December 02, 2005
Fighting Fish!
Okay, I don't know what got into Miami city manager Joe Arriola on his vacation, but it sure is entertaining. After prematurely announcing the demise of the Orange Bowl, Arriola took on the Florida Marlins and their president, David Samson, over the team's recent threat to leave town after failing to extract sufficient stadium subsidies. The highlights of Arriola and Samson's dueling press statements, taken brutally out of context and from various sources:
Arriola: "It's an absolute, outright lie [that the Marlins have offered to spend $212 million towards a stadium]. He's putting $30 million in the deal, end of story. ... If I have an apartment building and you come to rent from me, what is that? Is that a contribution to my profit, a contribution to my mortgage? Nothing. What I do with the money is beside the point. ... If Jeffrey Loria would have sent a professional to do this deal, it would have been a lot easier. The problem is he sent somebody who's never done this deal, who's never done a deal in his life. ... I don't want to say it's a personality conflict. I deal with all kinds of personalities all day long. It has nothing to do with personality. Incompetence is a much better word. ... We view Jeffrey and David truly as carpetbaggers. They came with a bag of debt from Montreal. They're not local people. ... No local investor in their right mind would invest with them because of the terms that they wanted. ... As long as we have a little boy doing a man's job, the stadium is not going to happen in this city.''Samson: "It is very sad to me that an appointed city official finds it necessary to continue to comment on my physical attributes. ... The price of the project went up because his inability to do a deal led to a delayed opening, which caused increased construction costs, which we had to cover because no one else would. It's not an overrun. Again, it shows his relative inexperience in this arena. By definition, there is no such thing as an overrun until a project is being built. He ought to be familiar with that because the Performing Arts Center has overruns. ... Everything I know about negotiating with bully tactics I learned from [Arriola]. ... It's disappointing that the city would hold up a sign during the World Series parade that said, 'If we build it, will you come?' and it was merely an election strategy and not a desire to listen to what constituents really want."
Ding! Okay, both of you, back to your corners. Samson actually wins this one on points - of course rent payments should count as a contribution to paying off construction debt, though things like maintenance costs should count as a liability, too - but logic isn't the point here, pinning blame is. (Along which lines, the Toronto Star's Richard Griffin wonders: "Why is it that wherever [Jeffrey] Loria goes, teams threaten to move?")
And speaking of moving, Samson insists that he's been contacted by representatives of seven cities looking to be the Marlins' new home, but won't say which ones they are. Okay, we can play that game: We know Portland and New Jersey, and Las Vegas is a fair bet... San Juan, Monterrey, and Norfolk were all runners-up in the Montreal Expos sweepstakes, though Norfolk would never get MLB approval with the Nationals in D.C.... San Antonio? Hartford? Do boroughs count?
Having lived in Florida for 21 years, I can tell you the Marlins' problem isn't their stadium. The problem is we have way better things to do all summer than sit at 81 baseball games. Golf, the beach, nightlife...there is always something to do other than to pay a lot of $ to watch baseball. The Marlins need Miami a lot more than Miami will ever need the Marlins.
Posted by Mase on December 2, 2005 03:42 PM
The comment by Mase shows he/she has been out in the sun too long. Call it a sol-ipsism: the lack of interest of ONE is NOT representative of a 3-county metropolitan area of 5 million people.
Posted by rfdz on December 2, 2005 04:25 PM
Boy, Sampson and Arriola sure are fun to listen to - let's hope this stadium saga continues indefinitely - these guys are a hoot!
Posted by Jonathan Judd on December 2, 2005 05:37 PM
Popcorn! Getcher popcorn!
Posted by Neil on December 2, 2005 05:48 PM
The alleged existence of Marlins fans aside, though, Florida does seem to have some special, uh, issues around supporting summer sports leagues: Neither the Marlins nor the D-Rays have ever drawn well, and the two WNBA and two MLS franchises all folded. Maybe Miami would do better with a Venezuelan Winter League franchise.
Posted by Neil on December 2, 2005 05:59 PM
I wouldn't say it is a lack of interest in Marlins baseball, it is just with so many other options that it is tough to get people to show up in large numbers for Marlins games (and Rays games for that matter). Would a new stadium fix that? I just don't think so.
Posted by Mase on December 2, 2005 06:34 PM
Summer sports and FLorida don't add up too well. Hopefully when MLS switches to a August through May schedule in a few years, Miami FC will be able to rejoin MLS.
Posted by Bertell Ollman on December 3, 2005 04:06 PM
Summer sports and FLorida don't add up too well. Hopefully when MLS switches to a August through May schedule in a few years, Miami FC will be able to rejoin MLS.
Posted by Bertell Ollman on December 3, 2005 04:09 PM
I hope Hartford is in the running. We are the largest media market in the nation without major league sports. In addition, we have the highest per capita income in the nation. However, Hartford is not likely to offer any deal similar to what Kraft was offered to move the Patriots.
Posted by Steve on December 3, 2005 06:36 PM
I hope Hartford is in the running. We are the largest media market in the nation without major league sports. In addition, we have the highest per capita income in the nation. However, Hartford is not likely to offer any deal similar to what Kraft was offered to move the Patriots.
Posted by Steve on December 3, 2005 07:23 PM
Hartford would actually be an interesting way of cutting into the Yanks', Mets', and Red Sox' huge edge in revenue without technically violating anyone's territorial rights. Is that guy still around who wanted to build a stadium next to I-91? Or better yet, the other guy who wanted to build an Ebbets Field replica in Hartford?
Posted by Neil on December 3, 2005 09:16 PM
I'm from from New Haven, but I'd say that the Nutmeg State had their fill of pro sports with the Whalers and the Giants / Jets back in the Yale Bowl days of the 1970s.
The Patriots moving to Hartford was a total charade, Kraft signed an agreement that simply gave Hartford the exclusive right to negotiate with the Pats during a small window of time, that's all. You'd have a better chance of The Pope comissioning an Ebbets Field replica in Rome than you would somebody in Hartford.
I'd love to see the Hartford Wolfpack promoted from the AHL to the NHL. Wouldn't that be something?
Posted by Bertell Ollman on December 4, 2005 01:16 AM
The WolfPack are terrible. Hartford would be a great major league market. I think an NL team in Hartford would draw fans from Boston and NY. The key is that Hartford has more disposable income than any other market and does not have major pro sports competition. Further, it is a larger media market than other MLB teams in Cincy and KC to name a couple.
Posted by Steve on December 5, 2005 09:20 PM
The Hartford Wolfpack are terrible?!! Oh really?
They made the playoffs every year of their existance and it only took them 3 years to win the championship. If that's your definition of terrible, then I'm sure a lot teams in the AHL wish they were just as terrible.
Posted by Buster Hyman on January 7, 2006 11:33 PM
yeah the wolfpack are terrible. It sucks that they're leaving after this season. now that I think about it, what happens next season since Hartford was going to host the AHL all-star game?
Posted by Mike on January 13, 2006 04:45 PM