Field of Schemes

March 31, 2005

Your tax dollars keep on working

Washington, D.C. is looking for a naming-rights sponsor for RFK Stadium now that the Washington Nationals are moving in, and one possible source of revenue is: you! Or at least the share of your tax dollars that go to fund the U.S. Army, which is considering spending $1.4 million a year to rename the place "Army Field at RFK Stadium." (Yes, it's already been noted that RFK actually served in the Navy.) Some other D.C. residents, meanwhile, are raising funds in an attempt to name the stadium after another Washington-area institution.

Ka-ching!

The projected cost of the new Washington Nationals stadium just went - okay, show of hands, how many people thought I was going to say "down"? It's up, of course: D.C. CFO Natwar Gandhi has estimated an additional $46 million in land acquisition costs, bringing the total cost to $581 million.

Conveniently, that's still $4 million less than the stadium spending cap approved by the D.C. city council last December, above which the council has to start looking for a cheaper site. That's still not much of a buffer, especially if the Supreme Court rules for the plaintiffs this June in Kelo v. City of New London, which could blow all previous land acquisition estimates out of the water.

Jets win land battle, keep alive stadium war

After two months of sound and fury, it looks like the New York Jets will get their stadium land after all: News reports are unanimously indicating that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board plans to approve the sale of the West Side rail yards to the Jets at its meeting today. In line with their final bid, the Jets would pay $280 million in cash (actually $50 million in cash, a $200 million letter of credit, and a $30 million reserve fund for site maintenance) to the MTA, with a suite of developers lined up to pay $440 million for additional air rights, if the city council passes the necessary zoning.

If so, this means that the MTA ends up getting about $50 million less than it wanted for the land (though $180 million more than the Jets wanted to pay), without the trouble of hauling in George Mitchell to arbitrate. It also means that the total stadium cost, including land acquisition and infrastructure, is now flirting with an incredible $2 billion.

So what does this mean as far as whether the stadium actually gets built? The New York Post, which can't resist a bad sports metaphor, wrote that the Jets' stadium drive "will cross the goal line today," but in fact it just gets back to the field position it was in two months ago: With $600 million in city and state funds yet to be approved, and state legislative leaders showing no inclination to sign off on the deal anytime soon. If anything, things have gone backwards, with the New York city council trying to block Mayor Michael Bloomberg from spending $300 million in city money without council approval; and the New York Times now reports that the $300 million in state funding proposed earlier by Gov. George Pataki "is not included in the state budget now nearing approval in Albany." Without the public subsidy, the all the Jets have is an option to buy a rail yard and a $2 billion price tag.

And maybe not even that, because the MTA land sale could yet be derailed - see, I know my way around a punny metaphor, too - by legal challenges. Cablevision's lawyers have already written to the MTA demanding that the Jets bid be disqualified for violating the MTA's own bidding rules. And Gene Russianoff of the Straphangers Campaign, a mass transit watchdog group, told the Times his group is considering filing its own lawsuit: "We're going to take a hard, serious look at whether they violated their own procurement rules." Looks like we're headed to overtime!

THIS JUST IN: It's official - the MTA board has voted unanimously to approve the Jets' offer.

March 29, 2005

Dawn of the undead stadium plans

With just five weeks to go before the Indiana legislature adjourns until 2007, state senator Luke Kenley now says he's preparing yet another Indianapolis Colts stadium-funding proposal, after his last one pretty much crashed and burned. Though Kenley didn't provide details, he indicated the new plan would be drafted with the help of Gov. Mitch Daniels, which could help give it a boost.

This story also provides us with the quote of the week, courtesy of Indiana University political science professor Bill Blomquist: "It's been like a demolition derby process of elimination. And in the end you stitch together enough things that have some measure of support and that can pass the House and the Senate." Now there's an attractive image.

Alternate realities

Further evidence that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board has a tough decision ahead in picking a winner of the New York Jets-vs.-Cablevision bidding war: Yesterday, the MTA released details of the two bids. Here's how Newsday reported it:

The Jets and six partners are offering the MTA up to $720 million for development rights to the authority's West Side rail yards, while Cablevision is offering about $425 million.

And here's how the Associated Press reported it:

The New York Jets were outbid by Cablevision in their attempt to buy the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's rail yards and build a stadium on Manhattan's West Side.

Ah, yes, that clears things up. The New York Times, which sensibly declined to name a winner, reports that if the MTA board does not vote on Thursday, it will likely announce a one-week delay. Because what about this bid process could possibly take more than a week to figure out, right?

Promises, promises

There's a new twist in the tale of Paul Allen, scofflaw. As you'll recall, the Seattle Seahawks owner (and Microsoft billionaire) agreed to report his team's annual profits as part of the deal that gave him $300 million in public money for a new football stadium; instead, he's been reporting only the finances of the shell corporation that manages the stadium.

Last year, as state attorney general, Christine Gregoire said she'd sue to force Allen to open his books, but her office didn't have the money. Now that Gregoire has been elected governor, reports Callaghan:

Last week, Gregoire released her spending and tax proposal. I searched for the appropriation that would allow the new attorney general to enforce the auditorís findings against the stadium authority and Allen.

It wasn't there. Nor was it in the Senate Democrat budget that was released Monday.

Callaghan writes that he has sympathy for politicians' plight of having to "choose between making the aforementioned billionaire mad or appearing to let a billionaire break the law. But what I have no sympathy for is the apparent solution to their dilemma ñ make public statements about the need for everyone, regardless of net worth, to obey the law while doing nothing to require everyone, regardless of net worth, to obey the law."

March 27, 2005

Dodger Stadium next up for makeover?

