October 31, 2005

Sonics prepare scare for legislature

The Seattle SuperSonics are still pushing for a state-financed expansion of KeyArena, and with the Washington state legislature less than eager to take up the issue in its upcoming session, the team is turning up the heat. "We'll be in a very fast-track mode to find another arena if it doesn't work out," Sonics VP Terry McLaughlin told the Puget Sound Business Journal. "If we can't see that there's the possibility of redevelopment of KeyArena, we'll be forced to look at other alternatives, and other alternatives may not be local."

October 28, 2005

Shiver me timbers!

The Toronto city council has approved a $72 million soccer stadium for Exhibition Place, clearing the last major hurdle for Canada's first MLS expansion franchise. The cost breakdown: $9.8 million in cash and $10 million in land from the city; $8 million from the province of Ontario; $27 million from the federal government; $10 million from naming rights; and $8 million, plus any additional cost overruns, from Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, which will own the soccer team and run the place. The deal includes a profit-sharing arrangement that could help the city recoup some of its costs, but critics are still wary of putting so much public money into the project - as councillor Howard Moscoe put it, "I'm leery about public-private projects which inevitably become public-pirate projects."

October 27, 2005

Jags: Give us ad money, or give us moving vans

The Jacksonville Jaguars are threatening to leave town unless the city gives them to right to sell ad space during college football games at Alltel Stadium. I don't have much to add to that, but Jaguars VP Bill Prescott certainly does:

"We're not interested in going. We're interested in making it. In 10 years, this is going to be a great NFL market. We want to bridge the gap, but if the city intends to not allow us to generate additional revenue and to take revenue away that we're using today, we're not going to be able to bridge the gap. The indications we're getting is that they want us to move. If they want us to move, just ask. ... If you're cutting off our revenue source, any reasonable person would sit here and say, 'What are they trying to tell you?' They're trying to tell you to move."

In case you didn't get the message, the Jaguars' official team website has this headline for you: "You should be scared." Frankly, I preferred the original.

If you sell it, he will pay

Franklin Haney, a developer bidding to buy the Washington Nationals, has come up with an interesting way to push his way to the head of the line: offer to pay all construction cost overruns on the team's new stadium. Only one problem: MLB has already decided who the frontrunners are for getting the team, and it ain't this guy. Also, MLB isn't paying for cost overruns to begin with, so this isn't much of an inducement to pick Haney. Also also, the D.C. mayor's office insists that it can build "a real nice stadium" for the original $535 million estimate (give or take $50 million or so for additional land costs). Okay, so more than one problem, then.

If you pay it, they will build

Here's a new one: The class-A Southwest Michigan Devil Rays - now there's a name that trips off the tongue, huh? - have promised to build a new stadium in Battle Creek and stay put for the long haul, but only if 1,800 fans pledge to buy season tickets at the new place. The current season-ticket base? About 300. It's nice to have dreams.

If you lived here, you'd be mad by now

A New York Observer poll of city voters - that's all it says, "voters," so no idea if this is likely voters or registered voters or what - finds that 39% back Bruce Ratner's planned Brooklyn Nets arena, 23% oppose it, and a whopping 38% are undecided. (Both the support and opposition numbers went up once pollsters gave arguments for and against the plan, but the Observer, once again, was vague on the details.) Opponents of the plan criticized the poll for lowballing public cost estimates (the poll said $200 million, I have $451 million, Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn says $506 million), and suggested that support is mostly coming from New Yorkers who live far from the proposed site; the New York Times has reported that Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently told an arena opponent at a Brooklyn greenmarket: "If I lived here, maybe I wouldnít like it either."

October 26, 2005

Does it come with a warranty?

MLB and the District of Columbia may have agreed who'll pay a new Washington Nationals stadium, but they still haven't signed a lease for the place, scheduled to open in 2008 or so. The latest holdup: MLB wants a provision that the team would get out of paying rent in the event it had to relocate temporarily following an act of terrorism or a natural disaster. Realistically, what the two sides are actually battling over is who'd pay the insurance premiums to safeguard against such an occurrence; the Washington Times reports that "there is pressure on all sides" to get the lease finalized before MLB's mid-November owners' meetings, when the league hopes to vote on a new owner for the league-owned Nats.

