November 30, 2009
Vikings turn stadium push up to 11
The full court press — or, if you prefer, the five-man blitz — is on in the Minnesota Vikings stadium campaign, as everybody and their brother grabs headlines by any means possible:
- Vikings owner Zygi Wilf took his case to the people, or at least the Austin, Minnesota, Chamber of Commerce, asserting that "It's unfortunate that many people don't want to get engaged in it because it doesn't serve their political purposes. This team belongs to the fans and the people of Minnesota." Not in any sort of legally binding sense, of course — that'd be socialism.
- Sid Hartman, every sports team owner's favorite columnist, asserts that "the chances of the Vikings getting a new stadium are going to be much better if the team continues to win, and they will as long as a healthy [Brett] Favre is around." Vikings stadium czar Lester Bagley echoes the sentiment that Minnesotans will be more willing to give public money to a team with a good quarterback (even one who'd be 43 years old at minimum by the time the new place opened), telling KARE-TV news: "Brett Favre's our best lobbyist."
- State Rep. Michael Nelson — not to be confused with Minnesota's more famous Mike Nelson — says the Metrodome needs to be replaced because it's "1970 technology" (while acknowledging that "how we pay for it is the big question"). Which is a bit odd given that the Metrodome actually opened in 1982, though it does help explain the stadium scoreboard.
New Silverdome owner: Anybody got a ball?
The new owner of the Pontiac Silverdome has gone public with his plans for the vacant 80,000-seat facility:
"I like sports and I like being involved with sports, so I hope to bring sporting events people will like," Andreas Apostolopoulos, chief executive officer of the Toronto-based Triple Properties Inc., said Wednesday. "I'm not just thinking soccer, but football or baseball or whatever."
This at least explains why Apostolopoulos previously said he'd be putting an MLS franchise in the dome, when MLS has a stated distaste for oversized venues: He has no idea what he's talking about. Though for a purchase price of $583,000 — I wasn't the only one to note that this is cheaper than some apartments — he can afford to buy first, and figure out what he's doing later.
November 25, 2009
SF mag writer: My ex's old man so totally wants to move the A's to San Jose
It was headline news in yesterday's San Jose Mercury News: Oakland A's co-owners Lew Wolff and John Fisher had declared themselves in favor of moving the team to San Jose, with Wolff saying, "We have determined that San Jose is the only option for us in California," while the seldom-heard-from Fisher chimed in: "From the moment we bought this team the most important thing for Lew and I was to build a new ballpark to keep the A's in the Bay Area. Our conclusion is that the best opportunity to build a ballpark is in downtown San Jose."
Skeptics will note that this isn't exactly anything new: Wolff said pretty much the same thing back in March. And a read of the original San Francisco Magazine article that quoted Wolff and Fisher shows the story to be even odder: It's written by Steve Kettmann, a former A's beat writer and, weirdly, ex-boyfriend of Wolff's daughter Kari, who spends much of his 10,000 words lauding Wolff ("an affable, wisecracking businessman of 73"), crediting him with helping to get built the Sharks' San Jose Arena (which, perhaps inevitably, he describes as "gleaming"), and rehashing the well-rehashed tale of Wolff as the San Jose developer who bought the team with the secret desire to move it to his hometown. Possibly the most interesting new quote is from A's GM and minority owner Billy Beane, who argues that the Oakland Coliseum needs to be replaced because the toilets overflow when it rains.
If Wolff and Fisher granted interviews to their old pal in hopes of boosting talk of an A's move to San Jose, though, it seems to be working. Contra Costa Times sportswriter Joe Stiglich followed up with his own interview with Wolff talking up a San Jose move. Then CC Times columnist Gary Peterson followed with a column calling on MLB to make a ruling soon on the San Francisco Giants' territorial claim to the South Bay, either allowing the A's to move, allowing them to move for a price, or denying them access to San Jose for good (though Peterson called this "the least comprehensible of the options"). As publicity goes, it beats stories about how you just signed yet another third baseman with back problems.
State says Nets bond offering due next week (for real, they swear)
More news is filtering out about how the Atlantic Yards eminent domain ruling is likely to affect the long-stalled project, and the verdict — okay, my verdict, on the Village Voice website — is that the most important fallout is that bond rating agencies sound more likely to look favorably on arena bonds now that the most prominent lawsuit is out of the way. A bond offering could be issued as soon as next Wednesday, though Empire State Development Corporation spokesperson Warner Johnston couldn't give details of what interest rate the bonds would carry.