Hey, maybe the news of Fenway Park's pending renovation has started a trend. Yesterday, Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles owner Frank McCourt told the San Bernardino Sun that he's looking to do more renovations to Dodger Stadium, possibly including replacing all 56,000 seats and a new centerfield food court and entrance pavilion, on top of the 1,500 new field-level seats that were added during the off-season.

"We want to continue to upgrade the entire facility," said McCourt. "We want to keep the same feel of Dodger Stadium, but we also want to give our fans all the amenities of some of the newer ballparks." Though McCourt didn't say, my guess is that he'd be replacing the old seats with wider ones, making for a bit more elbow room while reducing capacity, much as was done at Yankee Stadium during its reconstruction in the mid-1970s. At 57,500 capacity, Dodger Stadium is currently far larger than most other ballparks - which, in an era when teams are as much about marketing ticket scarcity as in attracting the most fans, could be seen as a liability for a team wanting to jack up ticket prices.

Friends in high places, cont'd

With the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board just four days away from a possible vote on the New York Jets-vs.-Cablevision bidding war for its West Side rail yards site, accusations are flying about just who bid what and why. The latest allegations came in an article yesterday by New York Times reporter Charles Bagli, who said that three unnamed members of the Jets' team of developers offering $440 million for the site's air rights (thus enabling the team to up its total bid to $720 million) say they believe they were recruited at the behest of the New York mayor's office.

"Basically, the city came up with the idea," said one of the developers, who asked for anonymity because he did not want to antagonize the Bloomberg administration. "I think they went to [city Real Estate Board president Stephen] Spinola, and Spinola contacted some people and said, 'Would you be interested?'"

Spinola insisted the air-rights gambit was all his idea, but that didn't stop U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner, one of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's opponents in this year's mayoral race, from calling for an investigation into the mayor's role, and for the MTA to delay a decision on the winning bid. A mayoral spokesperson retaliated by calling Weiner "a Cablevision shill desperate to justify his anti-job positions" - which you have to imagine won't have much of an impact, given what the future Congressman undoubtedly got called as a kid.

Meanwhile, it was revealed on Friday that Cablevision has raised its own bid to $760 million, or $40 million more than the Jets' total bid. It's not an apples-to-apples comparison, though: $350 million of Cablevision's bid is earmarked to deck over the rail yards (under the Jets plan, the city and state would pay for this); while $440 million of the Jets bid would be from that conditional sale of air rights. Further complicating matters is that the air-rights sale might not even be a legal bid by the MTA's own bidding rules, according to Bagli, who notes:

The proposal is contingent on the city reworking its zoning regulations. And the authority's requirements assert that "no proposal that is contingent upon a change in existing zoning requirements will be considered."

Whoops. Maybe Spinola should have read the fine print before he had his brainstorm.

In any case, complications like these make it awfully likely that no matter who the MTA picks as a winner, the loser will immediately file a lawsuit to overturn the decision. Which means that no matter what the Jets say, their lawyer was right: There's no way this stadium gets underway before the 2012 Olympic host is picked in July. And the way things are looking, it ain't gonna be New York.

LATE NOTE: I somehow missed this one until an alert reader pointed me to it: The New York Post is reporting that Newmark & Company, the Olympic committee donors hired by the MTA to help evaluate the bids, believes they're all way too low. Once the site is rezoned for high-rise development - as both the Jets and Cablevision bids would require - it should be worth $200 a square foot, says Newmark, which would make the entire parcel worth a cool billion dollars. Newmark's evaluation, according to the Post, could lead the MTA board to reject all the current offers and wait for another round of bidding; as one MTA board member told the paper: "Just because it's a bid doesn't mean we will get a realistic price. If not, I wouldn't sell it."

March 24, 2005

When threats collide

That Wayne Huizenga sure knows how to ruin a good pity party. No sooner had Florida state legislators started buying the Marlins' claims that they need a new stadium because they're getting evicted in 2010 than their landlord Huizenga started backing off from that threat. "Let's say for some reason or another they didn't get their thing done and they wanted to stay," Huizenga told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. "OK, fine. That's not the end of the world as long as we can make the improvements we need to make and work out some of the issues." I haven't seen any public response from Marlins execs yet, but they can't be too thrilled to have their best threat card pulled out from under them at a key moment for their stadium-subsidy bill.

Meanwhile, Huizenga is also pushing for the NFL to approve a plan for him to turn the area around Dolphins Stadium into what he calls a "Supersite," with amenities that would let the league stage even more events during Super Bowl week, bringing in even more revenue. To do so, however, he'd want to be named a regular Super Bowl site - say, every three years - which would put a crimp in promises being made to other cities that if they build new stadiums, the big game will come. (The NFL, as expected, voted this week to grant the 2010 Super Bowl to New York if the city builds a new Jets stadium by then, and cities from San Diego to Indianapolis have been offered similar carrots.) At this rate, they're going to need to play two Super Bowls a year just to keep up.

Rumors of Fenway's death greatly exaggerated

In May of 1999, two days after the citizen action group Save Fenway Park! unveiled its proposal to renovate the Boston Red Sox home field, team execs released their own plans: To raze baseball's oldest ballpark, and replace it with a new, larger one with all the trimmings - and a $545 million price tag. The next day, the Boston Globe followed with a special section on the imminent demise of the historic park; as I described it in an investigation into media coverage of sports issues I wrote at the time for Extra! magazine:

The lead headline on the paper's special "Fenway: A New Pitch" section was "Proposed $545m ballpark to retain cherished details." The plans for the new park, enthused reporters Gregg Krupa and Meg Vaillancourt, "mimics so many characteristic details of the beloved current stadium that the team even plans to dig up some of the old turf and play on it in the new facility."