October 25, 2005

In the news

Around the stadium and arena world on a blustery Tuesday:

• James Traficant may have been banished from Congress, but his dubious deeds live on. Among them: a $45 million arena in Youngstown, Ohio that city officials say they hope to break even on - but only because three-quarters of the cost was borne by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. "My original reaction was 'It's great the congressman did that, but is there any possibility we could use the money for business and economic development?'" city finance director David Bozanich told the Youngstown Vindicator. "If you had to choose between job creation and an entertainment facility, you'd choose job creation because the city needs that more."
• The St. Louis Cardinals are opening their new stadium next spring, and they're celebrating by cutting back on free tickets for A-average students. With higher demand expected at the new stadium, the Cards say they'll limit high schoolers to two tickets apiece instead of four, and eliminate middle schoolers entirely, instead directing them to a free-ticket deal for schools that affiliate with the Newspapers In Education program, which encourages teachers to use newspapers in the classroom. Sample NIE website text: "These resources help build repeat traffic to NIE websites and provide greater exposure to your programs, special offers." English teachers presumably need not apply.
• The Indianapolis Colts stadium tax controversy refuses to die: The money may be flowing in, but WISH-TV reports that collecting it is so complicated that one county may have to spend as much on new employees as it brings in in tax money. "I don't know that we'll make any profit. Hopefully it will pay for itself," said Johnson County treasurer Rita Sievertson.
• Real Salt Lake may not be able to use state parking-garage money to buy land for its stadium after all: Turns out state law prohibits the money from being used for a partly privately owned facility. Team owner Dave Checketts says he'll reveal his full financing plan by early in 2006; I can hardly wait.
• Los Angeles city officials are downplaying the possibility of luring the Saints from New Orleans. "We don't think there's a time or a place for us to ever bring up this subject," L.A. Coliseum GM Pat Lynch told the Los Angeles Times; added Coliseum Commission president Bill Chadwick: "It clearly would be bad form for the commission to reach out to New Orleans - or to anyone in distress." Yeah, who would do something like that?

D.C. to begin stadium evictions

Fire up the moving vans: The District of Columbia has started eminent domain proceedings against 23 property owners on the site targeted for the new Washington Nationals stadium. (Only one of the 23 has agreed to sell.) "What this means for property owners, they then have 20 days to dispute the District's claim for the condemnation," Tracy Hughes of the city attorney general's office told the local NBC affiliate. "The declaration of taking essentially gives property owners notice that they then have 90 days to vacate the property." Under eminent domain rules, property owners can challenge the payment being offered, but not the eviction - thanks, Supreme Court!

October 24, 2005

Water, water everywhere

The state of Indiana has agreed to grant the Indianapolis Colts a waiver to equip their new stadium with only half as many drinking fountains as required by law. While state law allows for variances to avoid "undue hardship," stadium officials says that's not the problem here, but rather that "the Indiana Stadium has an economic interest in providing beverages for sale." In other words, be prepared to shell out for bottled water - or soda or beer - if you want to stay hydrated at a Colts game. If you don't like it, well, you can always try calling in U.N. peacekeepers.

October 23, 2005

How about a nice game of blackmail?

Do you think Bud Selig has some sort of post-hypnotic suggestion that makes him shake down cities for new stadiums whenever he sees a baseball game? Before Game 1 of the World Series last night, Selig made sure to take the time to stump for a Minnesota Twins stadium deal, waving the oblique move threat flag that he's become so adept at: "They're trying to convince everybody that, look, they've made a deal with Hennepin County, and they believe that this is really the time," Selig told reporters. "And they don't know what comes after this if this fails. ... Let's just concentrate on getting this done so we don't have to consider the alternative." Any minute now, I can hear it: I have here a list of 207 cities that are known Twins relocation sites...

