Field of Schemes

January 31, 2005

Apples to apples

So now that all the cards are on the table (more or less) regarding the New York Jets stadium deal, I think it's finally possible to say how much the team's public subsidy would be worth. This is going to involve a bit of math, but I'll try my best to make it painless. So with no further ado:

The Jets are asking for $600 million in city and state money: $375 million to build a platform over one square block of the West Side rail yards, and $225 million for the stadium's retractable roof. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority's requested payment for development rights to its land, though, is based on a rate of $130 per square foot - the same rate as the neighboring parcels that have actual land on their land, not train tracks, and so don't need giant platforms before they can be built on.

What this means it that the Jets are right: The $375 million platform should rightly be considered an investment to bring that block up to par with the blocks around it, not a subsidy. So this would lower the total public subsidy to $225 million.

But hold the phone - the developers who'd be paying $130/sq ft for those surrounding parcels would also be paying payments in lieu of property tax (PILOTs) to the city. The Jets wouldn't - their so-called "PILOT" payments would be used to pay off $400 million worth of their own stadium bonds. That $400 million, then, is money that would otherwise be going into city coffers if another developer took over the stadium land - meaning it should be considered a city subsidy as well. (I know I'd previously said this was debatable, but $400 million turns out to be just about exactly what the city would get at the $12-per-square-foot tax rate being assigned to the surrounding Hudson Yards development project, so I think the debate can now end.) All of which brings us back up to a total public subsidy of: $625 million.

Even this figure requires lots of assumptions - that any cost overruns are borne by the Jets, that the Jets and Javits Convention Center work out an equitable share of revenues from conventions that use the stadium, and that the Jets agree to pay the MTA's asking price, which so far they say they won't. And it ignores the opportunity cost of building a stadium as opposed to, say, housing, which was estimated by the RPA to be a loss to the city of a whopping $444 million per year. But at least we have, pardon the expression, a ballpark figure to work with.

January 30, 2005

Jets' $200M land gap

Or maybe we won't need that subpoena after all. According to the New York Times' Charles Bagli (citing "executives who have been briefed on the negotiations"), the state Metropolitan Transportation Authority is asking for $300 million from the New York Jets for the development rights to the rail yards where the team wants to site its new stadium. That's far less than was previously rumored, but still far more than the number the Jets had in mind, which Bagli pegs at a little more than $100 million. Writes Bagli:

The Jets have complained in the past that Gov. George E. Pataki has not pushed Mr. Kalikow to move more quickly. According to several people who know him, Mr. Kalikow has been reluctant to make a "sweetheart" deal with the Jets to sell the development rights for a low price when the transportation authority is facing a fare increase and multibillion-dollar deficits in its capital budget.

The fiend!

If the Jets are still haggling over nickels and dimes - okay, a few million nickels and dimes - it may be because their profit margin on what would be the world's most expensive stadium ever is already being squeezed: Bagli reports that the Jets believe that their share of the stadium construction costs, previously estimated at $800 million, would now be more like $1 billion. (Score one for Betsy Gotbaum.) The way things are going, it may not take legislative opposition to kill the Stadium That Ate Manhattan; the Jets could yet end up walking away from the deal just because even with all the public subsidies, it just still costs too damn much.

Punditry on parade

I have a ton of respect for Miami Herald muckraker/novelist extraordinaire Carl Hiaasen, but his latest column chiming in on the Florida Marlins stadium controversy is just plain weird. The Marlins' demands for a $60 million tax rebate amount to "corporate welfare," writes Hiaasen, noting that while $2 million a year may not sound like much, it would "pay a mountain of medical bills" for Floridians getting squeezed by Gov. Jeb Bush's latest state budget. Then he goes on to suggest that maybe the Marlins should get their subsidy anyway, at the expense of repealing the law that authorizes tax breaks to sports teams. "From then on, no more handouts of tax money to sports tycoons," he writes. "Not a penny, not ever, for any reason." Because, you know, the Florida legislature can quit at any time.

Out in Salt Lake City, meanwhile, the less-renowned columnist John Yewell has done something nearly unheard of in local newspaper reporting: He's studied the experience of other cities, noting how Minnesota Twins owner Carl Pohlad was rebuffed in his attempts to extort his home state for as much stadium dough as possible. Yewell's suggestion to owners of the Real Salt Lake soccer franchise: Ask for what you need, not what you think you can get away with; be creative with seeking private funds before you look to tap the public purse; stop trying to sell us a bill of goods about economic benefits from a stadium, when "studies have repeatedly shown that sports stadiums don't contribute to economic revitalization. [Salt Lake Mayor] Rocky Anderson says a stadium can anchor housing and commercial projects. If such projects are worth doing, then do them, but a stadium will not enhance their viability." Yowsah. If this Yewell guy can write novels, too, Hiaasen had better watch his back.

January 29, 2005

Bloomberg: Stop me before I spend again

The heat of the Jets stadium battle appears to be getting to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. On his weekly radio show yesterday, Bloomberg warned that if the Jets stadium fails to materialize, it could hurt his efforts to spend hundreds of millions of city dollars on stadiums for the Yankees and Mets, too. "We would like to have a new Yankee Stadium, for example," said the mayor said. "The Steinbrenner organization has come up with some money, but the city would have to put some of its money in. If you didn't do the stadium with the clear economic benefits [on the West Side], how are you doing these other projects? It's going to be a big problem."