Arena opponents, meanwhile, are planning to keep up their court battle, but given that this was the only lawsuit remaining with the power to prevent the state from taking land for the project, it looks like an uphill battle to prevent a groundbreaking in the first few months of 2010. Barring such a crazy-high interest rate that developer Bruce Ratner gets sticker shock, it seems increasingly likely that Atlantic Yards will become a reality &mdash or at least that a Brooklyn Nets arena will, given that the associated housing towers have already been put on a schedule of "maybe someday, if ever."
November 24, 2009
Nets arena clears one lawsuit; media declares "cloud lifted"
Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards project has been cleared to seize private property by eminent domain, after New York state's highest court ruled that the state had the right to declare the area "blighted."
So what does this mean for the Nets arena project? The New York Times' Charles Bagli declared that "there was no question that the cloud of uncertainty that has been hanging over Atlantic Yards for more than a year had been lifted," while Bloomberg News announced that "Bruce Ratner's $5 billion Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn will move ahead." There are still plenty of other lawsuits pending against the project, and the lawyer for local landowners says he plans to challenge the eminent domain takings one by one, so it's not like this court case was the one big thing holding up the project.
No, that would be the bond rating problem — so the ultimate impact of today's ruling is going to depend on whether it makes the bond raters and insurers happier to okay the arena bonds before the December 31 deadline. In that case, the news articles may be even more important than the ruling itself — nothing calms the nerves of investors like the New York Times saying "the cloud of uncertainty has been lifted," whether it's true or not.
November 23, 2009
Vikings threat watch: Metrodome lease offer is "punting"
Minnesota Vikings owner Zygi Wilf continued his war of words against the state stadium commission's offer to extend his team's Metrodome lease this weekend, declaring that the commission needs to "get engaged and find solutions and not sit back and be afraid to tackle this issue. ... To try to avoid the issue ... like the commission did, is really punting when they should be really engaged in trying to find the way to solve this issue." (Press reports didn't say whether Wilf also accused the commission of "running out the clock" with a "Hail Mary play" that "had no hope of beating the spread.")
Commission Chairman Roy Terwilliger retorted that the commission does too want to build a new stadium, but that "the reason [a lease extension] came up is that the feeling was that the timing was going to be difficult next year" in the Legislature to get anything done. The commission is scheduled to release its design for a $900 million stadium it's dubbed "Metrodome Next" (which would be built on the current dome site) on December 17.
To show the urgency of their needs, Vikings officials are going to take state legislators on a tour of the Metrodome and the Twins' new Target Field today, presumably to see for themselves how the new stadium is knee-deep in hundred-dollar bills that the old place lacks. Vikings stadium honcho Lester Bagley added that the team is less concerned about picking a site than in "determining how we're going to pay for it."
Wilf, meanwhile, touted Target Field and the University of Minnesota football stadium as precedents, saying: "I think everybody looking back realizes it was the right thing to do. Nobody is politicizing that decision once it's done, and I'm sure the same thing will happen once we build our stadium." Well, except for certain nobodies
Mets add Mets content to Citi Field
The New York Mets sent out a press release over the weekend announcing that they're naming Citi Field's VIP entrances after former Mets greats, renaming the stadium's outfield footbridge "Shea Bridge," and otherwise adding more Mets-specific stuff (orange-and-blue flowers in planters!). This should please Mets fans who'd griped that the new stadium seemed to have more homages to the Brooklyn Dodgers than to the pre-2009 Mets, though as the blog Loge 13 wonders: "This is all great news but it is stunning that everyone else but the Mets realized this was a good idea long before Citi Field ever got built." One possibility: Mets execs may not have wanted to rename entrances for the likes of Casey Stengel and Gil Hodges before they'd seen if they could sell off naming rights to corporate sponsors first.
Fan sues Jets, Giants over PSLs
It's way early in the legal process, but a judge has allowed a lawsuit to go forward against against the New York Giants and Jets for requiring personal seat licenses to purchase tickets at their new stadium opening next year. Harold Oshinsky, who somehow has enough money to have been a season ticket holder for both teams for the past 24 years, charges that he has an implicit right to renew his tickets in perpetuity, and can't be denied that just because he won't buy a PSL. U.S. District Judge Peter Sheridan didn't necessarily endorse Oshinsky's claim, but said he will be allowed to continue with pre-trial depositions and discovery.