In an accompanying story, staff reporters Lynnley Browning and Steven Wilmsen described neighborhood response to the new ballpark proposal as "quiet admiration for the proposal's aesthetic dimension but voiced fresh questions over how ordinary life in the area would be affected." (Those who argued in favor of keeping the old ballpark, as is often the case in such stories, were dismissed as expressing "nostalgic melancholy that a legendary institution would be irreparably altered.") The headline, meanwhile, accentuated the positive: "Park's design impresses many."

Baseball columnist Dan Shaughnessy ñ co-author of a new "biography" of Fenway Park - wrote, "Leaving Fenway isn't going to be easy for a lot of us, but if the Sox can do what they say they'll do, it'll be their best move since they brought Babe Ruth to the old ballpark when the old ballpark was the new ballpark in 1914." Veteran sportswriter Bob Ryan chimed in that "there is nothing contradictory about loving Fenway and pining for something new and efficient. Put me down with the progressives. I'm looking forward to sitting in Son of Fenway, and sooner, rather than later." So sure was the Globe of the certainty of a new ballpark that they ran a special "Thanks for the memories" section featuring staffers' memories of Fenway.

In July of the following year, I Amtraked up to Boston to testify at a Massachusetts legislative hearing on whether the state would provide $100 million in public funds toward the now $664 million stadium project. After I and other witnesses waited through an entire day of city, state and Red Sox officials testifying on the "blight"-curing wonders of a new stadium (when one legislator questioned how the rapidly gentrifying Fenway neighborhood could be considered blighted, Mayor Tom Menino explained, "We don't mean 'blight' in the real sense of the word 'blight'"), I finally got to read my statement, which concluded with these lines:

State Sen. Dianne Wilkerson, who was chairing the hearing, listened intently, and strongly criticized the stadium plan. Barely 24 hours later, she and a majority of the legislature voted in favor of the Red Sox subsidy. As one of the few no voters remarked at the time: "It looks like a deal in progress."

Yet looks were deceiving, and so it came to pass that yesterday, Red Sox execs gathered in the .406 Club behind home plate to announce that "the Red Sox will remain at Fenway Park for the long term." Declared principal owner John Henry:

There will continue to be squabbles over future renovations, no doubt (some of the Sox' recent additions, like the Green Monster seats atop the left-field wall, have been cheered by fans; others, like increased ad signage, not so much), and of desired "improvements" to the neighborhood, like a new parking garage that Sox execs hinted might be paid for with city money. But with team president Larry Lucchino proclaiming that "this is a no-strings-attached commitment" to stay at Fenway indefinitely, the future of baseball's most historic park looks more secure than it has in decades.

Looking back, many factors conspired to save Fenway from what once looked like a near-certain wrecking ball. The $100 million in state funds were approved, but an additional $212 million in city money became stalled when city councillors questioned what if anything the public would be getting out of the deal. Bankers balked at lending the Sox $352 million for their private share of the stadium, reasoning that the team was making money hand over fist at a perennially sold-out Fenway, so it would be hard-pressed to improve on that much at a new park. And finally, when Henry bought the team from its former owners in late 2000, the Sox front office became markedly more interested in preserving what it had rather than lusting over what it didn't; one of Henry's first moves was to bring in architect Janet Marie Smith to see how the team could make the most of its current park.

It's hard to say if any of this would have mattered, though, were it not for the folks from Save Fenway Park! This thrown-together assemblage of preservationists, good-government advocates, and Fenway bleacherites lobbied the city council, held design symposiums for upgrading Fenway without doing damage to its historic character, and simultaneously pressured and encouraged Henry to find ways to cheaply improve upon the old, rather than take the usual route of demanding that taxpayers build anew. (The latter, incidentally, being a tack that Henry had tried, and failed, when he owned the Florida Marlins in the late 1990s.) Drawing from prior grassroots campaigns - I think it's fair to say that Detroit's Tiger Stadium Fan Club provided a major inspiration - SFP volunteers were a ubiquitous presence at Sox games, handing out newsletters, proffering petitions, and relentlessly asking the question: Isn't there a better way to do this?

When the news broke of yesterday's Red Sox announcement, I asked Dan Wilson, Save Fenway's longtime president, for a comment. He wrote back:

There should be celebrating across the country as well. Not only has a great ballpark - a great historic building - been saved for future generations, and the people of Massachusetts been saved $312 million. But also, it's been shown that with the combination of foresighted management, a handful of elected officials who won't roll over for a public-stadium steamroller, and organized community activists, the tide of history can be turned. In a world full of tragic tales - many of which appear in our book and on this website - it's inspiring to see a happy ending once in a while.

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports that Florida House tourism committee chair Nancy Detert has thrown her support, or at least her prognostication skills, behind a $60 million state subsidy for a Florida Marlins stadium: "I think they have a better chance this year," said Detert. "They're in essence being evicted and I think people understand the issue." See, up here in New York when you tell a prospective landlord that you're being evicted, they tend to see that as an excuse to raise the rent they're demanding, not lower it, figuring they have you over a barrel. Clearly I need to move to Florida. Or own a major sport franchise.

Anyway, not all the predictions were sunny for the Fish, as two paragraphs later house speaker Allan Bense said the length of the line for public subsidies makes it less likely that the Marlins will get their money this year: "We've got Grapefruit League issues. We've got NASCAR, the Marlins, the Orlando Magic. I'm glazing over. My own personal political instincts are that the more you have out there, the more mathematically difficult it is to pass."

MLB and Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos are reportedly on the verge of an agreement for how much compensation Angelos will get for the Washington Nationals moving in on his turf. (Of course, they were saying this last September, too.) When a deal is finally struck, it's likely to be a tremendous giveaway to Angelos, especially considering that he didn't have any legal territorial rights to D.C. in the first place - Baseball Prospectus subscribers can read my discussion of some of the likely ramifications in my hot-off-the-virtual-presses article at baseballprospectus.com.

