Field of Schemes

January 31, 2006

Yanks: What about our needs?

New York Yankees president Randy Levine was out stumping for the team's new $1.2 billion stadium plan yesterday, telling the New Bronx Chamber of Commerce that "we need a new stadium" because the old one "is just not functional."

Levine ran the gamut of pro-stadium arguments in defense of his team's plan, so let's go to the videotape, and see how he did:

"Any city, state, fair-minded economist will tell you that the new stadium and the surrounding area around it will create ... maybe hundreds of millions of dollars in increased economic activity and increased tourism."

Let's ask some fair-minded city economists, then. Doug Turetsky, chief of staff of the New York City Independent Budget Office, tells fieldofschemes.com: "Time and again evidence has shown that stadiums alone are not great job or revenue generators. This would especially seem to be the case when the plan is to replace an existing ballpark with one right next door. With the same fans coming to see the same ball club, it is not likely to spark much new discretionary spending in and around the stadium."

"It's neither feasible nor practical to either renovate or build on any other site in the Bronx. Not on the present site of the stadium - it's too small for a modern day stadium. Not to renovate there - it's way too costly and would not allow us any ability to play there for several years. And since we're paying for this, not the taxpayers, we wouldn't have revenues to build a new stadium."

David Gratt of Friends of Yankee Stadium points out that "the Red Sox are making major structural changes to Fenway in the offseason without disrupting the fans or baseball operations. The thought that the Yankees would have to play elsewhere is just wrong." He further notes that the renovation of Fenway, far from being more expensive, is costing about $200 million, while "the previous Borough President released a plan in 1998 estimating that it would cost $189 million" to renovate Yankee Stadium.

Adds Erika Tarlin of Save Fenway Park: "Mr. Levine's comments echo those of previous team owners and city agencies who declared Fenway dead and the proposed site for a new stadium as the 'only' feasible site. ... The team has renovated on its own dime which would not have been the case with the proposed new stadium which required at least $352 million in public money toward a $650 million project, and is not the case with the proposed new Yankee Stadium, an $800 million project at last count."

"This stadium is going to be affordable, affordable for everyone."

The city's own economic impact consultants estimate the average ticket price at a new stadium as $57, which would easily be the most expensive in baseball. It's possible those projections are wrong - but since the high ticket prices are responsible for most of the predicted economic benefits, they'd need to revise even further downwards the city's projected tax revenues. "When the consultants want to prove the stadium is a money-maker, they point to increased ticket prices and higher fan spending," notes Dan Steinberg of Good Jobs New York, which is putting the finishing touches on an analysis of the city's economic projections. "But when New Yorkers want to know how this stadium will affect the cost of going to a ballgame, the Yankees say, 'Don't worry about it.'

"All new facilities, a $130 million investment in the parks in the Bronx that everyone acknowledges would not have taken place without the new Yankee Stadium being built."

Steinberg again: "It's misleading to describe this as a $130 million parks investment when it includes the $24 million cost of stadium demolition and other costs such as land acquisition and infrastructure projects that are only necessary because of the stadium project." Gratt further notes that renovated parkland typically costs about $1 million per acre in New York City, so at $100-million-plus for 27 acres, the city isn't getting a very good bang for its buck.

Add them all up, and... let's see... congratulations, Randy, you've scored a Golden Sombrero!

January 30, 2006

Royals: Don't make us leave

Not quite one year after promising to stay put in Kauffman Stadium through 2014, Kansas City Royals execs are now saying they'll consider moving the team after 2007 if voters reject a taxpayer-funded renovation plan on April 4. "If they decide no, we'll start looking at other options," Royals owner David Glass told reporters yesterday. "I would hate to see this franchise ever be put in a position where they had to consider leaving Kansas City." Shame about those paratroopers, Colonel.

January 29, 2006

Meet the new lease...

As promised, D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams sent his revised Washington Nationals stadium lease proposal to the city council on Friday. While details are still sketchy, it appears that the new deal addresses only some of the concerns raised in the council's 10-point list of demands (later revised to a 12-point list) of what would be necessary to win support for the stadium.

