Field of Schemes

November 23, 2005

Marlins held hostage: Day Two

One day after Florida Marlins chief executive son-in-law David Samson declared his team's future home to be up for grabs, all the usual suspects and then some have begun throwing their hats in the ring:

Oregon Sports Authority President Drew Mahalic called the Marlins while Samson's press conference was still underway to, as Mahalic put it, "begin a relationship." Portland has no major-league ready stadium, however, and only a $150 million state financing bill that relies on dubious math.
New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority chair George Zoffinger called Samson to invite him to move to an as-yet-unbuilt stadium in the Meadowlands sports complex. This would only be opposed by the New York Giants, Jets, Yankees, Mets and all of their lawyers. Understated Zoffinger: "The trick is getting past all the people who insist you can't do this stuff."
A spokesperson for Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that the mayor is "aware of the situation. He's received a few phone calls, none from the Marlins, and he's playing it by ear." Hey, just like me!

Finally, it wouldn't be a Marlins story without a bizarro David Samson quote, and our pal has obliged once again, telling ESPN's Jayson Stark: "It's like the great Billy Crystal line from 'Princess Bride.' It's mostly dead. And by mostly dead, that means it's somewhat alive. So there are some situations that are still percolating. But you need a stethoscope to hear the heartbeat, because it's so faint."

Samson smartly omitted the next part of the quote: "With all dead there's usually only one thing you can do: Go through his clothes and look for loose change."

Moreno: Maybe we'll move too! Yeah!

Prepare your mind to be boggled: Angels owner Arte Moreno is now saying that if the city of Anaheim persists in suing him for changing the team name to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, he might just pick up and move the ballclub. Among Moreno's statements to the L.A. Times:

"When does it get to a point where Anaheim understands what we're doing for the community? Anaheim has had the luxury of having a baseball team. There's 30 of them. They're doing everything they can to run us out. ... When does it get to a point where the city of Anaheim isn't trying to intimidate the owner of the Angels?"

"I'd be cutting off my nose to spite myself to say I'm leaving. I have to make the best call for the franchise."

"What kind of stadium will be left in 2016 [when the Angels' lease expires]? I really need to make a call four or five years before that. We don't want to gamble that stadium is going to be in good repair past 2016."

"Is it something that needs to be addressed today? No. I like being in the facility. I like where we're located. Right now, we have a landlord that is suing us."

Most of the above - aside from "there's 30 of them" - defies belief. The Angels would be leaving the nation's second-biggest media market, one where Moreno is on the verge of signing a $340 million cable deal with Fox Sports Net. Unless some other SoCal city stepped up with a brand-new stadium - the Inland Empire Angels? - they'd be heading out into the same baseball wasteland that faced MLB during the years-long Montreal Expos death watch. And as for the stadium, the Angels themselves are responsible for operations and maintenance on the facility, so if it's in bad shape come 2016, Moreno will have no one to blame but himself.

As a rhetorical strike to frighten the city into dropping its lawsuit, though ... well, it's still pretty unlikely to work. But at least it should give the sports-radio types something to chew on over the long holiday weekend.

Post floats RFK renovation

With Washington Nationals stadium costs soaring, and land takings headed for what could be a protracted court battle, the Washington Post has waded in with an editorial chiding the city for sticking with a plan that is looking worse by the day:

If Major League Baseball doesn't want the quality of the new stadium compromised with cutbacks, the owners could provide the necessary funds themselves. Alternately, Major League Baseball could include the added costs of the improvements in the asking price for the lucrative Washington Nationals franchise. Conversely, the parties could reconsider their agreement to leave Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium after the next two seasons and devote their time, talents and treasury into making that ballpark and Washington landmark a permanent home for the Nationals. Putting a greater burden on the taxpayers, or giving them less than promised, won't get the new ballpark to first base.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this is the first time the Post has broached the prospect of renovating RFK as a long-term home for the Nats. All the kids are doing it!

Bronx board gives Yanks stadium thumbs-down

Last night, after a three-and-a-half-hour public meeting in which just one out of 36 speakers spoke in favor of the project, Bronx Community Board 4 voted 16 to 8, with five abstentions, to oppose the New York Yankees' proposed new stadium. As the vote was announced, the meeting room at the Bronx Museum, packed with more than 200 local residents, broke into a sustained whoop of applause.

