March 31, 2010
Yankee Stadium Gate 2 demolished?
Unconfirmed report just now (but from a reliable Bronx source) that Yankee Stadium's Gate 2, the subject of a contentious preservation effort, has been demolished. More news as it becomes available, though I bet the commenters get to this before I do.
San Jose voters love the A's, if they don't have to pay
A poll of 532 registered voters in San Jose has found that 62% approve of providing free land for an Oakland A's stadium so long as tax money isn't used for building or operating it. Which is the stated plan, though as more than a few folks have noted, A's owner Lew Wolff doesn't exactly have a great track record on transparency in his financial plans.
In related news, that SFGate blog rumor that approval of an A's shift to San Jose was imminent was debunked hours later by Susan Slusser of the very same site, who reports that A's officials haven't heard anything about this, and that "I had checked in with a reliable source at Major League Baseball yesterday and was told that nothing is imminent on the report, it's still some way off and the panel's working is continuing." In the battle of the unattributed sources, I'm going with the ones that at least have their workplaces IDed.
Tampa columnist: Rays need new stadium, because ... just because
If you enjoy the spectacle of a sportswriter tying himself in rhetorical knots, check out Joe Henderson's column in today's Tampa Tribune, which manages to argue, in quick succession, that:
- The Tampa Bay Rays need a new stadium.
- Taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for it.
- Local leaders need to "find the best location, work with the Rays to figure out how to pay for it, and realize the team is for the entire area."
- The Rays "are an enormous benefit to the area," but it's a "myth" that stadiums help the local economy.
- A new stadium should be built anyway because that's "what it costs to keep the team."
Follow all that? It comes down to: The Rays will leave without a new stadium, so somebody should figure out a way to pay for one that doesn't involve me. Not appearing in this column: any mention of the seventeen years remaining on the Rays' current lease, which would seem to obviate the urgency of building a new stadium to keep the team in town. Though if "work with the Rays to figure out how to pay for it" is the best idea anybody can come up with, it'll probably take until 2027 to figure out a financing plan anyway.
March 30, 2010
Blogger: MLB report will send A's to San Jose
This barely rises to the level of rumor, but: Former Oakland city economic advisor-turned-San Francisco Chronicle blogger Zennie Abraham reports this morning that Bud Selig's Oakland A's stadium commission will report back within three days, and will recommend that the team be moved to San Jose.
Abraham's source? "A source." No indication even of whether this source is "close to the negotiations" or anything, as Abraham spends most of his blog item arguing that moving the A's would be a mistake, given their "Worldwide" fan base. (Which would make sense, as the franchise has already played just about everywhere in the world.)
That Selig's Gang of Three would recommend San Jose as an A's destination, if true, wouldn't be surprising, given its further-ahead stadium deal and relatively untapped market; the bigger question remains what price Selig will make A's owner Lew Wolff have to pay to the San Francisco Giants if he wants to get a deal done. Is Rob Neyer right that the commission report won't be released until Selig has worked out a deal acceptable to all parties? We could maybe find out this week — unless, as Abraham insists, "MLB elects to delay the release of the report after this blog post." It takes a clever blogger to take credit for predicting things that don't happen...
First Target Field reviews: "Incredible," "mall-like"
The Minnesota Twins' new Target Field held a baseball game on Saturday — albeit with college teams, since the Twins are still at spring training — which means lots of people chiming in with their first impressions:
- Jay Weiner of MinnPost says that it's easy to get there by public transit, the concession stands feel like you're in a mall, and it's not too cold to play baseball outside in Minnesota. And it could be good for the Vikings' stadium push if fans get new-stadium fever, but bad if they notice how much more money the Vikes' stadium would cost.
- The Downtown Journal, which actually snuck in a couple of weeks ago, notes the myriad sculpture (including 1.25:1 scale statues of Rod Carew, Harmon Killebrew, and Kirby Puckett), the five full-service restaurants, and a roof deck by the top of the left-field foul pole with a "10-foot-long gas fire pit."
- Sid Hartman, predictably, called it "unbelievable" and "fantastic."
- The Associated Press reports that a Twins spokesman says fans are describing it as "incredible." And he'd know, right?
March 29, 2010
Coyotes bidders drop subsidy demands on Glendale
The Glendale, Arizona city council is set to review two new lease proposals from the ownership groups vying to take over the NHL-owned Phoenix Coyotes — though "vying" may be an overstatement, given that both Ice Edge Holdings and Jerry Reinsdorf are looking for major subsidies in order to grace Glendale with their presence. Globe and Mail writer David Shoalts further reports that Reinsdorf is looking for an escape clause that would let him break any lease if revenue and ticket sales weren't up to his lofty standards.
Shoalts further reports that Glendale might not be able to offer significant lease breaks even if it wants to:
- An Arizona state supreme court ruling in January outlawed any subsidies that don't result in "direct public benefits."
- The conservative Goldwater Institute has threatened to sue if the city gives the Coyotes any lease breaks.
- Glendale is flat broke.
The only thing for sure, it seems, is that this isn't going to end well. Unless, just maybe, you live in Winnipeg.