Among the new proposals revealed so far:

If the new stadium is not ready by Opening Day 2008 (which seems all but a certainty now), the Nationals would pay half their normal rent, instead of getting free rent for a year. This is a genuine concession by MLB, but one worth only about $2.65 million.
The city would enter into a "guaranteed maximum price" contract with construction companies to ensure a set price on the stadium itself of $300 million. This is all well and good, but does nothing about the larger problem of soaring land and infrastructure costs, and would still leave the project at least $40 million over the council's requested $611 million total public cost cap.
The city would sell some parcels of land at the south end of the stadium site to developers, with the city getting 57.5% of the proceeds, the team 42.5%. The resulting money would be used to help pay for cost overruns on land acquisition elsewhere. Even aside from the question of whether the development rights sale would necessarily cover land costs, critics such as the BetterDeal4DC coalition argue that this actually represents a new giveaway to the team, since "Major League Baseball is taking more public assets and yet is bringing no more money to the deal."

Response from the council appears muted so far. Cropp told the Washington Post that "there has been an attempt to address most of the concerns that the council had," but "we need to look at the documentation to make sure it has been addressed completely and adequately"; to the Associated Press, she added: "I want to see that there's an assurance that the stadium won't go over a certain cost; that there are dollars there for land acquisition and remediation." Kwame Brown and Vincent Gray, two of the potential swing votes on the council, told the Post they're not convinced yet that the mayor has completely resolved the cost overrun isues. No word yet from Carol Schwartz, the other reported swing vote, with two flips into the "yes" column required for approval of the lease.

Meanwhile, D.C. CFO Natwar Gandhi has leapt into the fray, noting that the new deal had eliminated a monetary reserve account requested by Wall Street bond raters. "The lease agreement as it is submitted, I have serious reservations about," Gandhi told the Post. "I cannot take it to Wall Street."

Cropp is expected to brief councilmembers on the new plan this week, with a possible vote February 7 if it looks like enough support is there for passage. One sign that MLB and Williams may be expecting a longer haul: The new lease officialy requires the council's approval no later than June 20, 2006.

January 27, 2006

Sonics: But all the other kids have new toys!

The Seattle Sonics' plan for a $200 million taxpayer-funded upgrade to KeyArena, which seemed to be going nowhere just three months ago, abruptly sprung back to life yesterday, as state legislators introduced a bill to extend restaurant and hotel tax surcharges to pay for the renovations. It was so abrupt, in fact, that nobody had bothered to tell the Seattle City Council, which plans to study the matter and issue a conclusion in April. The legislature, meanwhile, is scheduled to wrap up in March - given that the state previously overruled a local referendum in approving funding for the Seattle Mariners' Safeco Field in 1995, I think I can see where this is headed.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, meanwhile, reports the reason for the Sonics' dissatisfaction with their current home: "Team officials argue that since a $73.4 million KeyArena remodeling 12 years ago, the luxury suites have become outdated compared with those at the two new stadiums across town." Those would be Safeco Field and the Seahawks' Qwest Field, both of which were previously built with the same public hotel and restaurant tax funds that the Sonics are now after. Only with stadiums can last year's model become obsolete just because someone across town bought a new one - well, okay, not only with stadiums.

January 25, 2006

Two, two, two votes in one!

Jackson County will have not one but two stadium-subsidy referenda to vote on come April 4: one a 0.375% sales-tax hike to raise $425 million for renovations to the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals stadiums, the other the imposition of a use tax on out-of-state business purchases to pay for a $200 million rolling roof that could be used to cover either stadium.

Meawhile, over at the "this story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball, no really, watch me talk while Bud Selig drinks this glass of water" MLB.com, the headline is all about the 30-cent-per-ticket tax the Royals have agreed to pay as part of the new lease deal. (The Chiefs would pay $1 per ticket.) Which is all very nice, as most economists agree that the bulk of ticket taxes ultimately come out of team owner's pockets, since it keeps them from raising tickets' face value quite as high as they would otherwise.

But let's be real here: Even if the Royals draw 3 million fans a year (unlikely), 30 cents a ticket would be $900,000 a year. Add in maybe $500,000 a year from the Chiefs, who sell fewer tickets thanks to a shorter schedule, and you've got enough to pay back a total of maybe $20 million of the expected $675 million in public costs. As drops in the bucket go, I've seen more impressive ones in the Sahara.