In other Nats news, our old friend D.C. council chair Linda Cropp is back in the headlines, this time for claiming that her pet private-financing project was "misrepresented" by D.C. CFO Natwar Gandhi, and demanding that it get a second look from the city. Unfortunately, this would violate the Constitutional legal principle of no backsies.

The Indianapolis Colts stadium fight is starting to give the New York Jets squabble a run for its money for absurdist comedic value. In the latest twist, Indiana state senator Luke Kenley proposed raising money for the $687 million stadium plan by imposing a 1% tax on "services" in Marion County, including everything from legal fees to haircuts. Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson promptly dissed the plan as unfair to Indianapolitans, who Peterson would rather see pay for the stadium the old-fashioned way: by playing the slots.

Then the NFL Players Association - whose members have been heavily lobbying for a new Colts stadium - chimed in that it would oppose the new funding bill unless Kenley dropped a proposed 1% income-tax surcharge on player salaries, claiming it would prevent the team from being competitive in the free-agent market once the Colts "become known as the franchise with the special players' tax."

While admitting he might be forced to drop the player tax (which would only raise about half of one percent of the total stadium cost), Kenley did note of the union complaints: "It reminded me of when Latrell Sprewell turned down a three-year, $21 million contract extension and said, 'Man, I got a family to feed.' "

This morning, the New York city council hearing took on the issue of whether Mayor Michael Bloomberg can spend $300 million on a Jets stadium without needing council approval - the PILOT "slush fund" that I've discussed here ad nauseum. The result was probably best summed up by an interaction between council speaker Giff Miller and city budget director Mark Page that took place early in the hearing:

And that's pretty much the way it went: Page insisting that "We've always done it this way, and our lawyers say it's fine," while good-government groups cited city and state law to show that allowing the mayor to siphon off PILOT payments for pet projects is apparently illegal, no matter whether it's been done in the past. (Good Jobs New York presented excellent testimony on the relevant law; it should be available on their website on Wednesday. [UPDATE: It's there now.]) Page, who repeatedly rubbed his brow and generally came off like someone wishing he could join a witness-protection program, resisted even providing the council with a written opinion from the mayor's lawyers, resulting in this entertaining interchange with council finance committee chair David Weprin:

The PILOT slush fund issue now seems certain to end up in court, at which point maybe the mayor's lawyers will actually show up to explain themselves.

The second round of today's hearings, which I skipped, was on Cablevision's $11-million-a-year tax break on Madison Square Garden, which, as you'll recall, has dragged on for more than a decade after anyone expected it to, but which never became a hot political issue until Cablevision started lobbying to block the Jets stadium. According to those who were there, the hearing was long on councilmembers bashing Cablevision and short on actual proposals to just repeal the damn tax break, which would require an act of the state legislature; and as for anyone bringing up, say, the other $7.7 billion in property-tax breaks that the city hands out each year, fuhgeddaboutit.

Finally, in other New York stadium-subsidy news today, both Newsday and the Village Voice report that the city plans to provide more than $100 million in tax breaks and loan guarantees for a plan to redevelop the Bronx Terminal Market into a shopping mall and Olympic velodrome. The real-estate tycoon scheduled to receive this taxpayer windfall: Steven Ross, would-be NASCAR developer and former partner of deputy mayor for economic development Dan Doctoroff.

One day after final bids were placed for Manhattan's West Side rail yards, the New York Jets offer was revealed: $280 million for the land itself, plus another $440 million from a consortium of developers for excess air rights to the site. That's a significant increase from the team's original bid of $100 million (with it left up to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to decide how to sell the air rights), though still not as high as the $330 million that the MTA was asking for.

Cablevision has reportedly increased its original offer as well (from $350 million for the land plus $250 million to build a platform, with no excess air rights left over), though no details have been provided. With questions remaining over whether the air rights are even saleable (a new city council zoning vote would likely be required), it's going to be no easy matter for the MTA board to compare the two bids and pick a winner.

And as if things weren't complicated enough, Newsday reports that top execs of the company hired by the MTA to help vet the rail yard bids previously donated $100,000 to the city's Olympic committee. The MTA has reportedly launched an investigation.

I'm off to daylong city council hearings on the Jets stadium plan; more on all this when I return this evening.

The bids are in for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Manhattan rail yards, and there are no surprises: The three previously announced bidders - the New York Jets, Cablevision, and longshots TransGas - were the only three announced as accepted by the MTA. (Two other bids were rejected for, among other things, failing to include the required $25,000 deposit.) Details of the revised bids weren't released, so it's anybody's guess who'll come out the winner when the MTA board votes, possibly next Thursday.

It's a bit of a disappointing denouement to what was briefly expected to be a bidding war for the site, but given the zoning and other uncertainties facing all bidders not spelled J-E-T-S, it's hardly surprising. The final nail in the coffin was the political pressure brought to bear by the mayor on local developers: As one told the New York Times's Charles Bagli, "Right now, everyone's scared of bidding."

If you were wondering how much it costs to buy an Indiana legislator, apparently the price is one $40 ribeye steak. The Indianapolis Star reports that when NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue breezed through town to pump for Colts stadium subsidies last week, he took in a late-night dinner at the cleverly titled Mo's - A Place for Ribs with some special guests: Colts coach Tony Dungy, city stadium booster Fred Glass, and state legislators Brian Bosma, Jeff Espich, Robert Garton, Robert Meeks and Luke Kenley. The tab for the dinner, which a Mo's owner bragged was in a "completely private" room that hosts "a lot of celebrities," was paid by the Colts. What, no movie?