FC New York not getting anywhere with New York
FC New York, that minor-league expansion soccer team that said it wants to build a stadium in Queens, now says it's hit a snag: namely, that nobody in Queens is actually offering to build them a stadium. Meanwhile, team president Doug Petersen says that Nassau County is eagerly wooing his club, though he mostly seems to be interested in using that as leverage to get Queens finally talking:
"In the last two weeks, we are stepping up our campaign to reach out to people in local governments [in New York City] again to see if there are soccer friends in the political arena who want to help us," said Petersen, who is based in Garden City, L.I. "I think the sport of passion for people in Queens is soccer."
As far as Nassau goes, there are no more details about a stadium there than in Queens, but at least they're talking a good game: Deputy county executive Rob Walker told the Daily News, "Being able to say that Nassau County is the home of a premier soccer team or whatever the case may be, we want to do it." "Or whatever the case may be"? What, a league made of up two competing leagues forced to play each other because neither had enough teams on its own doesn't sound "premier" to you?
March 28, 2010
Red Bull Arena review: Soccer, soccer everywhere, but not a drop to drink
Last night my family and I attended the first regular-season game at Red Bull Arena, the new soccer-only home of Red Bull New York in Harrison, New Jersey. I wasn't sure what to expect, in more ways than one — it was not only my first visit to this stadium, but to a live pro soccer match at all, so I was curious to see both the new building and the fan turnout.
Getting to Harrison, a rundown industrial town across the Passaic River from Newark, was easy: As the Red Bulls website suggested, we avoided the highway and took the subway to the PATH train to Harrison, for a total trip time from Brooklyn of a little under an hour. The stadium, as expected, is currently surrounded by unsightly vacant lots filled with standing water, and is relatively unlovely from the outside, but is pleasant and fairly cozy on the inside; we were up in the top deck in corner seats, and had a good view of all the action.
I was initially thinking that the aluminum seating bowl felt chintzy — for this, they spent $200 million? mdash; but I soon realized that I was missing the point. Though the game itself was lacking in that feature that other sports call "scoring" (the Red Bulls won, 1-0), it was exciting the entire way, in large part thanks to the frenzied sellout crowd, which in turn was in large part thanks to the architecture: When you have 25,000 people stamping on aluminum flooring in unison, it's loud, and fun no matter what's going on on the field. And that's before even getting into the incessant smoke bombs being set off by the fan club (sorry, "supporters club") section down front.
There were only two huge flaws in the Red Bull Arena experience (not counting the frigid weather, which there's nothing the team could do anything about, unless the smoke bombs were intended to speed up global warming). First off, as has been noted a couple of other places, the stadium has no water fountains, and the bathroom taps only dispense hot water. And each person is only allowed to bring one sealed bottle of water with them. On a cold night in March, this was merely an annoyance (especially since water at the concessions stands is $4 a bottle); when it's 100 degrees in July, and the lines for the concession stands are as long as they were during halftime last night, it's going to be a lawsuit waiting to happen.
The other problem is going to require a more time-consuming fix. As noted, we arrived via PATH, and it was an easy trip. Getting back was a different story: Apparently the 99-year-old Harrison station hasn't been upgraded to accommodate post-sporting-event crowds — I counted about eight turnstiles total — which led to horrific lines just to get into the station. (As one supporter trapped on line behind me muttered: "Great game, great stadium, better team, terrible traffic control.") Door-to-door travel time to get back home to Brooklyn: Two hours and ten minutes.
The Harrison station is currently undergoing a $173 million renovation, of which there were few signs last night, but if Wikipedia is to be believed, it should eventually ease traffic flow considerably. Added to Harrison's $80 million in land and infrastructure costs for the stadium, though, it means New Jersey taxpayers are spending about a quarter-million-billion dollars to support their new soccer stadium (and the surrounding development, of course, if condos and retail ever really sprout on those waterlogged lots). The game was great, but for prices like that, I wouldn't mind a drink of water.
March 27, 2010
Last of Yankee Stadium seating bowl demolished
The last section of the Yankee Stadium upper deck, the only remaining part of the seating bowl, was demolished on Thursday.
More photos here and here and here.
All that remains now is the exterior wall (and some scraps of interior concourse), including Gate 2, which some preservationists are trying to save as the most intact fragment of the original 1923-era stadium. The Save the Yankee Gate 2 Committee Committee to Commemorate Old Yankee Stadium this week asked the city Landmarks Preservation Commission for an emergency injunction against the destruction of the gate, citing a mayor's office official who last month testified that the gate was an original 1923 structure. No word yet on any response from the commission. (The group says it's also offered to pay for removal and preservation of the 1920s terra cotta medallions and balconies that are part of Gate 2; no word on the fate of that proposal, either.)
Gate 2 organizer Michael Hagan, meanwhile, passed along the city's latest plans for memorializing Yankee Stadium, which include outlining the field dimensions in dark green grass (the original home plate site would be second base in a new public ballfield), keeping the smokestack "bat" and two pieces of the concrete frieze that ran atop the scoreboard in the renovated stadium, and installing "historical moments" embedded in the sidewalk and viewfinders in the park showing "photographic slides."