Though it was just an advisory vote - the real power comes with the city council, which is expected to take up the stadium plan in the spring - it was clear that the Yankees and City Hall badly wanted to win this one, judging from the heavy hitters who were in attendance: Yankees president Randy Levine and COO Lonn Trost, NYC Economic Development Corporation VP Hardy Adasko, several top parks department officials, and various stadium contractors and consultants. Without the CB's stamp of approval, the plan now moves on to the next stage of the process with one strike against it - next up, yet another public hearing, this one called by Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion for December 12 at 6 pm.

Though most board members did not speak at the meeting, both land use committee chair Mary Blasingame and fellow board member (and professional urban planner) Lukas Herbert spoke out strongly against the stadium plan, with Herbert delivering some of the evening's most pointed words:

"[Environmental impact statements] are intended to state the facts of the impact, so that decision-makers like the community board can take a hard look at the facts and make the right decision. Well, in this case, the [Draft] EIS is mainly an advocacy piece that's been put together by planners like myself, who have been paid to spin the facts however the applicant wants them. As a planner, I know that's your job, but I know a lot of you working on this know better. So I'm sorry you're put in this position where you're having to push a document that's a sham."

Afterwards, one community organizer was heard exulting in a local diner, "We beat the Bronx machine!" For one night, at least. This series still looks likely to go seven games.

November 22, 2005

Send money or we shoot these Fish

After years of dropping hints, Florida Marlins president David Samson finally went nuclear today, declaring that with stadium talks stalled in Miami, ownership will now "explore the relocation of the Marlins." More from owner Jeff Loria's ever-quotable son-in-law:

"This is an announcement that baseball is no longer assured in South Florida. ... "This does not mean that the Marlins are necessarily leaving South Florida. It does, however, mean that we're going to seriously explore all of our options, including those in other markets. As part of this process, I do anticipate that will be engaging in discussions with other cities."

"Our lease runs out at Dolphins Stadium after the 2010 sseason and I can tell you now, unequivocally, we will not sign an extension, even if offered, to continue to play in this building. I love watching baseball here but we simply must play in a baseball-only facility."

"Miami, the 'Gateway of the Americas," could very well be the first American city in 35 years to lose a Major League baseball team."

. "This is about the Marlins trying to save their franchise. We really have no wiggle room left. We're going to start working with places that want to do deals."

That would be a very short list - Las Vegas, Portland, and other runners-up in the Montreal Expos sweepstakes are no closer than Florida at guaranteeing stadium funding - but there could be another subtext at play here. Under the current labor agreement, MLB is allowed to consider contracting by two teams next year, without having to seek the union's permission. If the threat of a Vegas move is dubious, the possibility of having the Marlins wiped off the map is much harder to gauge, and could - if you're Loria and Samson - present another hammer with which to threaten Florida electeds into coughing up stadium dough.

Of course, you need more than a move threat to make your team a candidate for contraction - you'd want to be hapless on the field as well, the better to avoid the potential embarrassment of MLB threatening to contract a winning ballclub. Hmmmmm.

Timeline of events this past week regarding a proposed downtown stadium for the Kansas City Royals:

With the dog thoroughly stomped, the county is now expected to move forward with an April referendum to approve upgrades to both the Royals' and Chiefs' stadiums. No word yet on how much this would cost or how it would be paid for, though given they're talking about the universe's first-ever two-stadium retractable roof, my guess would be "a lot."

Even before accounting for the Katrina effect, D.C.'s stadium for the Washington Nationals is threatening to go tens of millions of dollars over budget. With projected construction costs on the glass-and-steel stadium itself up from $244 million to $300 million - hey, those double-decker luxury suites don't build themselves, you know - and land costs up $20 million and rising, city officials are frantically cutting transit and infrastructure funds to keep the project under budget.