Williams: New Nats lease by Friday

Looks like we're headed for another one of those fun all-day D.C. council hearings: Washington Mayor Anthony Williams has promised he'll submit a new Nationals lease proposal by this Friday, so the council can vote at its next meeting on February 7. "In order to have it done in the time we need it done, we need to have it in by Friday," Williams told AP yesterday. "And then we're going to continue to work on the votes." Because that worked so well last time.

January 23, 2006

"Baseball Between the Numbers" due out in March

For anyone who's been waiting for me to get off my duff and write something that's neither on fishwrap nor cast to the electronic winds, I'm very pleased to announce that the new Baseball Prospectus book Baseball Between the Numbers contains three new essays by yours truly: "Do High Salaries Lead to High Ticket Prices?" "Are New Stadiums a Good Deal?" and "Does Baseball Need a Salary Cap?" In keeping with the theme of the book (and of BP's work overall), each chapter takes one of these contentious baseball questions and breaks it down using the available evidence and statistical methodology. (Other chapters include "When Is One Run Worth More Than Two?" by James Click and "Is Alex Rodriguez Overpaid?" by Nate Silver, the latter of which actually manages to come up with a formula for determining a player's monetary value to his team, to the dollar.) If you want to know not just the answers to the above questions but the reasons for the answers, you need to read this book - and I'm not just saying that because I get a cut of royalties.

You can currently pre-order Baseball Between The Numbers from Amazon.com or Powells.com or via your local bookstore. (It's due out the first week in March.) Members of the press or potential reviewers can e-mail me and I'll see that you're put on the freebie list.

Zimbalist vs. Zimbalist

Most of this public spending will be of direct benefit to the community, and a significant share will come back to the state and city. ... As an investment, the Yankees' stadium plan is a winner for the Bronx and all of New York.
-Andrew Zimbalist, New York Times op-ed, 1/22/06

Practically every stadium that's come on stream in the last 20 years in the United States has been accompanied by a consulting report - these are hired-out consulting companies - that are working for the promoters of the stadium. They engage in a very, very dubious methodology. They make unrealistic assumptions and they can produce whatever result they want to produce.
-Andrew Zimbalist, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, 12/22/04

Together with the development of surrounding commercial space and the prospect for a new Metro-North platform, the project will be a major facelift for the area and help gentrify the South Bronx.
-Andrew Zimbalist, New York Times op-ed, 1/22/06

The notion that you're rejuvenating the waterfront because you put a baseball stadium there frankly is silly. ... It's used for four hours a day when it's used. And those four hours have tens of thousands of people inside the stadium. They're not outside milling around on the streets buying shirts and hot dogs. They're inside spending money on concessions that are managed by the owner of the baseball team.
-Andrew Zimbalist, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, 12/22/04

January 22, 2006

A's owner to seek "entitlements" instead of subsidies?

In the midst of a long, long Q&A with the San Francisco Chronicle, Oakland A's co-owner Lewis Wolff sheds a little light on his thoughts of how to finance a new stadium for his team:

What cities do have, especially in the area of growth, and the Bay Area, good or bad, is growing, whether it's growing right or not is not my decision totally, they have zoning rights. We call them entitlements; you're entitled to build 1,000 apartment units.

Those entitlements are the new currency, in my opinion, for cities, governments and regionals and counties and so forth.

So let's assume there is the Oakland army base, and that has a lot of demands from a lot of groups, and it's not a great location for a ballpark. It's a piece of land I think the city owns, but if not, they can get to it.

Let's assume that developers, not so much ourselves, feel that is a great housing location. Our idea might be that since it's not zoned right now but is to be zoned or to be entitled, why not entitle it for 3,000 apartment units?

Those units might be worth $100,000 a piece. It's sort of your land value. Whether we're the developer or we join with a developer or a developer that we're not associated with says, "We'll pay $300 million for those entitlements rights."

We're saying to the city, "That's the subsidy we want, but we don't want it for free. Put it into the ballpark. If the ballpark costs $500 million, we'll add the $200 million, take care of the overruns, and we'll do the land under it."

That entitlement is a value, is a currency they can help us with. So what do they get out of it? They get a ballpark, which they'll own, and we'll have a longer lease than we have today, and somebody will build 3,000 apartment units. We think it's a very interesting idea.