Needless to say, if Oshinsky were to win, this would have huge impacts for stadium financing plans, especially in the NFL, where PSLs are most common. That said, Sheridan didn't sound exactly encouraging in his language, though he did take time to note that “it is common knowledge that professional sports franchisees have a sordid history of arrogant disdain for the consumers of this product.”
49ers fund pro-stadium mailing to everyone in Santa Clara
There's still no date for a vote on the $937 million Santa Clara stadium project for the San Francisco 49ers, but that didn't stop Santa Clarans for Economic Progress from sending out a mailer to all of the city's 46,000 registered voters last week, urging them to vote "yes" on the project. Reports the San Francisco Chronicle:
So how did Santa Clarans for Economic Progress pay for that? With a little help from the 49ers, of course.
Lisa Gillmor, a former city councilwoman and central figure in the pro-stadium group, said the 49ers provided a substantial contribution for the mailers and the team was expected to continue funding Santa Clarans for Economic Progress.
"It will be the significant share of our campaign budget," said Gillmor. She declined to say how much the team put up or the total cost of the mailing, saying it would compromise strategy.
Gillmor added that she expects "San Francisco interests" to finance the "no" campaign, which led Bill Bailey, treasurer for the opposition group Santa Clara Plays Fair, to say that his organization has received only a single $50 donation from anyone in San Francisco.
Weirdly, it doesn't look like the San Jose Mercury News has reported on the mailing yet, though it has found room to speculate on the stadium project's impact on San Francisco's UFL franchise.
November 20, 2009
Metrodome owner votes for lease extension offer, feathers fly everywhere
Headline of the day: "Metrodome landlord infuriates Vikings with offer to extend lease another 2 years." This in reference to the Metropolitan Sports Facility Commission, which indeed voted yesterday to approve its lease extension offer to the Minnesota Vikings, which includes a rent reduction if they agree to renew, and a rent hike if they don't. Vikings stadium guy Lester Bagley fumed that the vote "sends a very bad message to the owners, the state and the league about the ability to solve the problem in Minnesota ... What kind of message does that send? We want to lock you in for two more years in the most dysfunctional stadium in the league." (The Canadian Press story further observes that the Vikings' Metrodome is "outdated" while the new Twins and University of Minnesota football stadiums are "shiny.")
The St. Paul Pioneer Press, meanwhile, polls various sports business experts (including frequent FoS sources Brad Humphreys and David Carter) and finds they think the threat of the Vikings moving to Los Angeles is very real. Though Carter notes that current Vikings owner Zygi Wilf would probably have to give up his majority stake in the team if he wanted to go to L.A.: "[Ed Roski] doesn't just want to build a stadium and be the landlord. He wants to own a majority share in a franchise."
What appears to have happened here is that the sports commission has thrown down a gauntlet by saying that it can't bail the Vikings out — so it's up to the state to do so instead, by building a new stadium to replace the Metrodome. ("Our action today was to empty the cupboards here. There is nothing left," commissioner Paul Thatcher told the Pioneer Press. "The only thing left to do is to get a new stadium.") That will be easier said than done: Wilf has made clear he doesn't expect to put much of his own money into any deal, and the state is broke: "With this deficit, I think it's immoral that we're even talking about it," state representative Mindy Grieling said yesterday. Meanwhile, Republican gubernatorial candidate Pat Anderson declared that she's opposed to spending public money on a Vikings stadium. But then, that's what all the candidates say, until they actually get elected.
Pats get stimulus subsidy for footbridge
It's official: New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft is getting his $9 million in federal stimulus money for his parking lot footbridge after the Metropolitan Planning Organization for the Boston Region voted 13-1 to approve it yesterday. More than one board member opposed it, apparently, but the board was only allowed to vote the entire slate of projects up or down, and the others didn't want to block the additional projects under consideration.
On the bright side, even dumb spending projects help stimulate the economy, and the construction jobs created by the $9 million will be real. On the other hand, now the state of Massachusetts has $9 million less to spend on a more worthy project. But Bob Kraft is a great businessman, so who's to complain?
Nets arena lawsuits are the new black
The Village Voice headline says it all: Yet Another Atlantic Yards Lawsuit! This one, filed by a group of local elected officials and community groups, charges that the Brooklyn Nets arena deal wasn't adequately evaluated by the state — which is different, mind you, from the lawsuit a similar group filed last month charging that the sale of state-owned rail yards wasn't adequately evaluated. Add in the pending eminent domain appeal and the other recent lawsuit against the state, and the number of suits in play against the project is now up to four. This can't be making the bond insurers happy.