October 20, 2005

Nagin: Hands off our team (name)

New Orleans Mayor Ray "No more goddamn press conferences!" Nagin is, as you might expect, hopping mad at Saints owner Tom Benson for sending signs he's about to take his team and go home. "We want our Saints, we may not want the owner back," Nagin told the Associated Press yesterday. "I'm ready to go to the NFL and to [commissioner Paul] Tagliabue and say, 'Give us the Cleveland plan.' Whatever the Saints want to do, you let them leave, but they can't take our logo, they can't take our name, and you give us a promise to give us a franchise when this city's back." This is indeed the deal the NFL gave to Cleveland when the original Browns left for Baltimore, but Nagin left out one important details: Cleveland had to agree to build a $333 million stadium with public money in order to get the NFL to cough up its expansion team.

Meanwhile, folks in and out of New Orleans are starting to notice that it's a bit, shall we say, unseemly to be talking about bribing the Saints to move when New Orleans is still waist deep in the Big Muddy. Today's column by my comrade Carlos Guerra of the San Antonio Express-News has a sampling of outraged letters, including one from a displaced New Orleanian now in Austin: "You discussed the economic reasons why S.A. shouldn't woo the Saints, but are Texans too blind to see the overwhelming moral reasons? We are down and more vulnerable than ever; Tom Benson moving the Saints is akin to stealing a dead man's wallet." Maybe that can become the official motto of the Saints fan diaspora.

October 19, 2005

Nets arena gets noisy welcome

New York state held its environmental impact statement scoping hearing for the proposed Brooklyn Nets project last night, and, as is becoming a tradition for projects in the Mayor Michael Bloomberg administration, a whole lot of yelling ensued. (To be fair, a whole lot of yelling will ensue if you gather any ten New Yorkers together in one place.) I couldn't make the meeting, but according to the New York Times reporter who did, "opponents appeared to outnumber supporters in number, intensity and volume." For much more, including amusing tales of local pols trying to support and oppose the plan at the same time, check out Norman Oder's excruciatingly detailed report on his TimesRatnerReport blog.

Kings arena baaaaaaack

Where's a wooden stake when you need one? Talk of a new Sacramento Kings arena is on the rise once more, this time with a screwy money-laundering scheme that would involve financing a new arena with the help of developers, who would in turn be granted permission to develop land outside the city's urban services boundary. (Urban growth boundaries, for those unfamiliar, are based on the principle that it's nuts for cities to subsidize sprawl by providing water, sewer, and electrical hookups to new development out in the hinterlands.)

And while Kings owners Joe and Gavin Maloof haven't played the move-threat card yet, that doesn't mean the local newspaper isn't happy to do it for them: "When are they planning to leave if a new arena doesn't magically appear?" asks a Sacramento Bee editorial. "How much time does Sacramento have to come up with an arena financing package? And to come up with that package, precisely how much money is the family willing to contribute to build a $400 million sports palace?" How much money are you willing to put up to pay for your own home - can I get the Sacramento Bee to be my mortgage broker, please?

No New Orleans-lovers wanted

If you're still wondering whether Saints owner Tom Benson plans on bolting New Orleans as soon as possible - or at the very least, using the threat of a move to spark a bidding war for his team's services - you might want to have a chat with Arnold Fielkow. On Monday morning, Fielkow was the Saints' top exec, a good enough pal to Benson to have served as an usher at his boss' wedding. By Monday afternoon, he'd been summarily dismissed. What happened? Fielkow has his suspicions, telling the New Orleans Times-Picayune: "If I was terminated because of my beliefs that the Saints should be back in New Orleans and be part of the city's rebuilding effort, then I can live with that." This is only going to get uglier.

Never mind, we checked the sofa cushions

Remember that Indianapolis Colts stadium tax shortfall? Well, never mind - turns out that the first month's restaurant-tax collections were right on target after all. That's good for the future finances of the state of Indiana - except inasmuch as it means that the people running the state of Indiana can't do math.