Interesting? Definitely. Better for cities than the old dump-a-pile-of-money-in-the-owner's-lap model? That's another story. Even aside from the fact that 3,000 apartment units represent both an asset to a city (increasing the tax base, providing quality housing, etc.) and a liability (increasing the need for schools, emergency services, power grid demands, etc.), if "entitlement rights" are a valuable asset, why shouldn't the city sell them to a developer and use the proceeds to pay for, say, schools instead of stadiums? It's very similar to the question being raised in Pittsburgh, where the Penguins are hoping to get a slots license granted to a casino operator who promises to build a hockey arena: If side agreements like this are kosher, why the heck would your first request be for a hockey arena?

To Wolff's credit, he's smart enough not to try to pass this off as some sort of free lunch. "You could call it a huge subsidy if you want," he told the Chronicle. "You could call it a clever way of getting through the process." That pretty much covers all the bases, yes.

D.C. cuts glass, still short of council demands

Heck continues to pop in D.C., where former Detroit mayor and godfather of Comerica Park Dennis Archer has taken on the role of mediator in the Washington Nationals lease talks. And there's certainly plenty to mediate: Council chair Linda Cropp has nailed a new 12-point list of demands to Mayor Anthony Williams' door, while city officials scramble to trim $15 million from stadium construction costs by using less glass. And Cropp, mind you, is one of the pro-stadium councilmembers; at a recent mayoral campaign debate, she got an earful from a would-be constituent who demanded, "How come we see you on the news every night trying to get a backdoor stadium deal when our schools look like Nazi camps?"

Williams still claims this will all be resolved shortly, but given the council's insistence on a hard cap on city costs - Cropp's latest missive sets this at $611 million, and current project estimates are at $667 million and rising - I don't see that happening anytime soon. The next showdown date: February 7, when the council will either vote, or not, on the latest iteration of the Nats lease.

Zimbalist vs. reality, redux

Sports economist Andrew Zimbalist is back on the pipe, yo, with an op-ed in today's New York Times that piles up dubious figures in defense of the New York Yankees stadium plan. Let's take them point by point:

The Yankees have been spending nearly $10 million a year on maintenance at Yankee Stadium - money that their lease allows them to deduct from the rent they pay the city.

Nope. According to the city Parks Department, which runs the current Yankee Stadium, the Yankees deducted $23.5 million in maintenance costs from 2000 through 2004 - or $4.7 million a year. The city nets $7.48 million a year in rent payments from the team, which would be lost in a new rent-free stadium.

Engineering studies say it's time to build a new stadium.

If so, neither the city nor the Yankees have divulged its existence. (I've e-mailed Andy asking for his evidence here, but given our last round of correspondence, I'm not especially hopeful.)

Also part of the $210 million is the state's investment of $70 million into new parking garages. Under the proposal, all parking revenue would go back to the state and more than pay off the investment.

Bzzzt. This is what the city claimed last summer, but it has since revealed that all parking revenues would go to a private garage developer, while the state's $70 million would be a "capital subsidy" that it wouldn't get back.

It's puzzling to say the least why Zimbalist continues to stump for the Yankees project (the first e-mail I got alerting me to his op-ed was titled "Who's paying off Andy now?"), and equally baffling why the Times turned over some of the world's most exclusive op-ed page real estate to shoddy work like this. Maybe the Robert Woods Chair in Economics comes with a "Get Out of Factchecking Free" card.

January 20, 2006

Jets, Giants project windfall from stadium

Yet another reason to examine the fine print of stadium lease deals, courtesy of the New York Times' intrepid Charles Bagli: The New York Jets and Giants expect to earn an extra $183.9 million a year from naming rights, ad signage, and premium seat sales, more than enough to pay off an estimated $70 million a year in construction debt service. The state, meanwhile, would get just $5 million a year in total rent, would give up 20 acres of free land and development rights to 45 acres more, and would no longer get a share of parking, luxury suite and advertising revenues, as it does now. Jersey sports czar George Zoffinger, who has opposed the deal as a giveaway, grumbled to Bagli yesterday: "My job is to implement the board's decision, whether I agree with it or not. Everybody knows my thoughts on the financial terms."