It all sounds a lot like this.
March 26, 2010
Apparently the Tampa Tribune was having a slow news day now that the Sonnanstine-Davis wars are over, because it ran an article today with this headline:
Bud Selig could change Rays stadium momentum
For those hoping (or dreading) news that the Budulator was wading into the Tampa Bay Rays stadium mess, watch that telltale modal. As the article makes clear, Selig could influence the Rays stadium fight, because, you know, he's done it before:
Selig has repeated the same message in Miami, Minneapolis, Oakland, Calif., and elsewhere, so much that some observers have come to expect it. Marc Edelman, a law professor at Barry University in South Florida, said baseball has a history of keeping certain baseball-hungry cities in reserve, threatening to move a team to these cities if the ballclub's hometown won't ante up for a new stadium.
Portland, Ore., Charlotte, N.C., and Las Vegas are among the cities often held in reserve, Edelman said. Although Selig can aggressively lobby cities for new stadiums, the commissioner alone doesn't have the power to relocate a team. Such a move would require the approval of 75 percent of MLB's owners, he said.
"I would not be surprised to see Bud Selig and other high-ranking baseball officials, if requested by the Rays' ownership, to begin actively lobbying local councilmen to support paying a significant portion of a new stadium," Edelman said.
I wouldn't be surprised either, but given that he hasn't done so yet, the obvious conclusion is that either he or the Rays owners figure that now's not the time for the hard sell. And anyway, it's not like Selig really dives into direct lobbying of elected officials all that much — the best example the story can come up with is a letter he wrote to a Miami-area legislator in 2001, which worked so well that the Marlins were awarded a new stadium promptly eight years later.
The other obvious conclusion, meanwhile, is that if people think you're going to be making wild threats, you can get attention without actually making them.
March 25, 2010
McCourt: The NFL so totally wants me to build a football stadium
Give Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt (no, not that one) credit, he knows how to make headlines. When he's not talking about the bitter divorce trial he's engaged in, he's ... okay, this actually came up during his divorce trial anyway:
Court filings in the divorce case revealed that McCourt also remains active in planning for an NFL stadium in the Dodger Stadium parking lot.
"There's no question L.A. should have an NFL franchise," he said. "It's probably the worst-kept secret in Los Angeles that the NFL would love to be at Chavez Ravine. Other than that, I can't comment right now."
Yeah, that'll distract the press from your marital problems in a hurry. There doesn't seem to be any actual evidence that the NFL is working on a Chavez Ravine stadium other than McCourt's oblique hint, but that still has the NFL rumor mill a-flutter that the NFL is turning its back on Ed Roski's City of Industry stadium that's supposed to bring in two teams and somehow pay for itself and instead is looking to L.A. proper. Because this is totally different from the last time McCourt tried to woo the NFL to his land and got nowhere. Totally.
MLB.com really, really wants to be taken seriously as an independent news site — it's why every article carries the tagline "This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs," hoping to convince you that despite being owned by MLB, it's real journalism.
And then it goes and runs an article like this one, headlined "New ballparks can mean new hope for teams." Oh, yeah? What's your evidence, reporter John Schlegel?
A new ballpark promises many things, from a vastly improved fan experience to the revenue potential to help retain or acquire players. It promises a new visage of a team's home, a new identity -- literally, a new face for the franchise.
But it doesn't promise success on the field. It doesn't promise titles. Those still must be earned.
Okay, that's slightly confusing, given the headline. "New hope" would imply that the teams actually have hope of improving on the field—
A ballpark happens to be an excellent vehicle that teams moving in the right direction on the field can use to take the franchise to the next level.
Okay, that's more than slightly confusing. You still have to "earn" success on the field, but a new ballpark can help you "take it to the next level." (Only the first level is earned, I guess, and for the rest you can use cheat codes.) Let's skip a few paragraphs ahead and see if this gets any clearer:
Target Field will be the 18th ballpark built as a replacement for an earlier MLB home since Baltimore's Oriole Park at Camden Yards and Chicago's U.S. Cellular Field (then New Comiskey Park) opened almost 20 years ago to start the trend of new ballparks. ... Eight of those first 17 teams improved in the standings their first year in their new ballpark, three stayed the same and six took a dip.
That's a pretty weak correlation — there's no way to know exactly how weak without knowing about the performance of teams that didn't build new stadium (more about that in a minute) — and if nothing else, an indication that moving into a new home isn't a magic bullet for on-field success.
In some places, a new ballpark has been like a magic bullet, pure and simple.
Eeeagh!
The Orioles and White Sox found remarkable success right out of -- or into -- the gates. The Orioles reached the AL Championship Series twice and reeled off nine seasons of 3 million or more in attendance. The White Sox set a single-season attendance mark the first year, reached the ALCS the third year and reached the World Series in 2005.
But perhaps nobody made a ballpark into a springboard to success quite like the Indians, who moved into Jacobs Field in 1994, leaving one of the more dreaded buildings in baseball for one of the finest.