To be fair, we don't know if the steaks - or even the $7.75 "Joey's 'Ol Fashion' Old Fashioneds" - actually helped buy any stadium votes from Bosma & Co. But it certainly doesn't hurt, and it's not the kind of access that average citizens are likely to avail themselves of. If you doubt this, just try ringing up your state assemblyperson and asking them out for surf 'n' turf to discuss legislation you'd like passed - say, a $700 million extension to your sun porch - and wait for the reaction.

As if Detroit residents haven't suffered enough since Tigers (and Little Caesar's Pizza) owner Mike Ilitch built Comerica Park largely with their money, now comes word that the 950 seats being added for this summer's All-Star Game will be in part paid for by $400,000 in county money. "Having 950 more seats brings more people to downtown to buy food and beverages and shop," insists city economic development director Mulugetta Birru, which might be an argument if 1) there weren't already plenty of good seats available and 2) Detroit actually still had a downtown.

Birru went on to predict that the new seats "would generate $1.3 million in spillover downtown spending during the week of the All-Star Game" alone, according to the Detroit News, which noted that "that amounts to $1,368 of spending per spectator." I'm also pretty sure that Detroit doesn't have a 30% sales tax, meaning the new tax revenues from even $1.3 million would amount to just a tiny fraction of the county's cost.

Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. took to the rostrum yesterday to back a publicly funded stadium for Real Salt Lake with a barrage of rhetoric. "I'm here to encourage public-private partnerships," announced Huntsman, without saying exactly what public money he would spend, or how much. The governor also declared himself to be part of a "coalition of the willing" looking to work out a stadium deal, though, so maybe the stadium will be paid for by the kingdom of Tonga.

In its article on Huntsman's press conference, the Salt Lake Tribune passed along this curious nugget of information: "Major League Soccer requires its franchises to build soccer-specific stadiums because it says the venues enable teams to be profitable and they provide a better environment for players and fans." So without new stadiums, MLS teams can't be profitable? Does that mean that without public stadium funds, MLS teams can't turn a profit - so that the entire league owes its existence to taxpayer subsidies? Or that MLS teams could turn a profit even by paying for their own stadiums, but public subsidies enable them to turn bigger profits? The Tribune didn't say, but you're welcome to write to reporter Heather May and ask her yourself.

Just to show that not all stadium deals involve sports team owners sticking it to the public: The Chicago Cubs, after much haggling with the city, appear to be getting close to an agreement to add 1,790 seats to the Wrigley Field bleachers, and build a new five-story commercial and parking structure next to the 91-year-old ballpark. The Tribune Company, which owns the Cubs, isn't asking for city funds or tax breaks, and would pay $3.1 million for the city-owned land needed for the expansion. Not too bad for a company with a mandate to destroy journalism to boost dividends.

Sports team owners have gotten pretty good at getting new stadiums built, but aren't so hot at coming up with exit strategies for the old ones. The Astrodome, abandoned by the Houston Astros in 1999, is now under consideration for being turned into a luxury convention hotel. That is, unless it becomes a concert facility. Or gets torn down.

In Detroit, meanwhile, Tiger Stadium is likewise beginning its 6th year of vacancy, and still no one seems to know what to do with baseball's oldest ballpark (tied with Fenway). Or rather, as the Metro Times reports, one person has an idea, but can't get anywhere with it: Peter Comstock Riley, who wants to bring a minor-league baseball team to the historic park, offered to pay the city's maintenance costs on Tiger Stadium but was turned down. Riley charges that the city is kowtowing to politically powerful Tigers owner Mike Ilitch, who has been getting paid $420,000 a year in public money to maintain the derelict facility. Adds another local businessman who would like to bid on the maintenance contract, dealing with the city has "been like talking to a refrigerator. As soon as you mention Tiger Stadium, all you hear is that itís a waste of your time."

I don't know what I was thinking the other day when I implied that D.C.'s private-stadium-finance debates were almost over. No sooner had D.C. CFO Natwar Gandhi certified two plans to raise up-front cash for a Washington Nationals stadium by selling off future tax revenues to private entities than councilmembers were lambasting the deals are potentially more costly than just selling public bonds. Reports the Washington Post:

City Administrator Robert Bobb still must decide whether to officially recommend the financing plans, after which the council is free to approve, one, both or neither or them.

The Seattle Sonics have downgraded their public subsidy requests, from a $200 million renovation of the Key Arena to a $60 million bailout of the arena's construction debt, plus a $10 million practice facility. They also unveiled a new p.r. tack: channeling the spirit of Sally Struthers. "We embrace KeyArena, Seattle Center and Queen Anne as our home," Sonics CEO Wally Walker told Washington state lawmakers yesterday. "We'd love to call it our home for a long, long time to come. But to do so ... we need your help."

House Majority Leader Lynn Kessler remained unimpressed, replying: "I just can't imagine we would have the votes for that." It was not recorded whether Walker then offered that if legislators pledged now, they would receive an attractive canvas tote bag.

Okay, stadium-shenanigan fans, time for a current-events quiz. Which of the following New York Jets stadium news stories is too ridiculous to be true:

And the answer is: None of the above! All of these, remarkably, are true (though Jets execs deny the buying-Giants-Stadium one). With just two weeks before the MTA board vote that could either kill the Jets stadium or keep it on life support, expect even sillier headlines in the days to come - my money's on "Jets promise troops will come home from Iraq if stadium is approved."

For all those of you wondering what was up with those private-financing plans for the Washington Nationals stadium - hello? anyone? is this thing on? - D.C. CFO Natwar Gandhi has issued his verdict, approving two of the plans submitted earlier this year.