K.C. stadium renovations to top $575m

With Jackson County officials drafting new leases for the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals, it's becoming clearer how much taxpayers will be asked to spend on stadium renovations for the two teams: $425 million from a county sales-tax hike; $50 million in state tax credits; and at least $100 million [NOTE: Reader Jerry G points out that the Kansas City Star has this at $200-220 million] for a rolling roof to cover one if not both stadiums, which would be paid for, according to the Associated Press, by a "compensating use tax on out-of-state businesses," whatever that is. Total public cost: $575 million, though it's unclear if that's cumulative spending over 25 years, or present value of the deal. A referendum is scheduled for April 4.

Marlins execs visit Charlotte, Hialeah, Sea World

The owners of the Florida Marlins seem intent on surpassing the Montreal Expos' Guinness record for "most cities played footsie with," scheduling meetings with local officials in Charlotte, N.C. and Hialeah, Fla. about relocating there. Neither city has a financial plan in place; the Charlotte Observer notes that would-be stadium developer Jerry Reese "has just started to do the financial analysis needed to line up investors for the $600 million to $700 million project."

Waiting in the wings: Norfolk, where pretend investment banker William Somerindyke Jr. told the Virginian-Pilot "we’re one of eight communities they are considering." First reader to accurately guess which eight cities gets a free mug!

January 18, 2006

Mets stadium a freebie?

The board of New York's quasi-public Empire State Development Corporation (which incidentally has the doofiest domain name ever) gave its signoff to the Mets and Yankees stadium projects today, and in so doing released a whole slew of new economic impact projections that are completely different from the ones I picked apart last week. I'll have more on this once I hear back from ESDC on where the numbers came from.

In the meantime, though, hidden in the ESDC's press release is an unexpected tidbit of information: While the Yanks plan is projected to cost $1.2 billion ($800 million for the stadium, $400 million for infrastructure), the Mets stadium project would cost just half that ($444.4 million for the stadium, $155.6 million for the rest). And while the Mets claim they'd pay the entire stadium construction cost, with a cheaper stadium and the same level of subsidies as the Yanks, they could end up with a discount of - well, let's run the numbers:

$444.4 million construction cost

–$173.3 million MLB revenue-sharing deductions

–$69 million city rent rebates

–$96 million city parking revenue rebates

–$16 million construction sales tax breaks

–$39 million future property tax breaks

–$55 million savings on tax-exempt bonds

And the total comes to... negative $3.9 million. So as things stand, it looks like the Mets will be paying for a $444.4 million stadium - but by collecting $448.3 million in subsidies from the city, state, and federal governments, and the other 29 MLB teams in the bargain, effectively getting the stadium for free. That's positively Seligian.

LATE NOTE: On further consideration, the benefits to the Mets are slightly less than listed above: The construction sales-tax break and tax-exempt bond benefits are already factored into the $444.4 million price tag (which would be higher otherwise), and the Mets would have to pay revenue-sharing on the extra parking money, reducing their take there. So Fred Wilpon can expect to end up cutting a check for about $104.5 million - still less than one-quarter of the stadium's list price.

The New Jersey Devils have finally coughed up that $100 million line of credit that the state was threatening to stop construction on their new Newark arena without. The project is expected to exceed its $310 million, but not to worry: The Devils have "reiterated our pledge to cover any overruns," says team owner Jeffrey Vanderbeek. And if Vanderbeek's word weren't good enough, then you'd see the state demanding he back it up with a line of credit... er, wait a minute...

An internal economic impact study commission by New York City reveals that new city and state tax revenue will amount to only $225 million in present value - barely half the project's $444 million public cost. And New York City itself - whose mayor, Michael Bloomberg, declared earlier this year that "We make 'investments.' We don't do subsidies. We get our money back, and we make money" - would come out even worse, with just $96 million in new revenues to pay off more than $300 million in red ink.

