page D.C. stadium agreement:

MLB has the right to terminate the agreement and reopen talks with other cities if the council fails to pass a stadium bill by December 31. Of course, that's also the date on which the Virginia Stadium Authority blinks out of existence, meaning Fenty is right: Bud Selig's only choice would be to go back to Montreal for another year, or suck it up and move to RFK anyway.
The team's rent, previously reported as $5.5 million a year, would actually vary according to a complicated formula: $5.3 million a year while at RFK, then scaling up from $3.5 million the first year of the new stadium to $5.5 million the sixth. That would be followed by annual increases of 2% (minus, for some inexplicable reason, a $10,000 deduction); the rent increase would be waived, however, if team attendance was less than the major league median over the previous three years. D.C. would also get an additional $1 cut of every full-price ticket sold over 2.5 million. You don't have to be an economist to predict lots of half-price ticket nights should attendance hover around 2.6 million.
The baseball team would retain all revenues from all events held at the stadium, including both baseball games and "any other lawful purpose." D.C. would be allowed 12 events a year "for amateur athletic, public service, or other events," so long as none fell within five days of a scheduled baseball game.
The D.C. sports commission would get two free luxury suites for its own use, plus 25 free box seats "on the infield" for each home game. But that's not a conflict of interest or anything.

Up in Baltimore, meanwhile, the Sun has more details on the proposed MLB payoff to Orioles owner Peter Angelos: the sale price guarantee would be $360 million (it was reported here yesterday as $350 million), and the annual revenue guarantee would be $130 million a year, slightly more than the O's made last year. That's gross revenue, by the way, not net - so Angelos would have zero incentive to spend any money on players, ticket-sales promotion, or anything else unless he thought it could raise his revenues above the $130 million figure.

October 01, 2004

D.C. at the bat, cont'd

Another day, another deluge of Expos-to-D.C. news:

Details are starting to seep out about MLB's compensation package for Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos, and they're pretty incredible: 60% of revenues from a new regional sports network that would air both O's and 'Spos games, a guarantee that Angelos' revenues would never fall below their pre-Expos average, and a guaranteed sale price of more than $350 million - with MLB to cut checks to make up for any shortfalls. If true, this is highway robbery by Angelos: Orioles revenues were already in freefall from their mid-'90s heyday, so a pre-Expos average might well be more than they're earning currently; and the guaranteed sale price would not only represent a $200 million profit on what Angelos paid for the team in 1993, but well more than the $296 million the O's are currently worth, according to Forbes. As I (and Derek Zumsteg) have previously noted, this will create a huge incentive for Angelos to give up on the daunting task of catching the Yankees and Red Sox, gut the Orioles roster and fill it with low-paid minor-leaguers, then sit back and cash the MLB compensation checks, all while blaming the presence of the new Washington club for his team's plight. For guy who didn't even have official territorial rights to D.C., Angelos looks to have used Bud Selig's fear of confrontation - and of lawsuits - to get away with murder.
D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams is set to introduce stadium legislation to the city council today, and Reuters reports a couple of new snippets of information about that as well: The bill would authorize the sale of up to $500 million in municipal bonds, only $410 million of which are expected to be used for the actual stadium work; the rest is presumably buffer so that Williams doesn't have to go back to the council in case of cost overruns. The report also indicates that all but $80 million of the bonds (actually $100 million, according to the D.C. mayor's office) would be tax-exempt - that sounds illegal to me, but we'll need to await more details to be sure.
Meanwhile, the Washington Times reports that D.C. councilmember Linda Cropp, until now counted as a sure pro-stadium vote, is "wavering in her support" of Williams' bill. If so, this could be huge: Williams needs seven votes to pass a bill, eight to make it veto-proof once the Dissident Three take office in January, and without Cropp he's down to six and a bunch of undecideds. That makes for a lot of room for horse-trading demands by those on the fence, which could make the next couple of months very interesting at the John A. Wilson Building.
More from that Times story:
Hundreds of angry phone calls, faxes, and e-mails poured into the offices of council members yesterday. Some of those messages came from businesses upset by the return of the gross-receipts tax, though the Greater Washington Board of Trade, Federal City Council and other local trade groups support the measure.
With criticism of the stadium deal growing, ballpark boosters are rushing to defend Mayor Williams giving away the keys to the district treasury. Writes Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein: "The economics of baseball are such that there simply is no way to have a viable team without some form of public subsidy." This will come as a surprise to followers of the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox, Minnesota Twins, Oakland A's, Anaheim Angels, St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago Cubs, Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants; of teams still in the playoff hunt the final weekend, in fact, only the N.L. East champion Atlanta Braves and the N.L. wild-card hopeful Houston Astros play in new taxpayer-funded facilities.