The winners: A proposal by Deutsche Bank to buy the city's future stadium-tax proceeds for a lump sum of $493 million; and the previously discussed offer by Cleveland's Gates Group to buy future stadium-district parking meter revenue, for $100 million. Neither of these, you'll note, provide private funds for the stadium; rather, they're both ways of (economic jargon warning!) capitalizing future revenue streams, which may or may not be good public policy (the city reduces its risk if revenues fall short, but misses out on the windfall if they're better than anticipated), but still mean the public is paying the same 80% share of the $500-million-plus stadium.

Meanwhile, the six other proposals, including the stadium-for-land swap pitched by developer Herb Miller that the Washington Post touted last week as "creating the most buzz in the D.C. government," got the heave-ho from Gandhi, who determined that they would have actually increased the city's bonding costs.

It's now up to the city council to pick one or both of the plans certified by Gandhi. "This should satisfy enough people so we can move on," one unnamed city government official told the Post - but you know what he really wanted to say.

You just gotta love the Indianapolis Star. My favorite comic relief paper is at it again today, with a headline reading "Grass roots press for convention center bill." This would seem a bit out of the ordinary - even in Indianapolis it's hard to picture outraged citizens taking to the streets to demand a larger, more expensive convention center - but I'll bite: Who exactly is leading this grass-roots campaign, Star reporter J.K. Wall?

In a related story, a group of North Carolina private citizens has launched a ground-up campaign in defense of cigarette smoking, armed only with a few hand-painted signs and millions of dollars for Congressional lobbyists.

All the kids are doing it! First it was the New York Giants owners dropping hints that they'd move in with the Jets in Manhattan if they couldn't get a new stadium in New Jersey (threats they later backed away from); now, the We Don't Need No Stinking City Name MetroStars might head for the big city if their plans for an $84 million soccer-only stadium in Harrison, N.J. fall through. The sticking point: New Jersey officials want team owner Anschutz Entertainment - which owns roughly every team in MLS - to promise to pay off the state's half of stadium costs if the league folds before the construction bonds are paid off. MLS season-ticket holders, be forewarned: The guy who owns half the teams in the sport isn't willing to bet $42 million that the league will still be around in 30 years.

Actually, to be fair, it wasn't Anschutz who was making the move-in-with-the-Jets threat, but rather MLS commissioner Don Garber, who told the AP: "This is not about leverage." Looking that up in my Big Book of Sports Owner Euphemisms, that's translates as, let's see, here we are: This is about leverage.

Whether you're an Oakland A's fan, an Oakland taxpayer, or just an opponent of sports subsidies, the headline this weekend certainly looked promising: "A's to spearhead park plans: Future owner acknowledges public funds scarce, tells local leaders he'll lead stadium drive." Incoming A's owner Lewis Wolff, long thought to be looking to move the team to his hometown of San Jose, instead declared that he not only was hoping to keep the team in Oakland, but would take over for the county in building a new stadium there: "Since we need the venue, we are the ones planning it," he told the Oakland Tribune. "That does not mean we will not ask for assistance ... but we understand the priorities and the resources available. There are a lot of higher priorities for them than the venue."

Sounds great, right? It certainly did to Alameda County Supervisor Gail Steele, who told the Trib: "I'm hoping that it is a sign that the stadium might be a private venture." That would certainly be an improvement over the last pitch by the outgoing A's owners, which was to split stadium costs 75/25, with the team picking up the small slice of the pie.

Unfortunately, as we've seen before, in the stadium-finance biz, "private" doesn't necessarily mean that taxpayers are off the hook. The most dramatic example: the Miami Heat, whose owners successfully got a new-arena referendum on the ballot in November 1996, only to face widespread opposition to the notion of "public financing" for a private project. With just days to go before the vote, the Heat owners announced a switch: Instead of the public building the arena and the team paying rent, the team would build the arena and the public would pay "operating costs" for the team to play there.

The actual effect on who would pay what, it turned out, was zero: The public would be putting up just as much money through the operating-cost subsidy (and forgone rent payments) as it would have if the city government had signed the arena checks. But the sleight-of-hand worked to mollify voters, and so the Heat now play in the brand-new American Airlines Arena, while the Miami Arena, barely a decade older, is set to become a shopping mall. While there's no telling whether Lewis Wolff is being sincere or pulling a similar bluff - for some reason he didn't include me in his MySpace friends list - it's a good reminder to apply a healthy dose of skepticism when reading, or writing, headlines about "private" stadium drives.

Okay, here's the scoop on that New York Giants-to-Manhattan rumor: Talks with New Jersey on a new $750 million stadium there - to be built with private money on public land - broke down Tuesday night, over two issues: The state's refusal to promise never to pass taxes on tickets and luxury box sales, and its insistence that the team sign off on the Xanadu entertainment complex already scheduled to be built near Giants Stadium. Giants exec Steven Tisch represented this as "moving the goal line," while New Jersey Gov. Richard Codey retorted that "I think the Giants are getting into a lather over nothing."

As for threats of the Giants moving to the Jets' proposed Manhattan stadium, Codey said, "They raised the specter," while Giants exec John Mara said, "We're going to consider all our options," which is about par for the course for team move threats at this stage of the game. Whether the Giants could pull it off is another question: The team's lease on Giants Stadium runs through 2026, and though they can get out of it if the state doesn't maintain the stadium in "state-of-the-art" condition, the state can simply meet those demands by renovating the current stadium - which was the original plan until the Giants decided they'd rather have a new one.

Meanwhile, New York has yet another sports entity sniffing around for a new facility: NASCAR, which wants to build a 660-acre raceway and mall on Staten Island. Among those that NASCAR lobbyist (and former Staten Island borough president) assembled for the initial discussion of the project, according to the Village Voice's Tom Robbins: Mayor Michael Bloomberg, deputy mayor Dan Doctoroff, and Doctoroff's former business partner Steve Ross, who is one of the real estate barons hoping to help develop the NASCAR project.

