April 09, 2005

Weekend update

Various straggling news items from around the stadium world:

• New York state senate leader Joe Bruno echoed his assembly counterpart Sheldon Silver yesterday, saying he sees no reason to decide on the Jets' $2 billion stadium plan before the Olympic vote in July. So much for momentum.
• In tomorrow's New York Times, Charles Bagli gives a rundown of the job-creation outlook for the Jets stadium. The upshot: "Taxpayers would contribute at least $600 million toward the cost of what the Jets are calling the New York Sports and Convention Center. That would translate into a subsidy of $86,070 per job if the Jets projections are correct, or more than $190,000 per job if the state is right." Bagli doesn't provide perspective of how much a good job-creation program should cost, but in case you missed it, I did almost a year ago. (Key word: craptacular.)
• The Jets aren't the only New York state team having a new stadium discussed for them - actually, they're not even a New York state team, come to think of it. Anyway, this week a Buffalo councilmember declared that "it's time for us to be proactive about the Buffalo Bills," given all the downtown redevelopment going on in Buffalo. (By this he meant, I kid you not, that there's a hot new bass-fishing store.) No indication of how serious the proposal is, or how it'd be paid for, but it can't be a good sign when your hometown paper uses the words "pipe dream" to describe your proposal.
• Washington, D.C. could be on the verge of a naming-rights deal for RFK Stadium, with the Washington Post reporting that the front-runner is the National Guard, which would likely rename the stadium "National Guard Field at RFK." Is it just me, or does this bring up the wrong image entirely?

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