May 31, 2007
Bennett: Without arena, Sonics are gone
Seattle Sonics owner Clay Bennett delivered an ultimatum of sorts to Washington state yesterday, telling the Oklahoman newspaper that he's "probably as pessimistic as I've been" about getting a new arena built in the Seattle area, and that "without a building solution, it's our intent to play in Seattle and apply for relocation immediately after the deadline." (When Bennett bought the team last October, he promised not to move it for a year. Saying you're going to announce a move five months from now doesn't count, apparently.) "Not to say I've lost complete hope," said Bennett. "We'll evaluate thoroughly any potential lead, but we're out of ideas."
As for where the Sonics would land, native Oklahoman Bennett said, "My expectation and my belief is that if we leave Seattle, we're quite likely headed to Oklahoma City," but added that Kansas City is an option as well. Then he said he has qualms about both cities as relocation sites, since Oklahoma City owes most of its current prosperity to an oil boom that could soon pass, and Kansas City has two other major-league franchises to compete for fan dollars.
Tea-leaf reading? Bennett's comments were obviously timed to light a fire under somebody, though whether it's a last-ditch attempt to scare Washington legislators into giving him his $300 million or just a step to get moving on settling on the team's new home, only the man himself can say. One thing is clear, though: By talking down both OKC and KC, Bennett is setting up the two cities, each of which already has a new arena in place, to bid against each other to offer the most generous lease terms if the Sonics do move. In other words, none of that giving half our arena revenues to AEG nonsense.
May 28, 2007
Dade County to fill Marlins stadium gap with delicious nougat?
I've been waiting for something meatier to be reported on this before posting here, but I guess I'll just pass along the same vague rumors that the blogs are: Some Miami-Dade County commissioners, according to South Florida Sun-Sentinel sports business writer Sarah Talalay, are considering building a Florida Marlins stadium without state money. This would resolve the years-long standoff with the state legislature, which has resisted kicking in the final $30 million in stadium funding via sales tax rebates. Instead, the county would supply the missing funds with... with...
Okay, Talalay didn't actually say where the missing funds would come from, though she did note that commissioner Carlos Gimenez suggested the $30 million gap "could be bridged by value engineering or some other method." (It's left to the reader's imagination what that other method might be.)
Apparently all that really happened last week is that the county commission's airport and tourism committee approved a resolution that if the county funds the stadium, the team would need to change its name to the Miami Marlins and move its spring-training home to the county-built stadium in Homestead. Marlins officials, according to Miami Today, were "poker-faced" about the proposal. Given that they're left with the same funding gap, not to mention the same dispute over the stadium site, I'm surprised they bothered even looking up from their cards.
May 24, 2007
Brooklyn board purged over Nets arena?
Nine members of Brooklyn's Community Board 6, including its chair, were denied reappointment by their elected-official sponsors, apparently because they voted against the Atlantic Yards project that includes a Brooklyn arena for the New Jersey Nets.
Board member Celia Cacace told the New York Times that Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz, who unseated five of the Atlantic Yards Nine (city councilmembers Bill de Blasio and David Yassky axed the other four), warned her several months ago of a coming purge: "He said, 'I'm going to get rid of everybody on the board that voted for this.' He says, 'Remember, you are my appointee.' Every time I tried to say something he totally lambasted me." De Blasio, meanwhile, defended removing board members who didn't vote his way, telling the New York Observer, "I want the folks I nominate to care about the things that I care about."
The CB6 purge comes one year after Bronx borough president Adolfo Carrion booted out four members of Bronx Community Board 4 for voting against the Yankees' stadium plan. Since then, CB4 has been having trouble even getting a quorum of members to meet to conduct business.
May 22, 2007
Latest Yankees gift: $91 million train station
The new commuter rail station for the New York Yankees' new stadium finally has a price tag, and it's not $40 million, or even $45 million, as previously reported. The new figure: $91 million, with the state Metropolitan Transportation Authority kicking in $52 million, and the city $39 million. Old Man George's share? Not one thin dime.
Now, a public transit link is arguably better public policy than, say, the three new parking garages (it was four, but one has been dropped) that the state is chipping in to help build for baseball patrons in the heart of asthma alley. The MTA claims that up to 10,000 fans a game will use the new station - which strains credulity, given that there are already two perfectly good subway lines already at Yankee Stadium, and the Metro-North Hudson Line (the green one here), which is the only one that would run to the new station, doesn't actually serve all that many people.
Even if it's arguably good green planning, though, it's still an added public cost of the project, which when added to the previously reported $425 million in city, state, and federal subsidies means the cost to taxpayers of the new Yankees stadium - which then-Yankees exec Steve Swindel promised in 2005 would involve "no public subsidies" - will now be at least $516 million. Or in numbers the average baseball fan can understand, about 424 Roger Clemens starts.
May 20, 2007
Bennett: I'd love to stay, I must be going
Seattle Sonics owner Clay Bennett gave his first press interview since the Washington state legislature killed his half-billion-dollar arena plan last month, and all signs are that he plans to continue his love-hate relationship with the Seattle region.