The Tribe went to two World Series and reached the playoffs six of the first eight years at Progressive Field, then known as Jacobs Field or The Jake. Combined with the Quicken Loans Arena next door, the sports complex transformed downtown Cleveland, not just a baseball club, setting an example for San Diego and other cities to follow.
Let's take these examples one at a time. The Orioles made the ALCS twice at Camden Yards, yes — in 1996 and 1997, their fifth and sixth years in their new home, which is not quite exactly "out of the gate." Though it is compared with the White Sox' 2005 World Championship, which was apparently sparked by the moved from Comiskey Park to U.S. Cellular Field, notwithstanding that it happened fifteen years later.
As for the Indians, they indeed started winning games at the same time as they moved into Jacobs Field, but now we're down to one example — and there are plenty of counterexamples. These are conveniently listed in the chart accompanying Schegel's article, along with some unintentionally comic attempts at describing the success teams have had since getting new digs:
2003 Reds - Great American Ball Park - No winning seasons yet
2001 Brewers - Miller Park - Reached playoffs in 8th year
2001 Pirates - PNC Park - No winning seasons; hosted All-Star Game
Missing, meanwhile, is a corresponding chart showing what teams that didn't move into new stadiums did on the field. That list would include "Boston Red Sox - Won first two World Series since 1918," "Chicago Cubs - Went to postseason two years in a row for first time since 1908," and "New York Yankees - Won four World Series titles in five years." (Two of those teams hosted All-Star Games at their aged parks, too, if that's your measure of success.) It'd be just as fair to cherry-pick the Red Sox as the Indians, and use them as evidence that the way for teams to get to the "next level" is to not build new stadiums.
In Baseball Between the Numbers, published back in 2006, I actually examined the won-loss records of all teams that had opened new stadiums from 1991 up to that date. The conclusion: In the first five years in a new park, teams on average won 5.5 more games per season than in the last five years in their old park. This made sense, I wrote, because "a team is more likely to sign a Barry Bonds — or, to use the actual example of Cleveland, give long-term contracts to Jim Thome and Kenny Lofton — if it knows the people turning out to watch him are paying $25 per ticket instead of $15."
Of course, I added, "a $500 million stadium is an awfully expensive way to pick up five and a half games in the standings." But when you're presented with a magic bullet, it would be gauche to look at the price tag.
March 24, 2010
Dynamo stadium lurches fitfully ahead
The slow-moving Houston Dynamo stadium project could be approved in a matter of weeks:
The city council is expected to vote March 31 and county commissioners April 13. Construction could begin Oct. 1 and the stadium could be ready for 2012. The Harris County-Houston Sports Authority's board is expected to vote Thursday on whether to play a central role in managing the deal and overseeing the project.
In other news, the Houston Dynamo stadium project won't be resolved until the fall:
At a Houston City Council committee meeting Tuesday morning, the city's Chief Development Officer Andy Icken outlined a handful of things that need to happen by September for the deal to get done.
"It's an interlocal agreement between the city, the county and the Sports Authority," Icken told the Houston Business Journal. "It's not a done deal."
Huh? What appears to have happened here is that the council committee meeting yesterday kicked around a bunch of ideas, most of them already plenty pre-kicked — like a tax increment financing district through which the county would kick back $10 million in tax money to the project — but didn't actually decide anything. And those votes coming up are just to keep the process moving, not give final approval.
One curious component of the deal: According to county community services director David Turkel, the county would also pay $7.5 million to become a "joint owner" of the stadium site. Whether this means the county would get some revenues from the stadium isn't clear; given that one of Icken's "handful of things" is for the Dynamo to actually agree on a lease to the place, it's likely not clear to them yet, either.
Garber on D.C. United: Don't make me come in there!
MLS commissioner Don Garber is getting the hang of this threatening cities for stadiums thing. Asked about the D.C. United situation by reporters on a conference call yesterday, Garber replied:
"I am tired of going down [to Washington] for meetings and getting back-slapped and [attending] faux press conferences with mayors and local city officials to have them back-track because they can't get out of their own way. Quite frankly, it is frustrating, and at some point, we are going to have to do something about it."
And:
"I just can't understand why we can't make progress in D.C., and what more do we need to do to have the politicians in that community understand the relevance of that club, its deep commitment to the community. ... It's premature to say we would move it, [but] if they don't get a stadium ... that team will not be able to succeed and we would have to address what that means."
Now those are the kind of vague, unspecified move threats that get elected officials scurrying, without actually allowing anyone to evaluate whether the threat is real (since you haven't actually threatened anything specific). Good job, commissioner! A few more years of this, and maybe you'll get your own hagiography.
Neyer: No A's decision until Selig has the votes
ESPN's Rob Neyer, as usual, has a cogent take on that never-ending Oakland A's relocation study:
It should be 29-to-1; you can hardly blame the Giants for wanting to keep the A's out of San Jose. But it's not 29-to-1, because some of the other clubs are afraid of setting a precedent, and also because the Giants (presumably) have some favors they can call in. And despite the impression you might sometimes get, Bud Selig can't just do whatever he likes.