Ultimately, though, it's looking more and more certain that the Nats stadium will blow past its legally mandated $585 million limit, and no one's sure where the additional money will come from: sports commission chair Mark Tuohey told the Washington Post that he would ask the federal government and private developers to pay for road improvements, while expanding the Navy Yard Metro station to accommodate baseball crowds could be pushed off onto the Metro agency's budget - or even the city treasury. City councilmember David Catania, who was one of the staunchest opposition voices in last year's stadium debates, says shifting costs to other government sources is a violation of the spending cap passed by the council: Infrastructure costs, he said, "are plainly included. Any effort to place them outside those categories is a violation. . . . This is business as usual around here where the people in power play hide-the-facts."

Meanwhile, MLB officials have warned that they have no intention of extending a December 31 deadline for stadium bonds to be sold, meaning D.C. must agree on a new lease for the Nats by the end of the year, or else be in default of their contract with the league. (As I've noted before, this wouldn't necessarily be the worst thing for the city, as it's not like MLB is exactly in a position to take their team and go home - where would they go, Montreal?) With a continued impasse over whether the team will guarantee annual lease payments - MLB says hell no, D.C. says bond brokers won't finance the stadium without it - this promises to be another fun December in the District. Where's my streaming video?

We're starting to see projections of the coming hurricane-related hikes in construction costs, and they could be substantial: The Indianapolis Business Journal reports that "construction industry officials say the hurricanes, along with increased demand for steel in China and India, could push up the cost of building stadiums and arenas as much as 12 percent." The American Institute of Architects projects just a 4% hike, but in either case, it could cause serious problems for projects already operating on slim margins; we've seen before how much trouble even a $30 million financing gap can be.

Stop me if you've heard this before: Representatives of the New York Yankees and city officials traveled to the South Bronx last night to present their stadium plans to local residents, and were met by an angry throng intent on telling them where to stick their blueprints. The "town meeting" called by Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion was slated to run from 6 to 8 pm, but it was 7:35 by the time the assembled suits had put away their Powerpoint presentations and the floor was opened for questions - by which time the commandeered high school gym was filled with shouts, jeers, and chants of "Let the community speak!" and (to Carrion) "You work for us!" As the boro prez slowly picked through the submitted questions - all speakers had to fill out a form stating name, affiliation, and question topic, and Carrion's eyesight conveniently failed at least once when an anti-stadium activist was next on the queue - things only got rowdier, both in the crowd and on the dias. Some highlights:

As the evening deteriorated, Carrion transmogrified from high-school principal to, well, spitting, out-of-control high school principal: When one longtime local resident accused him of selling out his community to "big money," the boro prez angrily snapped, "Anybody who questions my integrity..." before being drowned out by boos. At another point, he lectured the peanut gallery, "The purpose of a public hearing is for people to ask questions!" Shortly thereafter, he called the proceedings to a close and fled the podium, clutching the sign-in sheets of at least twenty audience members who had yet to speak.

The city of Newark broke ground for a new $310 million New Jersey Devils arena last month, but it may have to call off the steam shovels if the team doesn't come up with its share of the money soon. According to the arena deal, the Devils must show proof of $100 million in private financing before the city can go past $25 million in spending on site prep work, a figure it's fast approaching. Devils owner Jeff Vanderbeek insists "it's really down to the short strokes with the lawyers," but Newark business administrator Richard Monteilh says potential lenders are wary of signing a binding agreement. Banks? Not eager to loan money for sports facilities? Who could have seen that coming?

Kansas City Chiefs board chair Clark Hunt added a new stadium demand this week - a retractable roof, to cost between $100 million and $200 million - and the NFL was right there to back him up: If K.C. builds a roof, the league vowed, it would get the Super Bowl in either 2015 or 2017. NFL commish Paul Tagliabue has previously dangled Super Bowls as an incentive for new stadiums in San Diego, Minnesota, Indianapolis, and New York - so far he's batting one for four.

The Royals, meanwhile, who would share the roof - apparently it would retract all the way from the Chiefs' stadium to the Royals' digs next door - want nothing to do with the idea. Or, at least, want nothing to do with helping pay for it. "Any money we have available needs to be directed toward making the team better," team president Dan Glass told the K.C. Star. "Not toward bricks and mortar. If there�s private funding available for the project, that�s fine. But we need to put our resources into building a better team on the field." The Royals are trying to put a better team on the field? Who knew?