Worse yet, the study itself looks to have tilted the playing field in the project's favor, meaning the true return on the public's investment would be even lower. "The way environmental-impact statements are done these days, it's like they're advocacy pieces," concludes Westchester city planner (and Bronx Community Board 4 member) Lukas Herbert. "You hire a firm like ERA and say, 'Here, put in some numbers and make us look good.' "

D.C. council chair Linda Cropp's office was kind enough to send over her list of ten conditions for the council to approve a Washington Nationals stadium lease. Drumroll, please:

Of these, #1 is meaningless (it's not like the city treasury has separate pockets for "residential" and "non-residential" money), and many of the others are trivial. The big-ticket item would appear to be #2 - except the bit about "and all baseball-related income" renders it largely meaningless as well. Right now, the $535 million stadium cap is on gross expenses: The city would, in fact, be getting back about $80 million in Nats rent payments and stadium sales taxes. Changing this to a $535 million cap on net expenses - where everything from team rent payments to player income taxes could be larded onto the $535 million in bond payments - could allow the cost to balloon by hundreds of millions of dollars without technically violating the cap.

Likewise, saying that construction, land, and infrastructure costs "will be guaranteed" sounds great. But guaranteed at what level? The cost as of October 2004, when the stadium was set to cost $440 million? Or last month, when it had ballooned to $667 million?

It's possible Cropp has thought these things through, and is just a sloppy correspondent. Or that the dissident councilmembers - Cropp, remember, has consistently supported the lease deal - know what their demands are, and the council chair just isn't communicating them very well. But if all the council gets for its lease holdout is Cropp's laundry list, it'll barely be worth the stationery it's printed on.

Yesterday, D.C. Anthony Williams declared a Washington Nationals stadium lease to be agreed upon "as early as late this week," while D.C. sports chief Mark Tuohey said, "I think we're very close." Today, top city council stadium booster Jack Evans threw cold water on that notion, saying he'd given up trying to convince the eight stadium opponents on the 13-member council to change their votes, and telling the Washington Times that "there are not even any discussions about it taking place around here." The Times calls the stadium plans "nearly dead."

If so, expect to hear lots of threats of eliminating the Nats and the Florida Marlins once baseball's collective bargaining agreement allows owners to talk contraction again starting April 1. Not that deep-sixing a franchise that could be garner a $450 million sale price exactly makes sense, but Bud Selig has never been one to shy away from threatening to cut off his nose to spite his face.

LATE NOTE: Now council chair Linda Cropp says she's submitted a list of ten conditions that would need to be met before the council would sign off on the lease - first and foremost that the city's costs be capped at $589 million, including financing costs - and a mayoral spokesman tells the Washington Post, "We're confident we can meet all of her criteria." MLB has steadfastly refused to pay for cost overruns, though, so it remains to be seen whether this is still a major stumbling block, or Evans was just having an Eeyore moment.

Go to enough stadium hearings, and they all start to blur together. That was certainly the case at today's New York City Planning Commission hearing on the proposed Yankees stadium, which featured more than four hours of impassioned testimony that pretty much replicated what was said last time (and the time before that):

The main attraction, though, was the pre-game show. Halfway through a press conference by the Bronx community group Save Our Parks, about a dozen construction workers disrupted the event with loud chants of "Build the stadium!" (After a bit, some quick thinkers in the crowd began chanting back: "...where it is!") The counterdemonstrators insisted they need the 3,600 temporary construction jobs - permanent jobs would be far fewer, about 900, and many of those part-time - that would be created by construction of the new $800 million stadium, beginning a shouting match that lasted for several hours as the beginning of the hearing was delayed and delayed.

During the interminable wait, I phoned Erika Tarlin of Save Fenway Park! to see how many construction workers the Boston Red Sox had on the job for the $200 million renovation of their ballpark, since I'd always heard that renovation was more labor-intensive than building new. Her answer: 5,500. And that's without displacing the ballclub for even one season.

Stop two on the Florida Marlins' Stadium Extortion Across America Tour (tm Doug Pappas): Portland, Oregon! Home of Powell's Books and Greasy Kid Stuff! Marlins first stepson David Samson, vice chair Joel Mael, and stadium honcho Claude Delorme (famed for his statement that shifting Montreal Expos home games to Puerto Rico would at least make season tickets cheaper) headed to America's most livable city in search of stadium-funding promises - let's listen in:

Meanwhile, Dumb Stadium Reasoning Hall-of-Famer Samson isn't resting on his laurels for 2006, telling reporters: "The way baseball looks at the Marlins, we are the second-largest recipient of revenue sharing, and we've won two World Series - not a great combination. They need the Marlins to get their act together, whatever that may be." So let me get this straight: If low-revenue teams don't win the World Series, that's a sign that they need new stadiums because they can't compete. And if they do win the World Series, it's a sign that they need new stadiums because baseball doesn't want to subsidize winning teams?