It's been a year (and counting) not because Selig's committee can't come up with a reasonable recommendation regarding the future of the Athletics. It's because Selig knows what that recommendation is (or will be), but hasn't yet been able to garner the support from enough owners to implement the recommendation.
Even street signs giving Ratner the finger
With construction for developer Bruce Ratner's Brooklyn Nets arena looming, a disgruntled local took out their frustration on an electronic street sign yesterday, changing it from "Fifth Ave Closed" to "Fuck Ratner." (Credit to New York mag and Atlantic Yards Report for publishing photos of the unexpurgated version.) The new message was visible most of the morning, until it was changed around 10 am.
The New York Times cited a "contractor at the site" as blaming someone who cut the lock on a control box, enabling them to access a keypad and type in a new message. The New York Post, however, reported that "According to local merchants it was unlocked for days, allowing anyone to get in."
A Ratner spokesperson charged that the work of the "irresponsible prankster" had "compromised public safety" and promised a police investigation. The operator of a preschool across the street had a different interpretation: "It was hilarious."
March 23, 2010
49ers face suit, Quakes need sponsors, A's report still on hold
Much news from Santa Clara County:
- A former Santa Clara mayoral candidate has sued to block the June vote on building a new San Francisco 49ers stadium. Deborah Bress charges that the ballot language is misleading and hides the project's true costs; given that this issue has been raised before, if nothing else it'll be interesting to see a court of law take up the question.
- The 49ers, meanwhile, have already spent $1.4 million on the stadium vote campaign, including, presumably, for the lawyers who wrote up that contentious ballot language. The stadium opposition has raised all of $3,000, which according to the 100-to-1 rule (stadium referendums generally only pass when proponents have outspent opponents by that margin) indicates that if these spending trends keep up, the Niners have a good chance of winning the vote. Assuming, of course, that there is one.
- Over in San Jose, meanwhile, Earthquakes owner Lew Wolff clarified his plans for where the heck he'll come up with $40 million or so in "sponsorships" to pay for his proposed new stadium: He's going to make some calls. "The process of contacting potential advertisers and sponsors will begin in about a month, maybe sooner," Wolff told MLS Insider, adding, "It has to be privately financed in California, there is no public financing, so we do need certain level of pre-commitment to get the stadium done."
- Finally, MLB commissioner Bud Selig said Sunday that he's still waiting for that three-man commission he appointed last April to finish its report on sites for a potential new Oakland A's ballpark — the most important element of which will be whether San Jose is on the list, and if so whether the commission has decided how much A's owner Wolff would have to pay the San Francisco Giants owners for an official incursion into their MLB-designated territory. "They're getting reasonably close to competing their work, but they have some left," Selig told reporters Sunday. "They're working their way through a lot of things and they've made no recommendations to me." This is taking longer than watching Jack Cust try to score from first.
March 22, 2010
Would-be Coyotes buyers lack cash
Ice Edge Holdings' bid to buy the Phoenix Coyotes just gets better and better: Now not only are they demanding $6-11 million a year in lease breaks in order to do the deal, but they're apparently having trouble coming up with $140-160 million for the purchase price. This despite that fact that at today's interest rates, $11 million a year alone would be more than enough to pay off the entirety of a $140 million loan. Maybe Ice Edge has a really bad credit score.
In any case, the Coyotes sale now appears to be in even more disarray than it was last year, if that's possible, with Chicago White Sox and Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf possibly re-entering the bidding — though it's worth noting that Reinsdorf wanted lease breaks to subsidize his purchase, too. Hockey Night in Canada's Pierre LeBrun asserted on Saturday: "If they don't figure this out by mid-May, maybe we're talking relocation."
Move threats are a dime a dozen, needless to say, especially coming from a source whose audience might be more than a little interested in restoring an additional NHL franchise to Canada. If it does happen, though, you can bet even more people will be comparing Ice Edge to an abusive boyfriend.
Red Bulls stadium sparks nearby vacant lots
Red Bull New York held their first game at the new Red Bull Arena on Saturday (I'll be in attendance at the official season home opener next weekend, and reporting back here), and the Newark Star-Ledger marked the occasion with an article with this headline:
Red Bull Arena opening in Harrison sparks nearby redevelopment
Unfortunately, neither the article itself nor the photo of the new stadium shows any signs of nearby redevelopment. In fact, the story reports that the stadium "sticks out like a sore thumb in a neighborhood of vacant warehouses and empty lots. ... The local PATH station is a 10-minute walk away, and most restaurants are in the opposite direction, across Route 280."
It's always possible that the prospect of catering to hungry soccer fans will cause restaurants to sprout like dandelions, especially once they realize what a bad idea it is to take the bus from Newark instead of walking from the train. Though given that MLS clubs only play 15 home games a year, they'd better hope those fans are really, really hungry.
March 19, 2010
Lobbyist: No Vikes stadium this year; Vikings: La la la la we can't hear you!
A stadium lobbyist for Minneapolis' Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission told the commission and Minnesota Vikings officials not to expect a stadium bill in the legislature this year, given that there won't be much time to pass one between spring break and the end of the session on May 17. "The chances are getting slimmer by the day that there will be any sort of consideration of the Vikings/stadium/commission issue," said lobbyist Bill McGrann.