November 19, 2009
Raiders re-up in Oakland through 2013
In what has to be classified as a major surprise, the Oakland Raiders have agreed to a three-year lease extension at the Oakland Coliseum, keeping the team there through 2013 — and are even agreeing to a $5 million a year rent hike.
"To be honest, I was looking for more money," city councilman (and Coliseum Authority co-chair) Ignacio de la Fuente tells the San Francisco Chronicle, noting that stadium operations and debt on Mount Davis currently comes to $12 million a year. "The reality is that the original Raiders deal did not work out very well for us, but at this point, we might as well try to work out a long-term lease and a long-term solution."
Unless there are further details that are going unreported (like, say, hidden rent kickbacks), this seems like a pretty good negotiating job by de la Fuente, especially given the threat posed by the new Los Angeles stadium. (Though it's worth noting that wouldn't be built until at least 2012, so the Raiders presumably needed to extend their lease for at least one year.) The city, county, and stadium authority all still need to sign off on the deal, which is expected by the end of the year.
Vikings: Your lease deal makes us feel unloved, unwanted
The Minnesota Vikings owners upped the ante over the Metrodome lease standoff yesterday, following up Tuesday's angry press statements with an angry open letter to the sports commission (PDF here):
Come February, the Minnesota Vikings will have only 20 games remaining on our Metrodome lease. As the last tenant in the Metrodome, we would expect to be treated fairly and with some minimum level of respect. Your actions yesterday leave us confused and questioning the future of this franchise.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what they call a move threat. (Or rather, a non-threat threat.) It's hard to gauge whether it's a more direct threat than their last one, but you have to think the new L.A. stadium in the works is making Vikes management feel like they have more leverage here.
The ball is now back in the sports commission's court, with a scheduled vote today on the lease extension plan that started the whole kerfuffle.
November 18, 2009
Vikings "outraged" by Metrodome lease extension offer
Minnesota's Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission issued an unusual carrot and stick to the Vikings yesterday, offering to give them a greater cut of revenues if they extend their lease at the Metrodome beyond 2011 — and threatening to make them start paying $4 million a year in rent if they refuse. (The Vikings are actually supposed to pay rent at the dome, but have been absolved of that for the last nine years after whining that none of their other NFL friends have to pay rent.) The goal here, commission finance chair Paul Thatcher told the Minneapolis Star Tribune, was to "kick the can down the road a ways" until such time as the economy recovers enough for public stadium subsidies to have a shot in the state legislature.
Vikings management's response? "Our ownership is outraged for the sports commission to advance a proposal that they know is completely unacceptable to the Vikings," Vikes stadium chief Lester Bagley fumed to Minnpost.com. "Without the simple courtesy of a phone call or a heads-up they drop this radical proposal on us. ... We're the last remaining tenant. We expect to be treated with some level of respect, and I guess we'll have to continue to wait. The Wilfs are landlords. You don't do this to a tenant whose lease is up."
That would be a "no," then.
California NFL stadiums creep forward
California may be setting records for budget deficits, but that isn't stopping it from also setting records for most NFL stadium projects all at the same time. Some recent developments:
- The city of San Diego is about to hire a stadium consultant to explore ways to pay for a new downtown stadium for the Chargers near Petco Park. Chargers stadium czar Mark Fabiani told the San Diego Union Tribune yesterday that the total cost at that site could be less than $800 million, though it's unclear if he was including land costs — the Union Trib notes that Fabiani had previously indicated that revenue from developing land around a new stadium "would play a big part" (their words) in funding construction.
- Zennie Abraham, a former economic advisor to the city of Oakland, notes that San Francisco came out with an
economicenvironmental impact report for its 49ers stadium plan the same time as Santa Clara issued its EIR, and claims the S.F. report looks better. (Abraham derides the Santa Clara report as "written as if by a snickering, snipping bureaucrat who had no patience with questions.") Abraham further notes that with two cities in the running, "the NFL will use Santa Clara as a, well, pawn, in the creation of a deal that ultimately works for both the league and the 49ers." Of course, he could just as easily have said that San Francisco will be used as a pawn to get a better Santa Clara deal. It's how whipsawing works. - "Walnut's most high-profile resident" came out in favor of the new NFL stadium proposal in neighborhing Industry, calling it "a great opportunity to provide a lot of jobs and to be an economic boost for the area." This famous Walnuttian? Charlie Beck, who was just appointed to be the new chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, notwithstanding that he lives 20 miles from the city limits. (Also, Lance Parrish and Taboo may argue this designation.)