There's a very weird report, originating in today's Crain's New York, that Cablevision's board might vote to sell off the New York Knicks and Rangers and Madison Square Garden, in which case one prospective buyer could be - the New York Jets. Presumably the Jets would then move the two teams into their proposed Manhattan football stadium, though the history of basketball and hockey teams in 70,000-seat stadiums is not a happy one, and it would make it awful tricky to schedule all those conferences the stadium is supposed to be hosting. It's more likely that this is a tit-for-tat play for Cablevision's bid for the Jets' proposed stadium site; still, it's something I'll be keeping an eye on.

With friends like these, the Florida Marlins owners don't need enemies: Florida state rep David Simmons has introduced a bill to raise the state's standard tax break for sports teams from $60 million to $99 million, which could derail the Marlins' pitch for a state tax subsidy before it ever gets going. Simmons, who actually introduced the hike in the subsidy cap to benefit the Orlando Magic - who want the extra dough for the new arena they've been after, like, forever - says he'll change the figure if it threatens to harm the Marlins' stadium bid. Still, the mad scramble for subsidies by the Marlins, Magic, NASCAR, and possibly the Tampa Bay Devil Rays isn't going to make it easy to sneak through a small stadium subsidy without raising red flags: Even Gov. Jeb Bush noted astutely that "when you start adding this up, a million here and a million here starts to add up." (Though not as astutely as the original.)

Meanwhile, a new poll of Florida voters finds they're overwhelmingly opposed to tax breaks for the Marlins, by a more than four-to-one margin. Voters in South Florida, where the Marlins play, were among the strongest opponents of stadium subsidies - surpassed only by those in the Tampa area, who presumably know better now.

Okay, I now have the Nets MOUs with the city of New York and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (PDFs downloadable here and here respectively), and I can shed a little more light on what's in them:

As noted earlier, the only public cash involved would be $100 million apiece from the city and from the Empire State Development Corporation, the state agency that would be spearheading the arena project. (The ESDC, coincidentally or not, currently has its offices in Nets owner Bruce Ratner's mall across the street from the proposed arena site.) Interestingly, after the slush fund debacle with the proposed Jets stadium in Manhattan, the Nets MOU specifically says the $200 million would be "subject to appropriation," and that the ESDC money "is expressly contingent on a legislative appropriation (or bond authorization) approved by the Governor, State Senate and State Assembly." No end runs here, in other words.

That's the good news. The less good news is that the MOU also spells out that "all or a portion of the cost of constructing the arena" shall be financed by state tax-exempt bonds - which would be paid off by Ratner's payments in lieu of property taxes (PILOTs) on the site. This is the same deal that the Jets are hoping to get in Manhattan - and just like the Jets, Ratner would get to deduct the cost of the PILOTs from his land payments. (The MTA MOU says Ratner's price for the rail yard land would be fair market value, but "must take into account" the PILOT costs "prior to the fair market value determination.")

This is, quite simply, having your cake and eating it too: Ratner could put his money into the arena instead of paying property taxes, yet would only be assessed a land price as if he were paying property taxes. And just as I discussed vis-a-vis the Jets plan, this makes the city's forgone PILOT revenues an additional subsidy towards the arena plan. (Allowing Ratner to use tax-exempt bonds adds a small but non-trivial amount to the public subsidy as well.)

So what's the taxpayers' damage? The MOU doesn't include a figure for the diverted PILOTs, but we can make some guesses. The Jets are expecting to "pay" about $400 million worth (in present value) of PILOTs on their site, which is in pricier Manhattan, but is also a much smaller parcel - about 12 acres compared to the Brooklyn site's 21 acres. To be conservative, assume that Ratner could only finance $300 million worth of arena bonds with his PILOTs. Add in the $200 million in cash and the cost of using tax-exempt bonds (probably $25 million or so), and it's likely that in the end, the Nets project would cost New York taxpayers upwards of half a billion dollars.

That's a lot of cheesecake. It's a good thing the city council and state legislature are guaranteed to have a say on this deal, because it's going to take a lot of public hearings (hi, Assemblymember Brodsky!) to get to the bottom of this one.

It was overdue by months, but it's finally here: New Jersey Nets owner Bruce Ratner has agreed on a Memorandum of Understanding with the city and state of New York to build a new arena and housing/commercial development atop the Long Island Rail Road yards in Brooklyn.

An MOU, for those unfamiliar, is just a non-binding document spelling out the details of a deal - it's no guarantee that the Nets deal will ultimately happen. It does, however, finally provide a figure for the public costs of the proposed project: according to the New York Times, "the city and the state have agreed to provide about $100 million each for site preparation, new streets and utilities and environmental cleanup."

That would be a lot less than what was in Andrew Zimbalist's report for Ratner last year, which projected a total of $424 million in public construction and land-prep costs. If the Times story is accurate (I'm still trying to track down an actual copy of the MOU to read it myself), then it seems inconceivable that Ratner could pay for a $450 million arena, plus pay the MTA fair market value for the rail yards, and still make back his investment. The arena, then, would be a loss leader for him to get the rights to develop the land - which is potentially not a bad deal for the city, except that it puts the lie to claims that no one else would develop the site if not for Ratner.

Which brings up Shaya Boymelgreen, a developer who already is targeting some of the existing buildings sought by Ratner for demolition, to convert them into a hotel and office space. "I hope the city government realizes that this is not a desolate area," Henry Weinstein, who owns one of the buildings, told the Daily News. Since Ratner would likely need to use state eminent-domain powers to get the land for his project, and the Supreme Court is currently debating the legality of this, it's likely nothing will happen with the Nets arena plans until summer at the earliest.