So let me get this straight: If the city decides it's not worth handing over $600 million to the Jets, that would make it harder to spend $600 million on a pair of baseball stadiums that the mayor himself thinks are a worse idea? Where exactly is the downside here?

The New York Post article on these proceedings takes a bizarre turn of its own, citing an "insider" to Yankees stadium talks as saying: "They're asking the city for something like $300 million in improvements. But the new stadium doesn't depend on getting every one of them." Leaving aside for the moment that the Yankees plan can't happen without the city and state coughing up free land to replace the 17 acres of public parkland that would be destroyed, the "insider's" statement raises another question: Why is Bloomberg asking to spend $300 million in taxpayer money if even George Steinbrenner admits he doesn't need it?

January 28, 2005

Secret appraisal this!

Looks like we won't be needing that Freedom of Information Act request after all: New York state assemblymember Richard Brodsky has issued a subpoena demanding that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority turn over its secret appraisal of the value of land the Jets want to use for their new stadium. The MTA must comply by next Thursday at 10:30 a.m., when Brodsky will be holding a hearing into the MTA land affair. (For those of you in NYC, it's at 250 Broadway in the 19th-floor hearing room.) I'll be there with my reporting shoes on.

January 27, 2005

Huizenga: No backsies

It's blowback time in Florida, where State Senate President Tom Lee isn't just taking on the $60 million in proposed subsidies for the Marlins, he's now saying he'd like to get back the $60 million the state gave to former Marlins owner Wayne Huizenga "There are allegations developing that [getting a new subsidy] would essentially represent a double-dip by the Marlins," Lee told the Miami Herald. "'We've received phone calls from the [Tampa Bay] Devil Rays and everybody who would like to get on that bandwagon if they could. And the well here in Florida is only so deep."

Huizenga, predictably, said he'd sue if anyone touched his subsidy, which was granted in 1993 for stadium renovation costs, and which he only spent $10 million of on actual renovations. The Herald further reports that Huizenga lobbyist Ron Book, who helped write the 1993 subsidy law - and what's up with that exactly? - claims that one provision "appears to block the Marlins from getting a new subsidy until all the state money is paid to Huizenga - in 2023." At this rate, the Florida stadium fight is going to be more entertaining than the just-completed one in D.C. - especially if David Samson throws out some more of those biblical references.

Giff Miller, man of action

New York city council speaker Giff Miller leaped into the Jets stadium fray yesterday, boldly calling for a voter referendum on the plan, which would use at least $600 million in public dollars. Of course, one of Miller's mayoral race opponents, former Bronx borough president Fernando Ferrer, already suggested this earlier in the week. And the person who controls what referendums go on the ballot is the Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who's the guy who proposed the stadium in the first place. And Miller still hasn't said whether he'll try to stop the mayor from spending $300 million in city money on the project without getting council approval. But, you know, there are degrees of boldness.

Across the Hudson, meanwhile, the Giants' plan to build a $700 million stadium in New Jersey with their own money (the state would provide the land) has reportedly run into major snags, with the team and the state unable to agree whether the planned neighboring Xanadu mall-and-entertainment project would be allowed to open on football game days. And how much land the state would hand over to the Giants. And how much rent the team would pay, where fans would park during construction, who would get naming-rights money, and who would pay for the demolition of the current Giants Stadium. In other words, they're as close as two hockey labor negotiators in a pod.

January 26, 2005

Jets stadium: Behind the music

So it turns out that independent appraisal of the value of the New York Jets stadium land is done after all - but the state agency that owns the land won't let anyone see it. "The only people who have the appraisal document are [Metropolitan Transportation Authority] chairman [Peter Kalikow] and the Jets," authority director Katherine Lapp told state legislators yesterday. Legislators say they need to see the appraisal before voting on the stadium plan, especially considering that the MTA's capital plan is already $2.5 billion in the hole. (And that's even before including the cost of defending against pyromaniac vagrants.) Anybody here good at filing Freedom of Information Act requests?

Meanwhile, the local media continues to uncover other dirty laundry surrounding the West Side redevelopment project that would include the stadium. Yesterday, the Daily News' Juan Gonzalez reported that friends of deputy mayor Dan Doctoroff have been buying up land in the stadium district at discounted prices. Today, the New York Observer notes that six of the seven corporations to get multi-million-dollar corporate subsidy packages from Mayor Michael Bloomberg have donated to the city's Olympic committee, raising questions about whether giving to NYC2012 guarantees preferential treatment. "Support for the Olympic plan has become a real litmus test of whether city government responds to you," Regional Plan Association director Robert Yaro told the Observer, while a city lobbyist said: "If a client came to me and said, 'Look, I want to get in with this administration,' I'd say, 'Hey, give to the Olympics.'"