Bennett told the Seattle Times: "I am absolutely committed to the teams and committed to keeping them in the Seattle region. But I'm pessimistic to finding a solution to those chances." He added that he's doing his "homework" on other markets. As for his dropping of Las Vegas as a potential relocation target and subsequent slapdown by NBA commissioner David Stern, Bennett said: "No. 1, there was miscommunication relative to my comments and perhaps I misspoke. I'm completely in tune with the commissioner relative to Las Vegas. What I wanted to say was that while Oklahoma City is a viable market, it's not the only market."
As for what it would take for the Sonics to build a new arena in the Seattle area (presumably in suburban Renton), Bennett was clear: public money, and lots of it. "It gets down to a fairly simple notion," he told the Times. "A private investment demands a return, and this investment will not provide a return."
There you have it, sports fans: Basketball arenas don't make money. Now there's a tempting prospectus for public investment. It's enough to make you wonder why sports team owners go through all the trouble of putting up lots of steel and concrete instead of just asking state legislatures for suitcases full of small bills - though I suppose they've occassionally done that, too.
May 10, 2007
Wolff to ask for $250m in subsidies?
Oakland A's owner Lew Wolff held a conference call with reporters yesterday in which he dropped more hints about his $450 million Fremont stadium plans. Highlights, with translations for the layperson:
"We're trying to identify various forms of assistance ... Hopefully, we'll come up with a financing plan that everyone finds acceptable. ... We're intending to cover all the net costs."
Translation: "Net costs" means that there are "gross costs" that Wolff won't cover - ones, presumably, that he claims aren't really costs because taxpayers would recoup their investment by increased revenues. Taking his dubious economic consultants' conclusion that the project would bring in $18.6 million a year in new tax money, then, we can guesstimate that Wolff will be asking taxpayers for up to that figure in annual subsidies - or roughly $250 million worth of stadium costs.
"We're meeting with the [city] staff on a consistent basis. I think [a proposal is] probably a few months away."
Translation: We want to hash out all the issues behind closed doors, and then and only then we'll present a plan that we think will pass the city council. Those guys in New York did it right.
"We have a plan B if we run into certain things. [But] our goal is to be in Fremont and stay in Alameda County."
Translation: If some of you sportswriters want to scare locals into thinking we might move to Las Vegas, I'm not going to complain.
Wolff also announced today that he's signed a contract to purchase the site of the proposed stadium, which should be no surprise to anyone, given that he was supposedly "close to completing negotiations" for it all the way back last April. Still, it's always nice to give the headline writers something to ooh and aah over.
May 09, 2007
D-Rays owner: We want new digs soonish
Apparently the Paper of Record isn't what it used to be: It took two days after Tampa Bay Devil Rays owner Stuart Sternberg told the New York Times that Tropicana Field "wasn't built to last 30 to 40 years" and "has a shelf life of five years" before it blew up into a media frenzy back in Tampa Bay. One local columnist is predicting a new stadium by 2014; Sternberg, meanwhile, backed away slightly from his implied timetable, noting that he's put about $17 million in improvements into the Trop since buying the team last winter:
"A lot of it was necessary to be there for five to 10 years. If I thought we would be leaving in four or five years we wouldn't have done it. We've been told it's going to really get expensive to maintain this place as years go by. The facility has to last at least five years, and it certainly will but not until, say, 2020 to pick a year."
A more relevant year to pick might by 2027, which is the year the Rays' lease runs through - and if you recall the contraction debates of a few years back, you'll remember that the Rays have an especially iron-clad contract, not to mention a state that's historically quick to litigate if it thinks it's being threatened with loss of a team. (That's how the D-Rays came into existence in the first place, after MLB blocked the San Francisco Giants from moving to Tampa Bay, and Florida threatened an antitrust lawsuit.) Without a viable move threat, Sternberg is going to need to come up with other arguments if he wants taxpayer money for any new digs - it's probably only a matter of time before the phone starts ringing at the ERA offices.
A's: Fremont stadium will rain manna from heaven
Oakland A's owner Lew Wolff still won't say how he'd pay for his new stadium, but he did present the Fremont city council last night with his promised economic impact report for the stadium and the "ballpark village" of condos and upscale retail that he wants to build around it. The report by Economic Research Associates - who you'll remember from such fanciful studies as those it conducted for the New York Yankees and Dallas Cowboys - projects that the whole project would cost $1.8 billion, with the stadium alone bearing a price tag of $450 million; "economic impact" to the city of Fremont would be $191 million a year.
I was ready to launch into a long explanation of how "economic impact" (which counts all money spent in a given area, regardless of whether taxpayers get a cut) isn't the same as fiscal impact (the actual return on public investment), and how the ERA report examines benefits without including all costs, but I see the San Jose Mercury News' Barry Witt has done it for me:
Because the land the A's intend to purchase is in the city's redevelopment district, much of the value of new property taxes would be limited to redevelopment purposes. The report estimates annual revenue for the city's redevelopment agency of $15 million, and another $3.6 million a year for the city's general operations fund.