There's been no change in the Washington Nationals lease standoff, but it looks like the MLB war of words will continue. From the Associated Press:

The San Diego Chargers have scrapped plans for a November referendum on giving the team 60 acres of free land for a new stadium and development complex. Team attorney Mark Fabiani blamed the collapse of the plan on city attorney Michael Aguirre, saying his opposition to the deal had made it impossible to find development partners willing to build the project with private money. Aguirre, who believes the land to be worth as much as $500 million, quipped to the San Diego Union-Tribune: "I'm surprised they didn't blame me for the Kansas City loss. No one person can be that powerful."

Anyone remember that $1.2 billion expansion of the Javits Convention Center that was supposed to go along with the now-defunct Manhattan stadium for the New York Jets. Turns out the cost will now be $1.7 billion, and the state is considering selling land adjacent to the rejected stadium site to help pay for the difference. The reason for the half-billion-dollar cost overrun, reports Newsday: "[State development chief Charles] Gargano and [Javits development czar Michael] Petralia said the spike in projected construction costs for the center stems in part from the rebuilding along the Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina, which has cut into the availability of labor and materials." That sets the Katrina Effect factor at a new high of 30%; adjust your stadium cost projections accordingly.

We have an early contender for the Dumbest Reasons of 2006. Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein writes that D.C.'s $80 million or so in projected cost overruns on the Nationals stadium are actually a good thing:

For those of you who haven't already choked on your breakfast cereal, here's the flaw in Pearlstein's argument: If land costs are higher, then city property tax revenues are higher, yes. But that's true whether or not the city builds a stadium. The incremental cost of a stadium - D.C.'s net cash outflow relative to doing nothing - is still higher because of the increased land and construction costs.

Pearlstein submits other howlers - that since the city has already spent $62 million in prep costs it might as well spend $600 million on a stadium, and that because the stadium tax on businesses was set higher than is likely needed to pay construction costs, that represents profit to the city - but he's already secured a spot in this year's winner's circle. Save something for 2007, Steven.

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley the Younger told reporters yesterday that his city might not have to build a $1 billion stadium in order to bid for the 2016 Olympics, suggesting that the opening and closing ceremonies could take place in such farflung locales as Milwaukee, Wisconsin or South Bend, Indiana. Stadium consultant Marc Ganis said Chicago could even consider adding 20,000 temporary seats to Soldier Field: "It doesn't have to be some sort of brand new, $1 billion stadium like what was planned for New York." Jeez, now they tell us.

In papers filed in advance of next week's court case against the team formerly known as the Anaheim Angels, the city of Anaheim has claimed that it could lose $191.6 million in "exposure" through 2016 as a result of the team calling itself the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. More alarmingly, the city charges that the name change would make it easier for the team to bolt to Los Angeles when it can opt out of its stadium lease in 2016 - and further hints that Anaheim will refuse to upgrade or replace Angel Stadium if the Angels don't change their name back. When this story first broke a year ago, it didn't look like it was going to turn into a new-stadium battle, but now I'm not so sure...

It sounded dubious at the time, and sure enough, the plan for an Oakland A's stadium-and-housing-and-other-stuff development is now all but dead. The snag? Nobody had bothered to ask the 100 or so property owners whose land A's owner Lew Wolff wanted for his stadium, or figured out how to pay them for it. So what's Plan B? "Right now, we are asking what Plan B is," A's spokesman Jim Young told the Oakland Tribune. "Asking"? Uh, wasn't this your idea in the first place?

Way back on December 22, Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion submitted his official recommendation on the $1-billion-plus New York Yankees stadium project, but it took until this week before anybody noticed. Carrion endorsed the plan, of course - he's been one of the project's biggest backers since it first surfaced in June - but added some "stipulations" that it should be expanded to include his own pet projects, a hotel, convention center, and High School for Sports Industry Careers, none of which have funding or room to be built in the current plan.