Bloomberg himself seems to be getting a bit antsy about the fate of the project, at least if the rhetoric with which he's pressuring state elected officials is any guide. "An awful lot of the members of the IOC, including the more senior people, one of the things that they keep coming back to is, will New York City build the venue they think is appropriate," Bloomberg told a state legislative panel yesterday. "The site selection committee is coming here, they�re going to say, 'Hey, we read the papers, is this going to get done or isn't it?'" But remember, according to the mayor the stadium doesn't count as a cost of the Olympics because it would happen anyway.

Finally, some clarification on Gov. George Pataki's $300 million stadium budget item, thanks to a couple of helpful legislation gnomes: Apparently the governor's plan would have the state sell $300 million in bonds, and leave it up to future legislatures just how to pay them off. State assembly speaker Sheldon Silver is still insisting he hasn't decided whether to sign off on the deal, saying: "I haven't seen the financial plan that will be presented. At that time, we'll make the appropriate decision."

Crying poverty

Yesterday's signing of free-agent slugger Carlos Delgado might end up costing the Florida Marlins more than the $52 million over four years that's already been reported. Florida state senator Mike Bennett reacted angrily to the Marlins' stumping for $60 million in stadium subsidies at the same time they're dishing out dollars with the other hand: "If you can pay someone $52 million to play the game of baseball, certainly you can build your own stadium with your own money. And if you want Joe Lunch Bucket to pay for the stadium with his taxes, he should have a say." Bennett is drafting legislation to require voter referendums before spending tax money on sports teams - a bill, notes the Miami Herald, that even if it doesn't pass could help galvanize opposition to the Marlins' latest subsidy demands.

Promises, promises

I've written before of the hazards of throwing stadium money at sports leagues with uncertain futures, like minor-league baseball or pro soccer. (You might include the NHL these days as well.) Apparently someone at the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority thinks the same way, because the state agency now says it wants a guarantee that if it builds an $84 million stadium for the MetroStars, taxpayers won't be on the hook for the cost if the team or the league folds. MLS officials insist they're not going anywhere, but are also refusing to agree to the clause. New Jersey would be right to play hardball here - as Anaheim has learned, promises aren't worth a thing if they're not written down.

January 25, 2005

Minnesota mixed messages

Last week, the Minneapolis Star Tribune was speculating on how the state of Minnesota could get three stadiums (for the Twins, Vikings, and University of Minnesota Gophers) approved in the next year. Today, it reports that the investment group that controls the Minneapolis site that's been under consideration for a new Twins stadium is taking bids to build a housing and retail complex instead. Says the group's CFO: "Everybody around the State Capitol pretty much agrees that nothing is going to happen with stadiums until after the 2006 gubernatorial election."

Night of the living dome

The dome that will not die is back again, with Birmingham, Alabama stadium boosters making their umpteenth pitch for a domed football stadium for a team that doesn't quite so much actually exist yet. (The dome would also serve as an expansion of the city's convention center, about which I think enough has been already said.) Reports the local NBC affiliate:

Most of the civic center expansion money would come from Birmingham, Jefferson County and possibly the state government. Private investors would contribute millions more to build a hotel, entertainment district and infrastructure nearby.

Planners of the new facility have said it would bring new jobs and income.

"The facility will pay for itself through the return to the various government entities that will be making the investment," said Jack Fields, the Birmingham Jefferson Civic Center executive director.

Enthused city councilmember Elias Hendricks: "We're talking about 4,000 to 6,000 new jobs ... I'm really looking forward to that." Assuming a price tag of several hundred million dollars, that's right in line with other stadiums' dismal economic impact figure of about one job per $100,000 in public money. What's the matter, Elias, that last batch of $100,000-apiece jobs wasn't enough for you?

Whose $400M is it anyway?

Just got an e-mail from the New York Association for Better Choices that again points up the difficulty of determining how to count stadium subsidies. Outlining the "Facts and Myths" of the Jets stadium proposal, NYABC writes:

Myth

Under the current proposal the Jets will pay property taxes

Facts

The Jets will not pay any property taxes, rather they would make Payments In Lieu Of Taxes (PILOT), but instead of paying PILOT to the City, the Jets PILOT will be used to pay the debt service on $400 million in tax-exempt bonds that were supposed to be part of the Jets' contribution to the stadium.
This is the equivalent of the Jets using city tax revenue to make payments on the Jets' mortgage on the stadium.

This is the scheme that I'd previously written was a dodge to use "private stadium revenues" to pay off tax-exempt bonds, on the grounds that since the stadium would be on state land, it wouldn't normally be subject to property taxes. But this is the old "but-for" question, and there's another way to look at it: While projects on public land are normally exempt from property taxes, there's nothing stopping the city from demanding payments in exchange for allowing developers to build on a site. And as NYABC goes on to note, "The Regional Plan Association has released a study that established that if the stadium site were developed for residential use, the City would collect property tax revenue with a present value of $423 million."

So depending on how you look at it, the Jets are generously offering to pay $400 million in taxes they're not required to in order to pay off the stadium bonds; or the city is forgoing $423 million in tax revenue it could be receiving in order to let the Jets get their new dome. There's an argument for either way, but if you accept the NYABC reasoning, that would mean the $600 million public subsidy for the project would be really more like $1 billion - if not even higher.