Ka-ching! That's the sound of the projected New York Yankees stadium subsidies going up, by another $75 million.

As you may recall, the original stadium announcement back in June had New York state kicking in $70 million to build new parking garages (plus another $5 million for a "capital reserve fund"), but that the public would be reimbursed by getting parking revenues from the new structures. In the city's draft environmental impact statement on the project, though, it states that the garage cost is actually $234.8 million, with no indication who would pay the remainder of the tab.

The answer, according to the city parks department: The city plans to contract out to a private development firm that would build the garages, in exchange for getting all parking revenues. The state will still kick in $70 million, but will receive bupkis. (The city would get an as-yet-undetermined "ground rent" from the developer.) I'd deducted the garage costs after the state said it would recoup its investment from parking revenues, but now we need to add them back into our running total for George Steinbrenner & Co.:

Moreover, the new garage revelations raise even more troubling questions. What happens if the garages run over budget? What if no private developer thinks plunking down $160 million to build parking garages is a good investment? (Doing the math, 5,254 parking spaces at $25 a pop for 81 games a year would equal about $10.6 million a year in revenue, for a craptacular 6.6% return on investment.) And what about the loss of city parking revenues from the 1350 existing spaces to be eliminated by new construction?

All these issues and more will be raised, by yours truly if necessary, at tomorrow (Thursday) night's town meeting at the Bronx School for Law, Government and Justice, 224 E. 163rd St. (two blocks east of Grand Concourse), at 6 pm. See you there.

So it turns out that when D.C. city councilmember Marion Barry said he was "absolutely, unequivocally" opposed to a D.C. United soccer stadium in his district, he was ... I was going to say "on crack," but that's probably not the best metaphor to use here. Anyway, last night Barry did an about-face at a community meeting in his district, declaring that now that the plan includes an affordable housing component, "it makes sense. A stadium by itself didn't make sense." Sound familiar?

As for how much the stadium (and accompanying housing development) would cost, how it would be paid for, how many units would be "affordable" and just who would get them - jeez, don't be a party-pooper with all your questions. "One [message] that resounds in meeting after meeting is, 'We want opportunity," D.C. United CEO told the crowd. "Bring our kids opportunity, and bring our community opportunity. We believe you are looking at opportunity." Sounds like somebody knows all about taking advantage of an opportunity.

The estimated cost of repairing the hurricane-damaged Superdome has jumped from between $125 million and $150 million, to between $175 million and $200 million, according to the chair of the Superdome Commission. The culprit: rising construction costs in the wake of the three hurricanes that have left much of the Gulf Coast and southern Florida a shambles. No word yet on who will pay the tab - possible contenders include the NFL, the Saints, the state, and FEMA - but this could have more far-reaching implications: If stadium construction costs are really up thirty to forty percent nationwide, or even a large fraction of that, it could throw several current stadium deals into disarray. As I said before, this bears watching.

Eleven months after they signed off on building a $581 million stadium for the Washington Nationals, D.C. officials appear to have noticed that the deal, well, sucks. With Wall Street financiers breathing down their necks, the district is now preparing to demand lease concessions from the team (still owned by MLB, which bought them when they were the Montreal Expos in 2001), including a $24 million line of credit to guarantee rent payments in case of an interruption to the baseball season - oh, like that would ever happen - plus $20 million to help pay for new VIP parking spaces.

No comment yet from the Lords of Baseball, but it appears that D.C. has MLB over a barrel: It can't sell the Nationals, and reap an estimated $450 million in booty, until the lease deal is done. And it's not like they can just take their team and go home, what with the earth thoroughly scorched in Montreal. Of course, that was true a year ago, too, and it didn't stop the D.C. government from signing off on the lease deal then. As one unnamed local official told the Washington Post of D.C.'s line in the sand: "We'll provide parking spaces, but if baseball wants them to be fancy, then they have to pay." Viva la revolucion!

This week's Village Voice (online today, dead-tree version tomorrow) carries my latest analysis of the hidden costs of the New York Yankees and Mets stadium deals. The upshot: at least $800 million in public subsidies, plus possibly hundreds of millions more for such unknowns as transit improvements, lost parking fees, and cost overruns.