In any case, Carrion is hardly "playing hardball on [the] new Yankee Stadium plan," as a Daily News headline put it - his recommendations are nonbinding, and likely to be thoroughly ignored by both the city council and the mayor's office. The Bronx beep (yes, that's what they call borough presidents here) did give a nod to community concerns by demanding that new parks open atop a Yankees parking garage before old ones are torn up - but given that the parking garage in question would be built on top of existing parkland, it's hard to see how that would be accomplished without time-travel technology.

The bigger news for the Yankees project - and for pending plans for new homes for the Mets and Nets - is today's expected election of Manhattan city councilmember Christine Quinn as speaker of the city council. So far, most news coverage has focused on Quinn being the first woman, and first openly gay person, to hold the top spot at the council, but she's likely to play a key role on stadiums as well, especially the Yanks and Mets projects, which require council approval. Quinn was a vocal opponent of the now-dead Jets stadium proposed for her district, and has criticized the Nets arena as well; she has a reputation as a bit of a loose cannon, though, so it's hard to predict whether she'll take a stand against Mayor Michael Bloomberg's tripartite stadium plan. Regardless of which side Quinn ends up on, though, at least she'll almost certainly be more vocal about her position than her predecessor was.

Finally, the next public hearing on the Yankees project is Wednesday, January 11, at 10 am before the City Planning Commission, in Spector Hall at 22 Reade Street in downtown Manhattan. It's a smallish room, and public hearing rules for this one require that "all persons filling out an appearance form shall be given the opportunity to speak," so expect plenty of fireworks.

And away we go: Major League Baseball officials have announced they plan to file a claim with the American Arbitration Association seeking to resolve the Washington Nationals lease situation. Under the agreement signed by MLB and D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams last year, the two sides must spend 15 days with a mediator before proceeding to binding arbitration. (No, they're not the same thing.) Pro-stadium city councilmember Jack Evans proclaimed himself "disappointed" at the move, saying, "We're working with colleagues on the council, and this is a delicate time. Filing a claim at this time, although it may seem logical from their point of view, it is like throwing gas on the fire."

It's also not clear what MLB has to gain by this move, since it's already reached an agreement with Mayor Williams on a lease deal. The body that's holding out and refusing to sign the lease - or rather, refusing to commit to voting for it, which has Williams refusing to submit it for a vote that he would lose - is the city council, which isn't a party to the baseball agreement, or the arbitration. Like yesterday's Bob DuPuy op-ed, it's all stick and no carrot, which while certainly the Seligian way, isn't likely to win many friends among the swing votes on the council.

D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams insists he's making progress in convincing the city council to back his Washington Nationals stadium lease, without giving details. He also insists that the city wouldn't really be stuck with most of the costs, because, as the Associated Press reports it, "He says only a fraction of the financing costs will come from the city's ballpark tax." Well, yes, five-ninths is a fraction.

In other news, MLB COO Bob DuPuy has unleashed the first hissy fit of the stadium season, writing in a Washington Post op-ed that "the D.C. Council is trying to walk away from the agreement that brought the team here" and that Washington should be grateful even to have a team, what with its "city leaders [who] frequently quibble with baseball about its commitments, and often quarrel with each other." Perhaps MLB would prefer working with a government with less open dissent.

Turns out that $425 million sales-tax hike to be voted on in April isn't the last that Kansas City area residents will be asked to pay for upgraded homes for the Chiefs and Royals. Jackson County Sports Complex Authority attorney Mike White tells the Kansas City Business Journal that the authority also plans to ask the public for a $100 million rolling roof that could cover both stadiums, plus additional stadium maintenance funds from the city of Kansas City. "You could put a roof on the ballot a year from now, two years from now," said White. Presumably the only reason the roof wasn't included in the April vote is it was feared residents would balk at an overall price tag of $525 million; so this should work as long as nobody spills the beans to voters that further subsidies will be necessary later ... d'oh!

They're back! After a hiatus of several years, the Top Ten Dumbest Reasons to Build a Stadium return to fieldofschemes.com - and this year's race was so hotly contested, it needed an Honorable Mention category and a Lifetime Achievement Award just to contain all the unconvincing excuses presented for lavishing public dollars on private sports teams.

To see the list of winners, click here. As always, thanks to all the FoS readers who sent in submissions - and, of course, thanks to the honorees for making 2005 the dumbest year ever.

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...