January 24, 2005

Astrodome and dumberer

This just in on the Houston Astrodome, five years after it was abandoned by the Astros: It's not going to be a theme park after all. Instead, the Dallas Morning News reports that Harris County, which still owes about $50 million on previous renovations to the building, wants to turn it into ... a convention center and hotel. At a cost of about $200 million. And "some county officials have raised the possibility of a public contribution to save the historic Dome." Vey ist mir!

Send money or we privatize this team

For anyone who thought that community ownership was the panacea for sports-stadium shakedowns, we present this report from the Winnipeg Sun:

If the Winnipeg Blue Bombers don't get a new stadium, the team may have to be privatized, ending a 75-year tradition of community ownership. Chairman Gene Dunn says the club won't be able to compete in the CFL without a new facility, or, at least, a dramatically altered Winnipeg Stadium.

"In the absence of additional revenue streams, what is the answer? A white knight to come along and say, 'I'll buy it,' " Dunn said. "That always is an option, always has been and always will be."

Of course, it's unlikely that a "white knight" would do any better at fielding a competitive team without a new stadium - in fact, they'd likely have a harder time of it, since unlike the team's current owners, they'd demand to turn a profit to boot. But it is an indication of how the "socialism on one island" problem is alive and well for those who'd resist the sports subsidy industry.

New Yorkers digging themselves out this weekend can take a break by reading a blizzard of news analysis about the proposed Jets stadium:

I've previously pointed out the opportunity costs of using legalized gambling proceeds to fund sports stadiums; in today's Indianapolis Star, associate editor Russ Pulliam points out additional hidden costs of gambling as well:

(For an excellent collection of essays on the economic and social pitfalls of legalized gambling, I highly recommend the anthology Crapped Out, by my fellow Common Courage Press author Jennifer Vogel.)

On Monday, the Brookings Institution released a report by University of Texas researcher Heywood Sanders on the economics of convention centers and the public subsidies that help fund them. It took me a couple of days have time to give it a thorough read, but it was worth it: Sanders' findings are pretty darn damning of this industry, and point up many parallels with the sports stadium racket:

As far as remedies go, Sanders has a long list of recommendations, running from increased use of independent auditors to investigate the claims of convention center boosters, to better public oversight of the process of allocating funds for these beasts. Notes the report: "Even where the voters have said 'no' to center bond issues or new taxes - as they have done in Pittsburgh, Columbus, Portland, and San Jose - investments in convention facilities have a way of happening despite the electoral outcome - as in Pittsburgh, Columbus, Portland and San Jose." Like I said: Parallels.

Over the past few days, Sanders' Brookings report has gotten a mess of press coverage, with the New York Times noting it "raises questions about the wisdom of joining the convention hall space race," while Bloomberg News columnist Joe Mysak called it "The Report Wall Street Doesn't Want You to Read." Of course, then there's Arizona Republic columnist Jon Talton, who looked at Sanders' figures of a plummeting convention market and drew this conclusion: "This is an arms race that Phoenix must win. If only 10 cities nationally will eventually compete for trade shows, Phoenix should be among them. If anything, the Civic Plaza expansion is years late."

I tracked down Sanders for a quick chat yesterday, in which he laughed about the Arizona Republic story (noting of Arizona that "in stadium terms, they're the biggest Kool-Aid swallowers"), and elaborated on some of the points raised by his report:

While this website will remain focused on stadium shenanigans, if there's a bit of spotlight left over in coming weeks and months, expect me to focus it on convention centers as well.

Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson's proposal to use legalized slot machines to fund $687 million worth of a new stadium for the Colts is "dead," says Indiana state house speaker Brian Bosma. "The message I'd like to send to the mayor is he ought to find another financing mechanism for a Dome downtown than putting a casino in the middle of the most family-friendly city in the Midwest," Bosma told the Indianapolis Star. "As far as I'm concerned, that proposal is dead." He added:

House Minority Leader Pat Bauer, meanwhile, responded that "we have to find another horse to ride," with Peterson adding: "If somebody has a better idea, I'm willing to listen to it. What we need is $46 million a year to be able to pay the debt service on this new stadium." That's the spirit! It's not about whether we should build the irresponsible stadium, it's about how!

Veiled threats to move the team weren't getting the baksheesh flowing, so Florida Marlins president David Samson escalated matters today, sending a letter to state house speaker Allan Bense that if the state doesn't cough up $60 million in sales-tax revenues over 30 years (present value: $30 million), then the team will leave South Florida. "Our landlord has informed us that it will not, under any circumstances, extend or renew the current lease; thereby, giving the Marlins no place to play in South Florida after that time," wrote Samson, eschewing his usual biblical metaphors for mere bad punctuation. "This entire transaction, and in fact the future of baseball in South Florida, hinges on securing a sales tax rebate from the state."

While Bense said he'd look into it, state senate president Tom Lee was less receptive, telling the Palm Beach Post: "I don't negotiate with terrorists." Call the black recon operatives!

Tons of news today about the New York Jets stadium plan, one day after the New York city council approved rezoning for the Hudson Yards district that would surround it:

Also, though I can't find it online (note: Brian Hatch found it), the print edition of today's New York Newsday has an editorial pointing out that the Hudson Yards plan includes a $1.7 billion subway line running to the new stadium, while other longstanding transit projects are getting cut from the MTA budget. (Newsday calls this "not acceptable.") Opportunity cost, thy name is Bloomberg...