For those of you who followed the link here from the Village Voice website, here's a recap of the latest breakdown of public costs. (For a full explanation of where these numbers come from, see my previous posts on this topic here and here.)

These figures have been newly recalculated at a 6% discount rate, and are meant to be conservative - they don't include, for example, such items as the public cost of erecting parking garages for the Yanks (since the state has claimed this will be paid off by new parking revenues, though that was before the garage cost apparently jumped by $160 million), or Bronx transit improvements that are contained in the MTA budget and so not technically part of the Yankees deal, or the mysterious $163 million in Nets "extraordinary infrastructure" costs that the city and state could be asked to pay for, according to the community group Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn.

And speaking of DDDb, looks like they had quite the walkathon on Sunday. Sorry I missed it - I'm always a fan of anything involving a marching accordion section.

The Oakland A's are reportedly mulling shutting down the upper deck at the Oakland Coliseum for the upcoming season, reducing baseball capacity from 46,000 to 34,000. (The team has already stopped selling season tickets for the top deck.) While the club says this would save on maintenance costs and allow for better service, it would also have the affect of creating artificial ticket scarcity and encouraging fans to buy tickets ahead of time - something that A's owner Lew Wolff has lusted after in the past.

NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue made headlines last week when he declared that not only will the NFL likely return to the Los Angeles area in the near future, but it could two teams there. "We're not looking at this as an either-or," Tagliabue said at an L.A. City Hall press conference, in reference to talks with the L.A. Coliseum and with the city of Anaheim for a new stadium.

L.A. has had two franchises in the past, of course - the Rams and Raiders, both of which hightailed it out of town in 1995 - but as always with Tags, it's unclear how much of this is reality and how much spin. For example, the commissioner was careful to leave open the door for either relocation of existing teams or new expansion franchises - owners of the San Diego Chargers and Minnesota Vikings, after all, would be ticked if they couldn't hold the L.A. threat over their current cities - but also insisted: "We're not discussing the Saints in Los Angeles as a priority. We're discussing the Saints in Louisiana as a priority."

Meanwhile, some still suspect that the NFL plans to play the two sites off against each other, with L.A. Daily News sports columnist Billy Witz opining: "In the end, perhaps Anaheim is simply another stool pigeon for the NFL." Stool pigeon?

I'm going to be holding a live chat on baseballprospectus.com at 1 pm Eastern today. Bring your baseball-related questions, or, if you have somewhere better to be at 1, pre-post them and I'll answer when I log in.

What a difference a year makes. Twelve months ago, D.C. councilmember Jack Evans was hurling profanities in his desire to get the Montreal Expos in town. Now, with the year-old Washington Nationals still at odds with the city over a lease on the stadium that the council approved last December, Evans is telling MLB they can take their team and shove it.

The holdup is a lease provision that would pay rent to D.C. in the form of a share of stadium revenues. Bond financiers have told the district that it won't certify stadium bonds unless there's a guaranteed revenue stream - i.e., actual rent payments that come in regardless of whether there's a baseball strike or a seaboard-destroying mega-tsunami. MLB is opposed to a flat rent formula, though, and that's got Evans hopping mad, telling WTOP news radio:

Mostly, the kerfuffle is serving to delay MLB's decision on selling the league-owned Nats to a private owner, since no one is going to be willing to put down a deposit until they know what the lease deal is. It's awfully unlikely that Evans, after pushing through the $580 million stadium deal in the first place, is suddenly going to tell the Nats to get lost if they don't agree to his lease terms - though I suppose there's no telling what an entire season of watching Cristian Guzman might have done to his psyche.

So the Minneapolis Star Tribune editorial page beat Sid Hartman to the punch: Today's Strib informs readers that "the significance of [Reggie] Jackson's and other interest in [buying] the Twins is the growing realization that the team's best hope may lie beyond Minnesota." Why, you ask? "The team has been essentially homeless since 1997, when its long-term lease at the Metrodome expired." But, but... I thought the homeless were supposed to happy to live in domed stadiums!