October 18, 2005

Saints offers come marching in

New Orleans is finally dry, which apparently means it's open season on its sports teams. On Sunday, San Antonio Mayor Phil Hardberger said he plans to open talks with Saints owner Tom Benson after the season to "have the team stay here permanently." The Saints are playing three home games at San Antonio's Alamodome this season, and there's no sign of whether the New Orleans Superdome will ve ready for play in 2006 - or if it is, whether anyone will still live there to go to games.

The big question, meanwhile - after "How do you sleep at night when you're trying to steal a team from a city that's been struck with disaster?" - is how much boodle San Antonio will be expected to cough up in order to lure the Saints. The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports that Texas Governor Rick Perry said he's willing to consider spending state money on a $200 million upgrade of the Alamodome; state senator Jeff Wentworth, meanwhile, has suggested tapping the $146 million remaining in the state's economic development fund - and all this before Benson has even asked for anything specific. That's not the kind of hardball negotiating that gets the best bang for the public buck, according to, well, me.

Cropp to block stadium debate

D.C. council chair Linda Cropp confirmed today that she will block all but technical amendments to the reworked Nationals stadium bill, seemingly putting an end to talk of a council revolt to move the stadium to a cheaper site. Now all the city needs to do is agree with MLB on a lease deal for the new stadium - D.C. wants a $6 million guaranteed rent, MLB wants to them to go to hell - and figure out whether to approve the controversial sale of future stadium revenues to Deutsche Bank to help pay off a share of construction costs, and this show might finally get on the road. Or not.

October 17, 2005

Colts tax coming up short

Money from Indiana's new restaurant tax surcharge to fund an Indianapolis Colts stadium is starting to flow into state coffers - and there doesn't appear to be enough of it. The first month's collection was $164,376, about half of what was anticipated, and a pace that would leave the project with a $1.5 million a year shortfall. State officials say that businesses neglecting to pay the new tax may be the problem, but as we've seen before, funding projects with projected tax revenues that then fall short can be a real problem.

October 16, 2005

Nats stadium debate: It's back!

Well, now, isn't this interesting: Thanks to errors in last December's rushed Washington Nationals stadium bill - among other things, some tax money was pledged to two different purposes at once - the legislation is heading back to the D.C. council for amendments, which could lead to a reopening of debates on the project's financing (80% public) and cost ($581 million and counting). Two of the new councilmembers who took office in January after the stadium vote, Kwame Brown and Vincent Gray, have expressed in interest in reopening discussion of building on a cheaper site near the Nats' current home of RFK Stadium; while council chair Linda Cropp may try to block such a move on procedural grounds, MLB is apparently concerned enough to have polled prospective Nats buyers as to whether they would still bid as much for the team if the stadium site were shifted. It could be weeks or months before this is resolved, so stay tuned.

October 14, 2005

NYC: Steinbrenner needs bathroom break

New York City officials in charge of the Yankees stadium plan went up to the Bronx for a public hearing last night, and this one went about like the last one did. At a meeting called by Bronx Community Board 4's economic development committee, NYC Economic Development Corporation vice-president Hardy Adasko and parks department project manager Paul Ersboll were peppered by outraged questions from local residents, replying with responses that ranged from the opaque to the bizarre: Asked what the city would be gaining for its $200-300 million expense, Adasko said, "the city considers the whole deal a major net benefit - I don't have the numbers"; on why the city can't spend its own money to refurbish Bronx parkland without the Yankees project, he called the stadium "an inducement for the city to reinvest in parks"; and on why the Yankees can't stay at a refurbished Yankee Stadium, Adasko insisted it would be impossible to provide "an adequate number of ladies' rooms," drawing a burst of incredulous laughter from the (mostly female) crowd.

"You said 'If we work together' - we don't want to work with you to make a new Yankee stadium," Greg Bell of Bronx Voices for Equal Inclusion told Adasko, to resounding applause. "Steinbrenner can put that park anywhere he wants to. People that are not in Christ like I am would tell him where to put it - but I'm not trying to go there."