November 17, 2009
Silverdome sold for less than a studio apartment in Manhattan
And we have a winner in the Pontiac Silverdome auction: A Toronto-based real estate company won the 34-year-old former home of the Detroit Lions with a bid of $583,000, or just over 1% of what it cost to build originally. Even though the price was low, getting the stadium into private hands was important for Pontiac's financial health, according to Fred Leeb, the city's emergency manager. "Even I have to admit that the number is lower than I would like," Fred Leeb, Pontiac's state-appointed emergency financial manager, told the Wall Street Journal. "But I'm happy that we made the decision. Procrastination was literally costing us millions of dollars."
The names of the Silverdome's new owners weren't revealed, but Leeb did say that they plan on using the dome for a Major League Soccer franchise, as well as a pro women's soccer team. That's a bit odd, given MLS's increasing insistence that its teams play in soccer-only stadiums, but I guess at that price, the Toronto group can afford to buy a stadium that it plans to throw away in a couple of years.
November 16, 2009
Santa Clara on 49ers: Gah, the cars!
With Santa Clara set to hold two meetings on its $937 million San Francisco 49ers stadium proposal (most of which would be paid for by the team, though it's a matter of some dispute exactly how much) today and Wednesday, the city released its revised environmental impact report on Friday, including 160 pages of public comments. As the San Francisco Examiner sums them up:
The Bay Area Air Quality Management District is worried about greenhouse gasses and dust emitted during construction. The Santa Clara County Water District wanted more assurance about bridges and levees. And local residents said they feared the value of their homes will plummet.
But the most concern was saved for transportation impacts. Whether it's streetcars, BART, busses or cars, just about every agency within earshot of Santa Clara City Hall said they were concerned about traffic, traffic and more traffic.
The report indicates that the 49ers are willing to avoid scheduling weeknight games (including Monday nights) if there are insurmountable traffic problems, something that could raise eyebrows among the NFL schedule makers. Though I suppose if the league wants to get the 49ers into a new stadium that badly, it's cheaper than funding it themselves.
Developers eager to host Kings arena, but mum on money
Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson's call for ideas for a new Kings arena is generating plenty of ideas, if nothing else. Both Thomas Enterprises, the developer for most of Sacramento's downtown railyard, and Gerry Kamilos, a local developer who doesn't have a site picked out, say they plan to submit proposal's to the mayor's new arena task force, and other developers have expressed interest as well.
Of course, the key question in these cases is seldom "Who's going to build it?" or "Where will it be built?" but rather "Who will pay for it?" So far, at least, nobody's talking funding sources — something that has proven to be problematic, to say the least, in the past.
November 13, 2009
Waiting for Nets bonds: Would you believe, December?
Looks like those Nets arena bonds won't be put on sale next week after all: The Empire State Development Corporation now says they won't be sold until mid-December. That's getting dangerously close to the December 31 deadline that the IRS has set for allowing the bonds to be tax-exempt (which would otherwise be illegal), after which the whole project would pretty much go kablooey.
The problem, presumably, remains that little bond rating issue that the Nets are reportedly having: The New York Observer observes that this is the third time in the last two months that the bond issuance date has been pushed back. Goldman Sachs managing director Gregory Carey, who's negotiating with the bond rating agencies on the Nets' behalf, said he hopes to have the issue resolved before Thanksgiving, but didn't exactly sound super-confident: "Nothing's done until it's done, but there's nothing in the discussions I've had that would lead me to believe that we're not going to get to where we need to get to. We have no other choice."
Pats owner gave money to governor
The New England Patriots footbridge controversy widens today, as the Boston Globe reveals that Pats owner Robert Kraft gave $12,000 in campaign contributions to Gov. Deval Patrick at the same time that Patrick was backing a plan to give $9 million in federal stimulus money to the bridge project.
In other stimulus-subsidy news, meanwhile, the Kalamazoo County commission met Wednesday to debate whether to build an $81 million downtown arena for the Kalamazoo Wings, which could use federal stimulus bonds to pay part of the cost. Commissioners were split on the proposal, but are going to keep investigating it.
Minnesota mulls Vikings stadium task force
The L.A. stadium fallout continues: Minnesota house speaker (and 2010 gubernatorial candidate) Margaret Kelliher has called for a "purple ribbon" commission to discuss a new stadium for the Vikings. (Because the Vikings wear purple, get it? Get it?) A Kelliher spokesman told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that she believes a stadium is "not a top priority for the state," but since the "conversation is taking place" already, this would be a "way to protect the public" rather than having stadium talks "happen just behind closed doors."