Aside from comparing billionaire bankers to the homeless, the Star Tribune raised the specter of the Montreal Expos to throw a scare into the populace:

While Pohlad would no doubt love to sell out to MLB - he tried once before, after all - there's still the problem that the U.S. is plumb out of Washington, D.C.'s for teams to relocate to. The next tier of cities - Portland, Las Vegas, and their ilk - would be a major step down from Minnesota in terms of media market and corporate presence (you know, the folks who buy up luxury boxes and ad signage). Even accounting for the Twins' Metrodome lease, which irks both Pohlad and the league because the team has to actually share revenues with its public landlords, finding windfall profits in moving the Twins would be much harder than with Les Expos. And as you may recall, even that was no cakewalk.

Some readers - and you know who you are - have been asking what's up with D.C. United's plans for a soccer-only stadium on the Anacostia River waterfront? The answer: Still in the works, while the team tries to boost public support for stadium funds by holding soccer clinics for local kids. ("I don't know about this game. You don't stop! Ever! How about stopping?" one ten-year-old complained to the Washington Post. Hey, kid, I've been at this since you were in diapers.) Not in attendance to collect autographs at the event: city councilmember Marion Barry, who represents the district where the stadium would go, and has said he's "absolutely, unequivocally" opposed to it.

Last night, the housing and land use subcommittee of Bronx Community Board 4 voted 10-0 to oppose the plans for a New York Yankees stadium in Macombs Dam Park. Next up: a "town hall" meeting on Thursday, November 17, where the team and city will present their plan to the public, followed by a planned vote of the full board on Tuesday the 22nd.

This is so far into rumor-land that I feel like Page Six here, but what the heck, it's a news story: Baseball Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson has announced that he wants to buy the Minnesota Twins, which aren't actually for sale. And because Jackson's investment group has ties to Las Vegas ... you can connect the dots from there just as well as the Minneapolis Star Tribune can. For his part, Reggie would neither confirm nor deny, telling the Strib: "You can't move a team without baseball's permission. Baseball moves teams, not owners." If nothing else, this is surely going to make good fodder for the next Sid Hartman column.

The U.S. House of Representatives yesterday passed the Private Property Rights Protection Act of 2005, designed to roll back the use of eminent domain for private development, which was okayed by the Supreme Court back in June. The Congressional Budget Office summary of the bill (available as a PDF file here), which is expected to pass the Senate and be signed into law by President Bush, notes that it would "specifically prohibit state and local governments from taking private property and conveying or leasing that property to another private entity, either for a commercial purpose or to generate additional taxes, employment, or general economic health."

This would seem to cast a death blow to projects, like the Washington Nationals stadium or the Brooklyn Nets arena, that depend on taking private land for use by a private sports baron - right? Not so fast. The bill would still allow for eminent domain takings to combat "blight" - a notoriously vague designation that has traditionally been used by cities to mean "not worth as much as we think it should be." If blight is defined broadly enough, this bill could end up protecting only well-off property owners, while those in "blighted" districts - which would likely include the targeted parcels in D.C. and Brooklyn, though the latter includes many high-end condos - would continue to be fair game.

This is just my off-the-cuff interpretation, mind you, so take with whatever grains of salt you deem appropriate. I've left messages for various property-rights experts, and will report back in this space as things become clearer - though it's altogether possible that that won't come until yet another court battle, and Supreme Court ruling.

WJXT-TV in Jacksonville has run an estimate of how much the city is giving up in its complicated new lease for the Jaguars, and arrived at a figure of $4.5 million. The station also reports: "The Jaguars say that if they can sell more tickets and get more money from the NFL, they won't have to ask the city for any more concessions." Uh, thanks?

And speaking of the Oakland A's, the city of San Jose is continuing its efforts to lure them south, even if MLB insists they will be allowed to do no such thing. The city council is expected next week to approve the purchase of one-tenth of a proposed stadium site for $5.7 million - this, as you'll recall, is part of the parcel that the city insists it can buy without a required public referendum on sports spending, since, hey, it's not like they've made up their minds what to do with the land, wink wink, nudge nudge. Actually building a stadium, though, would require a public vote, which could come in November 2006.