Vikings stadium honcho Lester Bagley immediately retorted: Nuh uh! "We've been told by all that there will be a discussion this session and that efforts would be made to move it forward to the best of their ability ... to put it in a position to be resolved," maintained Bagley, adding that he'd had "excellent discussions behind the scenes" with state officials. Bagley also indicated that the Metrodome is the "default site" for a new stadium — seemingly an about face from what he said two months ago — but added, "the door is left open for other sites to come forward." All of which sounds like putting a happy face on still not having a clue what will fly in the legislature, or when, but that's Bagley's job, after all.
Bagley also made sure to reiterate the team's non-threat threat to leave once its lease expires after 2011, saying the only way the team would sign a lease extension is if a new stadium deal is in place by then. (If not, presumably the Vikings will take their ball and go play in the driveway.) He added that among the funding sources being considered for a stadium are taxes generated by the Vikings and economic activity around the stadium (read: TIFs), and creating a Vikings-branded state lottery — apparently he can listen to Minnesota Public Radio just like the rest of us.
Sadly, no mention of racinos, which is a shame, as it's always a fun word to type.
March 18, 2010
Wrigley Field to get giant Toyota ornament?
The Chicago Cubs have let drop another element of their Wrigley Field renovation plan, and this one could be less universally popular than adding bathrooms: Team owners want to erect an illuminated red Toyota logo atop the left-field bleachers. (Yes, Toyota. Make your own jokes about how the cursed love company.)
The new signage — which would be by far the most obtrusive at what's baseball's least ad-festooned ballpark — would accomplish two goals: First, raise money to help pay for the renovations (and Alfonso Soriano's contract). And second, partially obscure the casino ad on a neighboring rooftop that's been peeving Cubs execs, in no small part because it's designed to get free airtime on game telecasts.
The sign could still be denied by the Chicago Commission on Historical Landmarks, which has jurisdiction since the Chicago board of aldermen landmarked Wrigley back in 2004, as part of the bill that allowed expansion of the ballpark's bleachers. No word yet on when a decision is due.
Jets and Giants race clock to sell out PSLs
Another day, another New York Times story on the state of the sports industry, this one on whether the New York Giants and Jets will be able to sell out their personal seat licenses in time for their new stadium's opening this fall.
Times writer Richard Sandomir reports that the Giants "are about 1,500 licenses short of selling out but have been at that level for at least two months," but that a team spokesman says "sales had not hit a wall and were expected to pick up soon." The Jets, meanwhile, won't say how many licenses remain, but that sales are "going well."
Whistling through the graveyard aside, you wouldn't think that falling a few thousand seats short in an 82,500-seat stadium would make that much difference — that's what game-day sales are for, right? Except that PSLs add a new wrinkle: Since fans have been told that buying PSLs is the only way to get tickets (or the only way to get good tickets, in the Jets' case, since they're offering some PSL-free seats), they're likely to be awful steamed if they find themselves sitting next to fans who bought seats with no extra fees. That's what happened in Oakland when the Raiders couldn't sell out their PSLs and resorted to selling them as regular seats, and that's a debacle that nobody wants to risk repeating.
If I had to put my money on something, it'd be some quiet discounting of specific PSLs to try to get them to move. (The Jets already cut some prices last month, after earlier price cuts in October.) New York football fans, watch your emails for discount coupon codes...
Quakes stadium rezoning approved
Lost in yesterday's blizzard of stadium news was word from San Jose that the city council approved a rezoning bill needed to clear the way for a new Earthquakes stadium near San Jose Airport. For those interested in the gory details, Center Line Soccer liveblogged the hearing.
When the stadium will open is still up in the air: Quakes owner Lew Wolff is still working on selling naming rights and other sponsorship deals that will allow him to finance the estimated $40-60 million construction cost. And, of course, he also has other things on his mind.
March 17, 2010
St. Pete threatens suit over any Rays move talks
The facedown between the city of St. Petersburg and the Tampa Bay Rays stadium task force that it helped create just got facedownier: The ABC Coalition gave a presentation of its findings to the Pinellas County board of commissioners yesterday, but didn't actually say much on advice of the county attorney.
The reason? The city of St. Pete has threatened a lawsuit against any party that "interferes" with the Rays' current lease on the Tropicana Dome, which runs through 2027.
WTSP reporter Noah Pransky adds on his blog that "County Commissioner Ken Welch told me the current budget problems will prohibit any entity - not just Pinellas Co. and St. Pete - from building a stadium anytime soon." But if St. Pete is really prepared to go to court to stop anyone from even talking about a non-St. Pete stadium, this could present a huge obstacle to a lot of the prospective sites — which could be why the Toytown site is suddenly getting so much attention.
Prospective Coyotes buyers: Glendale pays us $6-11m a year, or deal's off
The COO of Ice Edge Holdings, the group that last year proposed buying the Phoenix Coyotes and having them play some games in Saskatoon and Halifax, has declared that the only way they'll buy the team now is if the city of Glendale agrees to substantial annual subsidies.