In most cases, of course, stadium commissions begin with the premise that the goal is to build a new stadium, and the only question is how to get it done — which may not be most people's idea of protecting the public. There's a first time for everything, though.
November 12, 2009
San Diego floats $1B Chargers stadium
And the new front-runner for a new home for the San Diego Chargers is ... San Diego? The city, which had mostly left new stadium talks to various suburban towns the last few years, this week jumped back in with both feet, proposing a $1 billion NFL stadium near the Padres' Petco Park that would be paid for, well, they'll get back to us on that. Redevelopment of the Chargers' current stadium site could pay for part of it — insert the usual caveats about the value of development rights in 2009 California here — and while the San Diego Union Tribune reports that the potential site is within the city's downtown redevelopment area, which could allow for tax increment financing, where property tax dollars are kicked back to pay for construction costs.
The Union Trib wasted no time in declaring itself thrilled by the prospect of a new stadium, which would apparently be "gleaming." It also left no doubt about the reason behind San Diego's sudden revival of interest in wooing the Chargers:
[R]epresentatives of [Ed] Roski's real estate company have made it clear that if a stadium is built [in Industry], the Chargers will be among the NFL franchises they will woo.
The Chargers are an asset to this region on many levels, and not just for football fans. It would be a painful loss if the team ultimately accepted the promise of greater revenue from a 21st-century stadium in L.A. or elsewhere.
Right on cue. If this keeps up, Roski should demand a cut of all the new stadium subsidies he generates for the NFL in other cities.
November 10, 2009
The week is off to a slow start, stadium-shenanigans-wise, but a few items have begun to trickle across the transom:
- The forever-simmering Houston Dynamo stadium controversy has become a major issue in the city's mayoral runoff, with Gene Locke charging that his opponent, Annise Parker, would drive the team out of town by refusing to contribute to a new soccer stadium. A Parker spokesperson told the Houston Chronicle: "The city has already done its part by contributing the land to the project. Especially in tough economic times like we are facing now, the city can't afford expensive, new projects."
- The state of New Hampshire has capped the amount of rooms-and-meals taxes that it distributes to cities — which is a problem for Manchester, which is paying off its arena bonds with those taxes. Moody's has already downgraded the bonds to junk status, and they could be at risk of default — something that Manchester, even though it's not technically on the hook for bond payments, doubtless wants to avoid. Right now, it looks like the city and the state are going to beat each other up over who should be responsible for the shortfall — sound familiar?
- A poll of Saskatchewan residents on the future of Mosaic Stadium found that 37.4% say the Roughriders' home be replaced by a domed stadium, 11.9% think it should be replaced by a non-domed stadium, 18.1% think it should be renovated, and and 32.6% say it should be left alone. The headline that the Regina Leader-Post (which conducted the poll) used on this was "Most Saskatchewan residents believe Mosaic Stadium should be replaced or improved," though they could have just as easily said "Most Saskatchewan residents don't believe Mosaic Stadium should be replaced." It doesn't look like the poll went into funding specifics, though it is reported that "eighty per cent say various levels of government should foot at least part of the bill." (The tip, presumably.)
November 07, 2009
Patriots' bridge to nowhere to get stimulus money?
It looks like we may have a winner for first stadium-related project funded with federal stimulus dollars: The state of Massachusetts is moving ahead with a plan to spend $9 million in stimulus money on a footbridge between two parking lots that serve the New England Patriots' Gillette Stadium.
If the bridge funding gets final approval from a regional planning board later this month, it will beat out a slew of other projects that have been rumored to be considered using stimulus money: an arena in Kalamazoo, the Columbus Blue Jackets' arena, a minor-league baseball stadium in Illinois, etc. Most of these would use subsidized federal bonds approved under the stimulus bill — the Pats seem to be the only ones looking to funnel stimulus cash directly into stadium-related construction.
Meanwhile, Massachusetts secretary of housing and economic development Greg Bialecki made himself the early front-runner for the Nobel Prize in Kool-Aid Drinking by asserting that his state is losing businesses to other states because of its failure to provide public subsidies for private businesses, and that that "is a habit that the Patrick administration is trying very hard to break." (Actual studies show that subsidies have very little impact on business relocation decisions.) Bialecki added that the question shouldn't be whether the Patriots owners could pay for the bridge themselves, but rather: "Is the public investment we're making likely to increase private job creation? And if it is, then it's a good thing to do."