Speaking of leases, the Oakland Raiders have a new one as well. The big news: The elimination of personal seat licenses, the pay-for-the-right-to-buy-tickets scheme that was supposed to help repay the county for expansion of the Oakland Coliseum, but which bombed when fans realized there were plenty of good seats available without PSL fees. With the original PSLs set to expire next year and hardly any fans expected to renew (most PSLs are permanent and can be resold by buyers, but for some reason Alameda County went with a 10-year expiration date, further hampering sales), the county had little choice but to eliminate them, even if it meant putting the public further in the hole on its $20 million a year in stadium bond payments. The county will now get a bigger share of parking and concessions fees, but as county supervisor Gail Steele acknowledged: "The subsidy is going to continue. But it's not going to continue with additional legal fees."

Meanwhile, the new Raiders lease still runs out in 2010, and team owner Al Davis sounds eager to use that as leverage for still more concessions, if not from the county, then from Raiders fans who have been increasingly turning up disguised as empty seats. Spake Al at the new-lease press conference:

Our long national nightmare is finally over! The Jaguars and the city of Jacksonville have agreed to a new lease deal that will end the threat of the Jags leaving town because they were pissed about not getting enough electronic signage money. The details are, well, detailed: The Jags get bigger signs (at city expense) and an $8.6 million tax break; the city gets six days a year when they get all stadium signage revenue, more sharing of concessions-stand costs by the team, and, I believe, a conditional 2nd-round draft pick in 2007. At least this guy will be happy.

As the New York Yankees stadium project wends its way through the city land-use process - the next public meeting of Bronx Community Board 4 is scheduled for Thursday, November 17, in the gym of the Bronx School for Law, Government & Justice, to hold the throngs who are expected to attend - I've been picking my way through the 707-page draft environmental impact statement that spells out the details of the plan. (PDF file here for the strong of stomach.) Among the interesting tidbits of note:

If your eyes haven't yet glazed over, there's still more analysis of the Yankees DEIS over at the Save Our Parks blog, courtesy of urban planner and CB4 member Lukas Herbert, who's actually read through the entire document and lived to tell the tale. [NOTE: Herbert's full analysis is now available here as a PDF file.]

When last we left our friends on the D.C. city council, you will recall, the cost of acquiring land for the new Washington Nationals stadium had just soared by $20 million, and this after the project was already just $4 million shy of its $585 million legal limit. Now, council chair Linda Cropp says that additional construction cost overruns could force the district to start lopping off such items as underground parking and retail space to save money: "There would be overruns if it were a Cadillac stadium. They may no longer do a Cadillac, but they may do a Buick or Ford." Replied David Catania, one of two councilmembers to vote against yesterday's "technical amendments" to the stadium's financial plan: "If we want a Buick, we have one - it's called RFK."

The stadium plan still faces a final council vote on December 6, and the city and MLB also have yet to finalize the Nats' lease terms.

You know what we haven't had in a while? A good stadium-related dustup on the Washington, D.C. city council. Fortunately, we have councilmember Vincent Orange to remedy that situation, by filing a lawsuit yesterday against council chair Linda Cropp, charging her with barring him from holding a committee hearing to investigate the city's stadium finance deal for the Nationals, and forcing Orange to instead - I'm not joking here, kids - deliver a 10-minute opening statement to an empty room and then go home. (Cropp, for her part, claims that Orange's government operations committee doesn't have jurisdiction over the stadium deal.)

But wait a minute, the sharp-eyed among you are saying. Wasn't Orange one of the stadium diehards who wanted the Nats park built at all costs, and damn the fiscal consequences? Yes, but he's also running for mayor against Cropp (not to mention against Adrian Fenty, a prominent stadium opponent), and what better way to make headlines than to sue your rival? This has all the makings of, if not a great electoral campaign, then at least a great Court TV miniseries.

Hear ye! Hear ye! Pac Bell Park - er, I mean, SBC Park - will henceforth be known as AT&T Park. With the phone company giant SBC set to merge with the phone company giant AT&T - yes, deregulation has managed to recreate Ma Bell from its constituent parts - the home of the San Francisco Giants will get its third corporate moniker in its six-year history. (The San Antonio Spurs' SBC Center will presumably be renamed as well.) Me, I just plan on calling it RAMJAC Field.

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...