Washington, D.C.'s private stadium financing plans are in, with eight companies submitting proposals to get involved in building the $500-million-plus Nationals stadium - far fewer than expected, possibly because some folks were scared off by the nonrefundable $10,000 fee. The proposals revealed so far include some that are familiar, and others that are brand-new:

None of these proposals, you'll notice, involves private funding, just private financing: In every case, D.C. would just be selling off a public asset (land, parking revenues, depreciation rights) in exchange for some quick cash. The problem, as one unnamed city official told the Washington Times, is that D.C.'s deal with MLB rules out using any actual team revenues for stadium construction: "This is a very difficult piece of business. This contract with Major League Baseball doesn't leave much else on the table." If only somebody had noticed this before...

New York Gov. George Pataki dropped the other shoe in the Jets stadium funding debate, including $300 million in state funding for the project in his 2005 budget. I'm having a bit of a hard time tracking down whether this is a straight line item or a bond issue or what; Newsday calls it "$300 million in future borrowing," which would imply the latter, but I haven't been able to confirm this. In any case, the budget will now go to state assembly speaker Sheldon Silver and state senate leader Joe Bruno, who already control the stadium's fate through their role on the Public Authorities Control Board. Let the backrooms begin filling with smoke...

D-Day has been set in the New York Jets' stadium push: On February 16, the state Public Authorities Control Board will meet to decide the fate of the $1.4 billion project. At that time, we should find out whether state assembly speaker Sheldon Silver plans on using his veto power to block the project; New York deputy mayor Dan Doctoroff also promised yesterday that by the time of the the PACB meeting, "we will flesh out specifically where the city's source of the funding will come from." What, and spoil the mystery?

In the news I know you've all been waiting for, the MLS expansion franchise Real Salt Lake (that's real the Spanish word, not the English word "real," though real does mean "real" - oh, never mind) is pitting Salt Lake City against the neighboring town of Murray in competing to be the home of the team's new soccer stadium. Whichever city comes up with free land for the stadium, team officials say, will get the team. Then Salt Lake County residents will all get to share responsibility for paying for half the cost of building the $60 million soccer-only facility. Okay, so it's not exactly "Everybody gets a car!"...

South Florida Sun-Sentinel columnist Mike Berardino wonders about the Florida Marlins' $35 million offer to free-agent first baseman Carlos Delgado, noting: "After trying practically since inception to secure a baseball-only stadium - under three different ownerships, no less - this franchise is $30 million short of its long-stated goal. Clearly, the Delgado offer shows the Marlins have more 'special money' sitting around than they have been letting on."

The issue, of course, isn't how much money Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria has - if spending $30 million on a stadium were a good investment, he could just borrow it from a bank or Carl Pohlad or somebody - but that if he spent the money on a stadium, he wouldn't have it anymore, now would he? And since the Florida legislature is hardly going to give him $30 million to sign a free-agent first baseman, he might have to spend it out of his own ... but no, that's too horrible even to consider.

The New York Times' Charles Bagli, citing "interviews with public and team officials," has come up with total public price tags for the three sports facilities under discussion in Gotham: $600 million for the Jets stadium slated for Manhattan's West Side, $300 million toward a new Yankees stadium that would replace the House That Ruth Built, and $200 million in subsidies to a Nets arena in Brooklyn - this last "whittled down," according to Bagli, from an initial $450 million demand by Nets owner/developer Bruce Ratner. The grand total: $1.1 billion in taxpayer money, for a city that's already facing a $3 billion budget gap.

And it could easily be worse than this, as Bagli leaves out some additional public costs that could send the bill still higher:

Add it up, and we're already over $2 billion - and that's without factoring in such items as that $1.7 billion subway line. That's quite a sum for a mayor who said upon taking office in 2002 that "given the deficit in the operating budget, it is just not practical this year to go and build stadiums." The total projected public cost of the Mets and Yankees stadiums that Bloomberg rejected that year: a mere $800 million.

With Oakland A's stadium consultant (and billionaire real estate tycoon) Lew Wolff on the verge of purchasing the team, speculation has been spreading like eucalyptus-fueled wildfire that this is the first step toward the team relocating to San Jose. One small problem: San Jose is in Santa Clara County, which, according to baseball bylaws, is officially the territory of the San Francisco Giants.

While MLB commissioner Bud Selig would no doubt be happy to see Wolff use the threat of a move to bludgeon Oakland into building a new stadium, he also doesn't sound eager to unleash the can of worms that would result from an attempt to put the A's in Giants territory. Asked by the San Jose Mercury News if the Giants could be compensated for their territorial rights, Selig replied: "I'm not getting into that because we don't change territories." Except, presumably, for that time in the early 1990s when the Giants were granted rights to Santa Clara in the first place.

Two more data points for the argument that if you want public money for your stadium, don't call it "taxes":

Of course, it doesn't hurt that both teams were winners this year, each winning a division championship. The Chargers hope to hold a referendum on their plan in November of next year; it's not yet clear if the Colts plan will need to be approved by voters.