Of course, if the Kraft family is interested enough in developing the parking lot that they'd build the bridge themselves, then the "increase" in private job creation from the subsidy is zero. Or if they'd build it with a smaller subsidy, then the same holds true for the excess subsidy amount. And there's no guarantee the development will even get built, or if it does that it won't just cannibalize commercial jobs from elsewhere in Massachusetts. I'm never going to get hired as a secretary of economic development, am I?
Yankee Stadium demolition begins
Helicopter photos of Yankee Stadium taken on Wednesday and Thursday show that a backhoe has begun gobbling up the Yankee Stadium bleachers, marking the first major structural demolition of the old ballpark. David Lombino, a spokesperson for the New York City Economic Development Corporation, says that "the dismantling work began this week," adding: "Major pieces of the stadium, which will be visible from outside the stadium, will begin to be dismantled next month."
Demolition was originally slated to begin in the spring, but the last seven months have been taken up with removing seats and other items for sale, setting up scaffolding, and other non-demolitiony exercises. Conveniently or not, this means that fans celebrating the Yankees' World Championship (and, apparently, Beer Pong Thursdays) were spared the sight of a half-torn-apart stadium crashing their party.
More on the demolition schedule, and the long-delayed replacement parks that are supposed to replace the stadium once it's gone, in my Village Voice article.
November 06, 2009
European sports leagues are usually outside this site's purview, but sometimes we just have to take notice: For example, when the Newcastle United football team (that's soccer to you North American readers) announces that it's signed a naming rights deal to rename its 117-year-old St. James' Park to "sportsdirect.com@St James' Park Stadium" for the remainder of the season. The cost to the online sportswear merchant: Absolutely nothing, as the new name is being used to "showcase" the park's naming rights for a more long-term sale next summer. And did we mention that Newcastle owner Mike Ashley is also owner of Sports Direct?
So far British fans and the media have mostly reacted by pointing and laughing, with Telegraph columnist Jim White writing that compared to this, "FC Dallas's Pizza Hut Park is a beacon of understatement." Okay, pointing, laughing, and trying to form a fan cooperative to buy out out Ashley and turn the team into a community-owned club like in Madrid and Barcelona. Because we all know those Europeans are a bunch of socialists.
November 05, 2009
More evidence that arena subsidy ideas never die, they just go dormant: Five months after the Columbus Blue Jackets abandoned their plan to have the county to give them millions of dollars in lease concessions, the Columbus Chamber issued a report today warning that the team could move without a massive infusion of cash. And where would that cash come from? The report mentions selling more tickets, but most of the options involve public money:
- Funneling state, city, or county money directly to the team, from alcohol and cigarette taxes, hotel/motel tax, car rental taxes, or a special Arena District tax.
- Have Nationwide, owner of the team's arena, cut their rent and/or give them a larger share of arena revenues.
- If Nationwide isn't amenable to that, have the public buy the arena, and then give the team lease concessions. Either city tax-exempt bonds could be used, or federal Build America Bonds, which were authorized as part of the economic stimulus package.
The report asserts that the Blue Jackets are losing more than $10 million a year, and blames it on the fact that the team has to pay rent and doesn't get a cut of naming rights, seat licenses, or parking. Of course, the team also has never won a playoff game, which can't be helping ticket sales. And it's not like the team's owners didn't know what was in the lease when they signed it in 1997.
What's happening here, says the National Post, is that the NHL's revenue model is imploding, and its teams are looking to the public for a bailout:
OK, add them to the list. We've been saying all along that Phoenix was only the first franchise to implode, and that the structural flaws inherent in the new NHL — salary floor, little national TV money, too many non-traditional markets — could combine with the still-dormant U.S. economy to create a wave of similar failures.
And when you look at the attendance numbers creeping in from across the league, some of them are chilling, and not in hockey-rink-in-the-morning chilling.
Phoenix, of course, is beyond repair — its last two home games have featured reported paid attendance of 6,495 and 5,855. But others are hemorraghing, too. The New York Islanders, waiting forever for an arena, are averaging 11,909. Nashville: 13,398. Tampa Bay: 14,329. Florida: 14,397. Atlanta: 14,893. And remember, these are tickets sold, not patrons in attendance, and in many cases they include any number of cut-rate deals.