That last figure includes a $1 million annual payment the report says the A's would make to the city. The report, however, did not attempt to evaluate how much the city would have to spend each year to provide services such as police and fire protection to the new development on land now zoned for industrial purposes. Services to residential populations are considerably more expensive than those for businesses.
The A's delivered the ERA report to Fremont councilmembers at their weekly meeting, so there was little public questioning of the impact figures. ("I don't know what to ask because I haven't seen the report," quipped one councilmember.) Wolff insisted to the council that he was "confident" (the Merc News' word) that the city of Fremont wouldn't lose money on the deal - there's no evidence to that effect in the ERA report, though, so guess we'll just have to take his word for it.
May 07, 2007
Wilf offers $30m less for Vikings stadium
Minnesota Vikings owner Zygi Wilf has issued a figure for how much of the $954 million cost of a new downtown stadium he'd pay for: $250 million. That's $30 million less than he offered for a stadium in suburban Blaine last year, and a little over one-quarter of the total stadium cost - or one-third if you're Wilf (or the Minneapolis Star Tribune) and don't count the cost of the stadium roof, which the Vikings owner says he doesn't need.
As for who'd pay the other $700 million, here's how the Star Trib puts it:
Who would cover the remainder of the stadium cost - about three-quarters of $1 billion - is not clear. The Vikings currently have no public partner, other than the commission.
Although Hennepin County appears financially drained from its commitment toward a new Twins ballpark, Wilf said there may be ways for the county to agree as early as next year to contribute toward a Vikings stadium.
"It's not out of the question," he said, offering no specifics.
As is all too typical in stadium plans, no specifics were also offered on how stadium revenues would be split - meaning it's impossible to know if some of the additional costs could be paid off with such things as naming rights fees and luxury suite sales, or if Wilf is counting on those revenue streams to fund his quarter-billion-dollar share. Note to all current and would-be stadium reporters: It's the lease terms, stupid.
May 06, 2007
Marlins: Wait till next year (again)
Stop me if you've heard this before: The Florida state legislature ended its session on Friday without acting on a Marlins stadium funding bill, effectively killing it for 2007. The new twist this year was that it was the state senate that failed to act on a bill - reportedly in part because two senate sponsors couldn't agree whose name would go on it - after the state house approved a $30 million sales-tax subsidy; last year, it was the other way around.
In any case, we seem all but assured of another Marlins stadium push in 2008. A team statement released yesterday said that while the Fish were "disappointed" by the legislature's inaction, "starting immediately, we will all begin the process of moving forward to attempt to secure the future of baseball in South Florida." (No mention of San Antonio this time.) Miami area officials, meanwhile, said they'd push ahead with stadium plans as well: Miami-Dade county commissioner Jose "Pepe" Diaz even hinted to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel they might finally stop asking the state legislature to cover the persistent $30 million funding gap that's existed ever since the $490 million stadium was a $325 million stadium: "I don't have the stomach to deal with the state anymore on this issue."
That'd fly in the face of Marlins president David Samson's declaration earlier this year that "without the state's financial help there's no stadium deal as we see it right now." Of course, David Samson has said a lot of things without necessarily meaning them.
May 03, 2007
Albertha Hunter, Bronx activist
Albertha Hunter, one of the community activists at the heart of the Save Our Parks group that battled the New York Yankees' plans to build a stadium in Macombs Dam Park, died on Tuesday morning as a result of injuries she suffered in an electrical fire at her home two days earlier.
During the Yankees stadium debates, Hunter was always one of the first people up to the microphone to ask questions, which were always as polite as they were incredulous that the city would consider taking away the park that she walked in daily and handing it over to a private enterprise. The last time I spoke with her, last November, she described the scene outside her Jerome Avenue apartment window overlooking the now-former park, with equipment rolling in starting at 7 am, and dust everywhere: "The trucks are flying by with the sand, and sometimes the dust looks like a whirlwind - when the cars speed by, it's unbearable. You have to keep your windows closed whether or not you want to."
Hunter was 85.
May 01, 2007
Noll finds hole in Niners finance plan
Sports economist Roger Noll points out a potential fly in the ointment of the San Francisco 49ers' proposed Santa Clara stadium finance plan: While $330 million in stadium bonds would be scheduled to be paid off by stadium revenues like seat licenses and naming rights, who would be left holding the bag if those revenues fell short? "The crucial thing is, where does the ultimate obligation lie with the bond issue?" Noll told the San Jose Mercury News. "[If the 49ers] were responsible for the bond issue, then it would be their problem. If the deal is that the stadium authority is responsible for the bond issue, and the city is responsible for the stadium authority, then it's Raiders all over again."
Asked by the Merc News what would happen if stadium revenues tanked, 49ers CFO Larry MacNeil reassured that bond issuers "are going to require reserves in place to cover debt service in the event ticket tax falls short or naming rights fall short, or something else falls short. But would it impact the city's general fund? No." And where would these reserves come from? That question, the 49ers said, was "premature." How presumptuous and impatient those journalists are, asking questions about financing details just because the team has issued a financing plan.