In New York Jets stadium news, meanwhile, city controller William Thompson has said he plans to investigate the city's use of developer PILOT payments that Mayor Mike Bloomberg wants to use to pay the city's $300 million share of construction costs. Whether Thompson plans to audit current PILOT uses or proposed ones is a bit unclear - I'll update this item if I can dig up any more information.

Looks like St. Louis County's bond rating is safe after all: A Missouri judge ruled yesterday that last November's successful referendum barring public funding of sports facilities without a public vote can't be used to block payment on county stadium bonds for the Cardinals stadium that's already underway. The Coalition Against Public Funding, which backed the referendum, is likely to appeal.

The combustible combination of stadium politics and a New York mayoral race continue to, well, combust. Yesterday city council speaker Gifford Miller, a Democratic mayoral candidate who's running well behind longtime stadium foe Freddy Ferrer in the polls, stepped up his own opposition by introducing a bill to block the mayor from taking developer PILOT payments to the city and spending them on his proposed Jets stadium without council permission. Even several stadium supporters on the council endorsed Miller's bill, saying the mayor shouldn't be allowed to evade the normal budget process - making it more likely that Miller could get the bill passed over a certain mayoral veto.

The mayor's law department, meanwhile, issued a terse statement that in its opinion, not only is the mayor's PILOT end run legal, but any attempt by the council to block it would be illegal. The statement cited Section 20 of the state's General City Law, a long, general section that deals with the powers of cities to make contracts and spend money, but doesn't appear to say anything about what the mayor can or can't do without the council's say-so. (Though it does helpfully authorize the establishment of "sanitaria, dispensaries, public baths, and almshouses.") It's looking more and more likely that this is ultimately going to end up in court.

In even worse news for the mayor, state assembly speaker Sheldon Silver, who can effectively veto the stadium via his vote on the state's Public Authorities Control Board - yes, the New York state system of governance is completely ridiculous, I know - lambasted the Jets' West Side plan yet again yesterday, telling the Daily News: "The argument now is, build the stadium or lose the Olympics, and that is not a conceivable approach. You don't want to spend over a billion dollars of resources on speculation." (Of course, Silver also said he's mostly opposed to a West Side stadium because he's worried the accompanying sea of office towers would divert tenants from lower Manhattan, even though the commercial development is a separate piece of legislation that Silver has no say over - but whatever.)

Silver said he'd prefer building a stadium in Queens, which is an idea that's building public momentum, but right now has neither a site nor any financing plan. In any event, though, it looks increasingly likely that nothing's going to move on the Jets stadium until July at the earliest, which should keep the city's plans for new homes for the Nets and Yankees on hold until then as well. If he doesn't win re-election, Bloomberg may end up running out of time to get any of these deals done before he's asked to go back to being a plain old everyday billionaire.

The good news for the owners of the Florida Marlins: They've secured the approval of the city of Miami and Miami-Dade County for their $420 million stadium plan, a little over half of which would be paid for with public money. The not-as-good news: This isn't really anything new, as the city and county already approved the deal once last May. The worse news: State senate president Tom Lee said the team's demands for $60 million in state money over 30 years would likely be "a tough sell in the legislature," noting that the Marlins' subsidy proposal set off a deluge of copycat requests from other local sports entities: "We've gotten a call from [Tampa Bay Devil Rays owner] Vince Naimoli, we've gotten a call from NASCAR, from the [Orlando] Magic - the line's getting long."

Asked by the Tampa Tribune what Naimoli wanted out of the state, given that his lease on Tropicana Field runs through the year 2027, Lee responded cryptically: "There might be a point in the future where they too had an issue."

The New York Daily News reports that Mayor Michael Bloomberg is sticking to his guns on his Manhattan Jets stadium dreams, telling reporters: "If you're against the stadium, you're against the Olympics." The New York Post reports that Bloomberg for the first time said he'd "consider" siting a Olympic stadium in Queens instead. Bluuuh?

For the real story - regardless of where Bloomberg's mouth is at today, the Jets stadium plan is piling up obstacles like Billy Joel on a driver's ed course - you'll have to turn to a paper like the Village Voice, and I don't say that just because they employ me to write about it.

One of my most frequently asked questions (which will go in the Field of Schemes FAQ, if I ever get time to do one) is: Why do taxpayers support spending public money on sports facilities, if it's such a waste? To which I invariably answer: What planet have you been living on?

It's practically a truism of the stadium game that until a team owner launches a big-money ad campaign, the public will largely be opposed to sports subsidies. (I vividly remember, at the stadium finance seminar we recounted in the book, a team exec explaining that he didn't mind voter referendums because you could generally guarantee a win if you spent enough money.) The latest example is Florida, where not only do more than 80% of voters say they're opposed to spending public funds on new homes for the Florida Marlins and Orlando Magic, but 70% of self-proclaimed Marlins fans don't want their tax dollars handed over to the team. That Carlos Delgado signing really might not have been the smartest p.r. move during a stadium campaign.

Undeterred, Marlins poobah David Samson insisted that the $60 million in state funds he's asking for aren't really public money at all, but rather a "rebate" on taxes the team would be collecting from fans. As economist Rod Fort is fond of saying, if I tried that argument, men with shiny shoes would come knocking on my door...

There haven't been any recent polls in Washington state that I've seen, but the Seattle Sonics' demands for a publicly funded $205 million expansion of Key Arena aren't any too popular in the state capitol, where lawmakers yesterday wondered aloud where the Sonics get off asking for money when the state's in a cash crunch. "We've got more desperate needs than KeyArena," said state senator Ken Jacobsen, who recently introduced a bill dedicating the tax streams sought by the Sonics to rebuild a major Seattle viaduct instead. "When you're sitting down here looking at $50 billion in unmet transportation needs, we're going to have to forgo the luxuries for a bit."

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...