The Blue Jackets' last attempt at getting subsidies crashed and burned, but it looks like the team and its backers are trying hard to move the debate in the direction of "It's not whether we give them money, but how." Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman told Business First of Columbus that "we will not use city tax dollars from our general operating fund that are dedicated for basic city services," but that "the public and private sectors should explore options that keep them in Columbus." This is common mayoral code, and means that any special taxes not dedicated to the general operating fund — in other words, like the sin and other taxes proposed by the Columbus Chamber — are very much on the table.
The NHL may or may not be headed for a wave of failures — and it's debatable whether teams losing money when they're lousy should be considered a "failure" — but it's almost certainly heading for a new wave of eyeing taxpayers' wallets.
Only three months after its plan for a new downtown arena fell completely apart, Las Vegas is back at it again, signing an exclusive two-year deal with the Cordish Co. to "study the feasibility" of a new NBA/NHL facility, including public financing.
Cordish, according to the Las Vegas Sun, "specializes in revitalizing depressed urban centers by developing entertainment and mixed-use projects." In English, that means that it has never actually built an arena before, though it does have experience building sports-related development projects — if you count Kansas City's troubled Power and Light District and St. Louis' still-stalled Ballpark Village as "experience." Still, Mayor Oscar Goodman is willing to bet beer on them, so they must be good, right?
Late election returns: SF and Cleveland
If you were too busy following the news of New York's city council electing its first Neopagan, you may have missed reports on a couple of stadium-related votes on Tuesday:
- Voters in San Francisco lifted a ban on selling naming rights to Candlestick Park, one that had been in place all the way back to last year. (Voters had actually passed the ban in 2004, but had to wait until 2008 for a naming-rights deal with Monster Cable to expire. Funds raised would be split between the city and the 49ers — though given the state of the naming-rights market, this may require resorting to some unusual coinage.
- Ohio voters approved legalized casinos in the state's four largest cities, thus proving that if you want an exclusive license to build gambling halls, it helps to have a captive audience of NBA fans to make your pitch to. Or proving that America is dissatisfied with the progress of health reform. One or the other.
November 04, 2009
New Yankee Stadium hurts local businesses: Week 2
The New York Times chimes in today on the Yankees' Souvenirgate, noting, as WNYC and WCBS did before them, that local businesses on 161st Street aren't doing so hot now that the New York Yankees Steakhouse and Baseball Stadium is open across the street:
While working in his father's souvenir shop up the block, [Saeed Alawy of Pin Stripe Collectibles] recalled, there was no time to fold the T-shirts before selling them. Customers were lined up three and four deep at the counter yelling out orders and tossing wads of bills.
"They were throwing the money," Mr. Alawy, 47, said.
Over the course of an hour on Monday, just 13 shoppers wandered into Pin Stripe Collectibles and Mr. Alawy made only four sales, for a total of $107.
This would, perhaps, be more impressive if there had actually been a game in the Bronx on Monday, but reporters on deadline can't be choosers. (And WNYC did find similar inactivity on game days last week.)
Not reporting on the travails of 161st Street merchants: MLB.com, the official web publishing arm of Major League Baseball, which instead last night posted a love letter to the new stadium that is strangely evasive about the fact that it's new at all, calling it the "House That Ruth Built" and reporting that "the shining diamond in the South Bronx has had three openings" — two, that is, on the other diamond across the street. The MLB.com report also upholds the tradition that every article about a new sports facility must refer to it as "glistening," as if it were, er, something else.
November 03, 2009
NHL purchase of Coyotes is final
The Phoenix Coyotes are officially a ward of the league after the NHL finalized its purchase of the bankrupt franchise for $140 million today. (Bankruptcy court judge Redfield Baum gave his blessing to the sale yesterday, as expected.) Coyotes fans celebrated by staying home from the game in record numbers.
Next up: the sale of the team by the NHL to parties unknown, who may or may not keep the team in Arizona. The league says it will look first for local buyers, but only for the next year — and its notion of "local" is, shall we say, flexible.
November 01, 2009
Our relentless assault on both new and old media
It not every week when I'm quoted in both the L.A. Times and Deadspin. Read Dave Zirin's op-ed analyzing the Industry NFL stadium deal here, and then follow that up with Deadspin's Why Your Stadium Sucks installment on the new Yankee Stadium, where I have the honor of throwing out the first tirade. Best comment (not-by-me-or-anyone-I-know-personally division) goes to Martin Pederson of Metropolis magazine:
After the first playoff game against the Twins, Michael Kay and David Cone were speculating about the subdued nature of the crowd. Was it the 6 o'clock start? The early lead by the Twins? "Excuse me, guys," I shouted at the TV, "it's the fucking architecture!"