"Glendale has to deliver an appropriate lease, or there's probably no deal," Daryl Jones told Toronto sports radio on Monday. "The team's going to lose $20 million this year... If you just added back the attendance they had last year, that gets you $6 to $7 million more to the bottom line. Assuming you get $10 to $15 million out of a new lease per year, you get to break even or profitable pretty easily."
Jones wouldn't say what the Coyotes were paying under their old lease, but it's actually public record: about $4 million a year for 2007, the last year the team actually made its full rent payments. So that means Ice Edge is looking at asking the city of Glendale to pay the Coyotes between $6 and $11 million a year for the privilege of having them play there. Admittedly, that's less than the state of Louisiana used to pay the New Orleans Saints in negative rent, but it's still enough to make you wonder how badly Arizona really needs a hockey team anyway — or if it wouldn't be cheaper for Glendale just to buy the team itself, so that at least if the team starts turning a profit, the city might get some of its money back.
Sports bubble watch: Team values crashing?
The New York Times has a front-page story today on the woes of sports team owners, who are finding that in the post-recession economy their investments may not have the guaranteed appreciation value that they'd grown used to during the bubble years. "It used to be you got bailed out when you sold your team even if you lost money year after year," sports business consultant Marc Ganis tells the Times. "Now, you're no longer assured of cashing out to cover your capital costs and losses."
The evidence presented, though, is a bit sketchy: Aside from last month's sale of the Tampa Bay Lightning at a huge loss from the $206 million its previous owners paid for the franchise in 2008, and the potential sale of the Charlotte Bobcats to Michael Jordan for less than they garnered in 2002, it's mostly a list of team owners who ran into financial trouble, via such issues as divorce proceedings and bad real-estate deals, neither of which really has much to do with the value of sports franchises. It could well be that the sports-team bubble has popped, but we'll need to see a few more cut-rate sales before we'll know for sure.
The most interesting item in the Times piece: Congress is considering a major hike in the capital gains tax rate, which would certainly change the economics of franchise sales. It would also make the Veeck depreciation loophole much less lucrative, since owners would have to pay more in capital gains when selling a fully depreciated team.
Cowboys fans to be charged $25 to watch Texas Stadium get blown up
Ah, middle America. Because Texas is made up entirely of parking lots, the city of Irving is going to be charging $25 per car for spectators to watch Texas Stadium go down in a shower of processed cheese next month. The money will be donated to an undisclosed charity, presumably not related to fighting childhood obesity.
Sacramento council gives go-ahead to talking about negotiating possible Kings deal
The Sacramento city council yesterday unanimously endorsed the mayor's arena task force's endorsement of developer Gerry Kamilos' Kings arena proposal. Or at least endorsed endorsing it — the Sacramento Business Journal described last night's vote as "directing city staff to begin a preliminary analysis and lay out a timeline and process for working with the team led by developers Gerry Kamilos and David Taylor for a proposed arena in the downtown railyards," which is quite a mouthful of qualifiers.
The next steps: File a report on the parameters of a council committee to work on the arena project, and another report on the proposed language for a negotiating agreement under which to talk about the project. Once this is accomplished — which could take up to six months — maybe they can stop talking about how to talk, and begin actually talking about some items of substance, like how exactly the whole shebang is going to be paid for?
Another action item: Writing up language for the state legislature to approve the sale of its Cal Expo land as part of the Kamilos deal, something the state hasn't seemed keen on given the costs of building a whole new Cal Expo on the Arco Arena site. It should be an interesting six months, to say the least.
March 15, 2010
Selig on A's stadium report: Still typing, be patient
In case you, like Oakland A's owner Lew Wolff, have been wondering what's up with that A's relocation commission that Bud Selig instituted last spring, Selig officially declared yesterday that they're still working on their report:
"I've talked to them a lot," Selig said of the committee members, "and they have a report that will be coming in the near future. I don't have any comment until that's done."
The task force, in case you've forgotten, isn't actually commissioned to decide the best home for the A's, but rather to discover "why a stadium deal has not been reached" and how best to proceed from here. Presumably the final report will include an analysis of proposed sites in Oakland, Fremont, and San Jose, though the big decision that everyone's waiting for is what it will say about San Jose's status as San Francisco Giants territory — and how much the A's would have to pay to get the Giants to give up those rights. Given Wolff's previously stated preference to relocate to San Jose, the price for buying off the Giants is likely what will decide whether the A's owner gets his way, or is stuck negotiating with East Bay cities.
Orlando arena subsidies to buy $2,100 chairs, bumper pool table
The Orlando Sentinel had some fun yesterday digging through the $480 million budget for the Magic's new Amway Center (not to be confused with their old Amway Arena — three guesses what company Magic owner Rich DeVos owns), and finding stuff that Orlando taxpayers will be helping to pay for. On the shopping list:
- A $10,000 conference table and eight $2,100 conference chairs for Magic executives.
- 264 barstools costing $892 each for luxury suite holders.
- A $2,100 poker-and-bumper-pool table, plus PlayStation 3 and Wii systems, for concert performers to play backstage before events. Writes the Sentinel, "According to city officials, that's needed to stay competitive with other venues vying for touring shows." What, no brown-free M&M dispenser?