The full community board could meet to discuss the project as soon as next month. (The board has an advisory vote on local land-use issues; the real battle is likely to come next spring, when the city council takes up final approval of the project.) Meanwhile, the community group Save Our Parks has begun circulating a petition to get the city council and state legislature to stop the use of Macombs Dam and Mullaly Parks for the Yankees project.

October 13, 2005

Going down with the ship

Not that the Minnesota Vikings needed more troubles for their stadium campaign - the state legislature is showing little enthusiasm for the plan, and a Tuesday night hearing on their sales-tax-hike plan turned into a chorus of condemnation from local residents - but they're getting it anyway, and from an unexpected direction. Allegations that several Vikings players turned a boat cruise on a local lake into a drunken sex party could be the final nail in the Vikes' stadium coffin, say some political analysts: "They're at the back of the line and walking backwards," Carleton College political science professor Stephen Schier told the St. Paul Pioneer Press. "When you think of supplicants for public money, you don't think of yacht orgy-ists as having a good argument."

Soccer, soccer everywhere

It's been a busy couple of days in soccerland. Yesterday, Real Salt Lake owner Dave Checketts revealed he's decided on his MLS team's new home: Sandy, a Salt Lake City suburb. As for how his proposed $65 million soccer stadium would be paid for, Checketts still isn't saying - though apparently part of it will involve siphoning off state money intended for a parking garage.

In Toronto, meanwhile, MLS commissioner Don Garber has turned up the heat on city officials, setting a deadline of October 31 for a stadium deal to be in place: "After this deadline, the deal is off the table and an expansion franchise would be dead." What's magic about October 31? MLS wants to finalize its expansion plans, certainly, but mostly this is about putting pressure on local officials by establishing an arbitrary drop-dead date - the "two-minute warning," as we dubbed it in Field of Schemes. (Though at this point I'm tempted to rename it The Samson Maneuver.) At least one Toronto newspaper columnist thinks the city should just call Garber's bluff.

Not to be left out, the Vancouver Whitecaps, who play in the top minor soccer league division, are preparing to issue plans for their own 15,000-seat stadium. What will it cost, and who will pay for it? "We're in the early stages - we don't know yet," a team official told the Vancouver Sun.

Finally, NPR's Only A Game will be airing a segment on plans for a new Chicago Fire stadium in suburban Bridgeview on this Saturday's show; I know this because they interviewed me for the segment. Check your local listings for air times, or listen in on the show's website.

October 11, 2005

Forget all your troubles, forget all your cares, and go...

Backers of a downtown stadium for the Kansas City Royals haven't given up, issuing a new plan today to propose a $357 million stadium plan. Also part of the package: A 47-page Powerpoint presentation (PDF file here) that finally, on page 43, gets around to describing its "conceptual financing plan": $315 million in public funding for a Royals stadium (including general city funds, a sales-tax hike, and tax increment financing), and upwards of $258 million - the actual figure is given as "To Be Determined" - for renovations to the Chiefs' Arrowhead stadium. Dan Barrett of Barrett Sports Group LLC, the outfit behind the press conference (and consulting-speak writers extraordinaire), projected $21.5 million in annual added profits for the Royals under the plan - which is hardly surprising, given they'd be paying only 11% of the costs.

MN stadiums really most sincerely dead?

The Strib headline pretty much says it all - "Stadium special session looks doomed" - but here's the gory (to Minnesota Twins and Vikings stadium backers) details:

House Majority Leader Erik Paulsen responded with an unambiguous "Noí" Tuesday to Gov. Tim Pawlenty's query about whether legislators want a special session this fall.

Paulsen's response could dim any chance of the legislature approving new sports stadium projects in the near future. Paulsen said the consensus of the Republican House majority, and the public, is that "a special session for stadiums or any other non-emergency issues is the wrong idea at the wrong time."