More news on the thrill-a-minute SBC Park property-tax reassessment story: San Francisco Assessor Mabel Teng says while she'll give the Giants a fair hearing on their case, she's puzzled by how a stadium that was built four years ago for $324 million could now be worth less than $220 million, as the team claims. One explanation, according to the San Francisco Chronicle:

The obvious question then is: If the Giants' new ballpark is only worth $220 million in new revenue, why the heck did they spend $324 million (90% of it private money) to build it?

Finally, some word on what became of that $5 million-a-year stadium "planning" subsidy that former Rudy Giuliani gave to the New York Mets and Yankees as a going-away present. While the Yankees are presumably readying a really expensive scale model of their dream home, the Mets have gotten permission to use part of their share to fund renovations to Shea Stadium, including new scoreboards and seating.

If that sounds like the team isn't expecting to be getting a new stadium anytime soon, Mets VP Dave Howard isn't going to dissuade you of that notion: "We realize that it will be another five years at least," Howard told Newsday. "We're refining our design and are ready and able to talk. We're hoping Mayor Bloomberg will be able to do that sooner rather than later."

A clarification on how yesterday's Hudson Yards redevelopment project news would save taxpayer money: The city of New York would actually be spending more money from its general operating budget - as much as $162 million in the peak year of 2011 - into paying off the project's bonds in the short term, in exchange for lower bond payments later on. Think of it as like buying a new car with cash instead of putting it on your credit card: You save a bundle in finance charges down the road, but the downside is that your wallet is now empty.

Meanwhile, on the subject of the New York Jets stadium that was the whole raison d'etre for Hudson Yards in the first place, Newsday reports that city council speaker (and mayoral candidate) Giff Miller "used his strongest language to date" about the stadium. Let's listen in:

Miami Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga, belatedly realizing that allowing your stadium to be named after a defunct clothing manufacturer isn't exactly the smartest business move, has announced that Pro Player Stadium will be renamed Dolphins Stadium in the coming months. Before you get too excited at the prospect of a sports stadium actually ditching its corporate name, this is probably only an interim move while Huizenga looks for a new naming-rights sponsor that can actually pay its naming-rights fees, though he insists that "we want the Dolphins name to be in the forefront." (You're still welcome, though, to make jokes about how no one was going to mistake the Dolphins for pro players anyhow.)

Huizenga further added that he has plans to spend about $425 million in his own money to remodel and add a roof to the stadium. Much of the remodeling would have to wait until the Marlins are out of the stadium, something Huizenga said he expects to happen "in the next, I'm guessing now, let's say three years" - which is a pretty optimistic timetable, considering that much of the $420 million estimated price tag is still unaccounted for, and that many observers think that the retractable-roofed baseball stadium the team wants will ultimately cost much more.

Marlins president David "Okay, how about this final deadline?" Samson, meanwhile, rattled his noisiest saber yet on the subject of moving the team if a stadium deal isn't approved, saying if the Florida legislature doesn't approve $30 million in state stadium funding soon, "there is no stadium in South Florida and the team would look for other options, presumably out of South Florida." Isn't this where we came in?

What's worse than an empty $1 billion stadium that still hasn't had all its construction debt paid off? An empty $1 billion stadium that would cost another half-billion dollars to tear down. According to two government-commissioned reports, that's the estimated price tag (in Canadian dollars, okay, but the loonie is almost worth real money these days) for tearing down Montreal's Olympic Stadium, which lost its main tenant when the Expos relocated to Washington after last season. News reports blame the stadium's "unique design," which would apparently require it to be taken apart with a power sander and a pair of tweezers to avoid wreaking environmental catastrophe on the whole of Quebec.

Adding demolition to the original cost of constructing and updating the Big Owe - which has already had its roof replaced twice - would bring the total taxpayer cost to $3.1 billion (Canadian). That's a lot of smoked meat.

Details are still filtering in, but it looks like the New York city council land use committee has re-written Mayor Michael Bloomberg's $2.8 billion Hudson Yards development proposal - the one with the subway line that would lead to a new Jets stadium - in ways that are significant in some respects, and utterly irrelevant in others. Among the new provisions voted on today:

The Hudson Yards zoning bill goes to the full council next week, where it's widely expected to pass. The question then will be whether the council gets another crack at voting on the stadium project itself, or whether Bloomberg's end run will be successful. Like so much else about New York's most expensive development project ever, this is looking increasingly likely to be settled not at a ballot box, but in court.

Why Elected Officials Love Sports Stadiums, Part I: The St. Petersburg Times reports that a proposal to prohibit county commissioners from accepting free luxury box tickets to Tampa Bay Buccaneers games has died "for lack of interest." County commissioner Mark Sharpe defended the tickets, priced at $457 a pop (just under the $500 limit on campaign contributions), as providing, in the Times' words, "a valuable opportunity to interact with constituents." Besides, said Sharpe, it wasn't his fault: "My wife is very clear about our budget."

Why Elected Officials Love Sports Stadiums, Part II: Remember Joe Blanas, the Sacramento County sheriff who dabbles in $600 million basketball arena proposals? It turns out Blanas is more than just a "close friend" of Angelo Tsakopoulos, the proposed developer for the Kings arena plan; his wife, Nanette, is an investor in Tsakopoulos' real-estate business. When asked by the Sacramento Bee about his wife's business with Tsakopoulos, which could violate state conflict-of-interest laws if she were to benefit from Blanas' arena proposal, the sheriff snapped that the question was "an invasion of my wife's privacy. This is really reaching; this is really stretching it."

Score one for "too good to be true." The Newark Star-Ledger reports that New Jersey Gov. Richard Codey's plan to let the New York Giants build a new stadium with their own money has a previously unrevealed catch: By allowing the team to walk away from their existing Giants Stadium lease and move into their own digs, Codey would be sticking the state with $117 million in outstanding debt on the 28-year-old building. New Jersey sports officials had been demanding that the Giants pay rent on the ground under their new stadium to retire the old debt, but apparently that would have been ... well, too good to be true.

Not crazy about raising $687 million for an Indianapolis Colts stadium by setting up a downtown slot-machine casino? Okay, then how about slot machines at race tracks instead? That's the latest counterproposal from Indiana state rep Michael Murphy, who defended it as an "economic development bill that happens to include gambling." (With a straight face, presumably, though the Indianapolis Star didn't specifically say.)

It's still uncertain how any of these stadium plans will fly with legislators from outside Indianapolis, especially with that $830 million budget deficit staring them in the face. Still, as the Star notes, "For now, the question seems to be: How should a new Colts stadium be funded, not whether should one be built." If so, Mayor Bart Peterson's stadium push has accomplished at least the first step in the sports subsidy playbook.

In today's battlin' billionaire news, Cablevision (owner of Madison Square Garden and the New York Knicks and Rangers) is asking the New York city council to pass a law blocking the city from spending money on a Jets football stadium without council approval. Cablevision lawyer Randy Mastro, a former deputy mayor under Rudy Giuliani, told the New York Times that the city's rumored plan to siphon off hundreds of millions of dollars in "payments in lieu of taxes," or PILOTs, paid by developers to the mayoral-controlled Industrial Development Authority would be both "unprecedented" and "illegal."

Unprecented, certainly; illegal, as I've discussed here previously, it's still hard to say. Also hard to say is whether the council has the power to block a PILOT scheme (council speaker Giff Miller, displaying his typical decisiveness, said he'd look into "what our legislative and legal authority is"), despite the fact that using existing PILOT revenues would raid the city's general fund - something, incidentally, that Mayor Michael Bloomberg's office has repeatedly promised the Jets stadium wouldn't do. More on this as things become clearer, if that ever happens...

That plan to indefinitely extend Washington state's sports-subsidy tax to fund renovations to the Seattle Sonics' Key Arena isn't going over so well among the populace of the Evergreen State. The Sonics' latest plan would make the taxes (currently set to sunset in 2018) permanent, with the additional future tax revenue set aside to fund renovations not just to Key Arena, but to the homes of the Seahawks and Mariners as well - prompting one Seattle city councilmember to blurt to the Seattle Times: "Oh my God, that's worse than I thought." Times readers look to be even less thrilled at the idea, with "extortion racket" one of the milder phrases being thrown around...

You know, the baseball revenue-sharing rules are really complicated, and it's not like daily sportswriters - even those at newspapers that share a corporate parent with baseball teams - have all that much time to do background research, so maybe it's understandable when they misinform readers about basic ... Naah.

Today's offender: The paper I subscribe to, New York Newsday, where veteran baseball beat writers Mark Herrmann and Jon Heyman today report regarding the Yankees' potential pursuit of free agent outfielder Carlos Beltran:

An interesting point, if it were true. Unfortunately, Herrmann and Heyman have confused two different pieces of MLB's byzantine system for redistribution of team income. The stadium construction "tax break," as I've discussed at length previously, applies to revenue-sharing payments, which are based on teams' revenues, without regard to payroll size. What the Yanks would be risking by signing Beltran (and ballooning their annual payroll to $200 million and beyond) is a separate MLB provision, the luxury tax, which is levied on teams with high payrolls - and which has no stadium deduction.

Looks like there's gonna be a gum fight: The Anaheim Angels owners today announced that the team will henceforth be known as, yes, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. A spokesperson for the city of Anaheim, which has vowed to sue to block such a move, called the new name "geographically confusing and absurd"; a team press release insisted that it would "strengthen the Angels' long-term economic health by enhancing the marketability through this metropolitan area and beyond." Beyond, huh? In that case, maybe they should consider an even more far-reaching moniker.

Better Late Than Never Dept.: Ike Brannon, an economist with the Congressional Joint Economic Committee, has an op-ed in today's Washington Times suggesting that "an aggressive use of personal seat licenses could generate nearly all of the revenue necessary to finance Washington's baseball stadium." Aside from the obvious problem - with D.C. having agreed last week to foot almost the entire cost of the $500-million-plus stadium, that wipes out any incentive for the Nationals to commit any of their own money - Brannon's essay reveals a fundamental misunderstanding about the reasons behind stadium subsidies.

Brannon's plan would have the team selling PSLs (the guaranteed right to buy season tickets, basically) for the 10,000 best seats, with the guarantee that the ticket price for those seats would remain at $25 for the next 15 years. That way, he writes:

With the cash from all these erstwhile ticket scalpers in their pocket, plus naming-rights and parking revenues, estimates Brannon, the team could easily clear $600 million, more than enough to pay off stadium construction costs without resorting to public coffers.

While doubtless a tempting argument to free-market advocates (Brannon is a contributor to the libertarian Cato Institute's magazine Regulation), this isn't likely to be so alluring to either MLB or whichever rich dude ends up owning the Nationals. Sure, by cutting top ticket prices to $25 and auctioning off the rights to scalp those tickets to the highest bidder, the Nats could raise tons of money - but at the expense of all the revenue they lose by not just charging $100 a pop themselves. Likewise, the team could also take out loans backed by future ticket revenue, or sell scalping rights to a private company (a la the Chicago Cubs' recent shenanigans), or any of a hundred other mechanisms. But in every case - and devoting naming-rights cash to the cause would have the same problem - the money would end up coming straight out of the team's bottom line.

The reason why baseball teams demand stadium subsidies isn't because they "can't afford it" - most sports franchises these days are owned by billionaires, and Selig himself has a discretionary slush fund worth hundreds of millions of dollars - but because paying for stadiums themselves would cut into their profits. (Admittedly, there's a point at which a revenue-depleted new stadium would make just playing in the existing RFK Stadium more profitable by comparison, but that's another point that Brannon doesn't address.) Heck, if MLB wanted to build a stadium with private cash, it could have done so in Montreal - without having to cough up usurious payoffs to Peter Angelos in the bargain.

With few exceptions, the money to be made off of new stadiums doesn't come from the stadiums themselves, but from the public subsidies that come along with them. Arguing that teams could afford to build their own new pleasure palaces is a bit like arguing that mobsters could afford to finance their protection-racket thugs without hitting up local shopkeepers for payments - maybe, but that sort of defeats the purpose, you know?

The dawn of 2005 brings a mayoral election year in New York, and as predicted, it's already starting to make things interesting on the New York Jets stadium front. All five expected Democratic challengers to Mayor Michael Bloomberg say they plan to make the $1.4 billion stadium project a campaign issue; U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner, one likely candidate, told the Daily News, "This project - as risky as it is, as laden in debt as it is, as poorly thought through as it is - is going to lay bare the truth about Mike Bloomberg, and that is, frankly: His administration hasn't been competent." Whether this will translate into anyone actually trying to block the stadium is yet to be seen: City council speaker Gifford Miller, the only mayoral candidate with any say over the Jets project, says he's opposed to the stadium but supports the larger West Side rezoning plan of which it's a part - which also happens to be the only piece that he's certain to be voting on.

The Expos-to-D.C. saga seems positively brisk compared to the ongoing Twins and Vikings stadium battles in Minnesota, which are about to enter their second decade. The Twins are preparing to hit up the legislature again this year for a $520 million baseball-only stadium; a Vikings exec says that despite having fired all their stadium lobbyists, if a stadium bill is introduced, "we'll have a presence at the Capitol." The University of Minnesota is also seeking a $235 million football stadium, though it says it would pay 60% of the costs if the state covers the rest. The total cost of building all three stadiums: $1.4 billion, which just happens to be exactly the size of Minnesota's projected budget deficit going into 2005.

Over in Indiana, meanwhile, where the looming budget deficit is a mere $830 million, the Indianapolis Colts' $687 million stadium plan is getting lukewarm support from local legislators. Says state rep Jeff Espich, who controls a key committee that will consider Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson's plan to pay for the stadium by legalizing a form of slot machines: "I would be very surprised if a new stadium is built with gambling money." As usual, the devil in this debate is likely to come down to the finance details.

Bud Selig can probably rest easy about the prospect of the D.C. council repealing that $530 million Washington Nationals stadium bill he found giftwrapped under his Christmas tree. According to the Washington Times, Kwame Brown, one of the three new councilmembers taking office this week, says his top priority will be making sure local residents get stadium construction jobs. "I wanted baseball here. I didn't want to pay for it," Brown told the Times. "Unfortunately, I didn't have a vote on it. But now I can at least make sure that local businesses participate and have an opportunity to grow and prosper." I hope Kwame brought a helicopter.

Meanwhile, there's still another unresolved matter in the Nationals deal: Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos still hasn't agreed on how much boodle it'll take to get him to stop threatening a lawsuit over MLB landing a new team on his doorstep. The Baltimore Sun reports that Selig has already agreed to guarantee the Orioles' sale price and annual revenues - measures that, as I've noted previously, would create a huge disincentive for Angelos to put a professional team on the field, since he'd be collecting MLB checks whether he sells tickets or not - but wants to limit the guarantees to as long as Angelos owns the team, while the O's owner hopes to have them extended to perhaps 15 or 20 years.

Thanks to Andrew Pate, Trevor Mills, Mason Brown, Brian Borawski, Diane Firstman, Josh Safran, Matthew J. Wiegand, Save Fenway Park!, the NYC 20-Never Campaign, and all our anonymous donors for their generous help in making this website possible. Drops of water turn the mill...