- A $87,600 Zamboni, though the arena won't be home to a hockey team.
A spokesperson for Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer defended the expenses, saying, "We are investing in making this a state-of-the-art facility, and it's important that we invest now so we don't have to replace these items in five years." (Note to Buddy: I'm pretty sure PlayStation 4 will be out by then.) Jim Martin, chair of the watchdog group CountyWatch, retorted: "That stuff needs to be scrutinized. The question is, can you justify it at this time? The next question is, could you ever have justified it?"
Kings land swap plan moves forward, but where's the money?
To absolutely nobody's surprise, on Thursday Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson's Kings arena task force officially endorsed developer Gerry Kamilos' three-way land swap deal that would end up with an arena on city-controlled land at the downtown railyards and a new Cal Expo on the site of Arco Arena. City officials now say they hope to sign an "exclusive negotiating contract" (presumably a memorandum of understanding or something similar) with Kamilos by next month.
The big question remains how the heck the Kamilos plan would be paid for, especially given that the state-run Cal Expo says it won't agree to relocate unless someone pays for a new modernized state fair facility, and that "someone" isn't them. There's also the issue of whether tax-increment financing (i.e., kicking back property taxes to the developer) would be involved, as previously hinted; city councilmember Sandy Sheedy, showing unusual perspicacity for a local elected official, noted, "Sometimes when you just say no new taxes, it doesn't mean the rest of the public funds that go into it."
And Sheedy's not the only one getting cold feet: The Sacramento Bee has run a slew of columns and opinion pieces over the last few days questioning the arena deal. Some samples:
Bee associate editor Foon Rhee:
There's a reason why financial projections for arenas and stadiums tend to be so rosy, says Stanford University economist Roger Noll, an expert in the field. Support from sports fans alone is not enough to build a majority in favor of public subsidies, he says, so boosters resort to two lines of argument: the benefits will ripple far and wide, and the arena will attract lots of family-friendly events besides sports.
But such boosterism is "increasingly not working," Noll said, because inflated claims are getting punctured by hard reality.
Even if construction of a new arena is entirely financed by private investment (which is unlikely to be the case), the task of repaying lenders and bondholders — not to mention generating the revenue to cover the arena's maintenance and operations costs — will fall largely on individual ticket-buyers and those local businesses still able to lease luxury boxes.
It should come as no news to elected officials struggling to balance budgets that the Sacramento region is a much less affluent place than it was just three or four years ago. And no amount of civic cheerleading — or exceedingly optimistic economic impact studies — can obscure the fact that we are staring at several years of sluggish, if not jagged, economic growth in this region.
If the city is bent on providing the Maloofs with a new venue for events that only a tiny fraction of the region's residents can afford to attend, that's its business. But why should the state get involved?
Cal Expo, built four decades ago on the fanciful notion that it would become a year-round, Disneyland-like attraction, is a concrete and steel monstrosity and should be reconstructed or replaced with something more like the traditional fairgrounds it replaced. If selling the underlying property would provide the money to do so, as the arena promoters envision, so be it.
If, however, the Cal Expo site is valuable enough to finance a new fairgrounds and a basketball arena, then the excess should be returned to the state treasury, not ripped off by the city and the Maloofs. The state would be making this unjustified gift while it simultaneously is trying to sell other property and the state workers' compensation insurance system to cover gaps in the state budget.
This scheme is insanity, and someone should have the guts to strangle it before it takes on a life of its own.
March 12, 2010
Shovels fly at Nets arena groundbreaking
More than six years in the making, Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards project (aka the Barclays Center arena, aka the place the New Jersey Nets plan to play when they finally leave New Jersey) finally had its ceremonial groundbreaking yesterday. As you might expect, there were lots of shovels brandished and giant cardboard faces donned in protest. I didn't go myself, but you can read Curbed's blog for all the gory details, including photos of trays of turkey-lobster sliders.
If the word "ceremonial" didn't tip you off (let alone the turkey-lobster sliders), nothing of substance was discussed or revealed yesterday, about when the arena will open, when the associated apartment buildings will be built, when the state plans to seize the private properties that still stand in the way of construction, or anything like that. But Jay-Z was there!
Cubs drop AZ ticket tax, launch Wrigley seat auction
The Chicago Cubs have bowed to opposition from the entire rest of Major League Baseball and abandoned their plan for a ticket tax on all Arizona spring training games to help fund the new spring training stadium they're demanding as a condition of not moving to Florida. Instead, the team now says, it would happy to stick with just a $1 tax surcharge on rental cars in Maricopa County, something that's drawn less opposition.
Maybe the Cubs should consider using one of their own novel revenue-generating approaches, such as auctioning off front-row seats to the highest bidder, which they're now doing at Wrigley Field for the third straight year. Though since that would come out of their own pocket, not out of the pockets of Arizona tourists, I'm guessing not.
More Yankee Stadium demolition porn
More photos of Yankee Stadium demolition, courtesy of FoS reader Cary Goodman, and a video, courtesy of some guy who sent it to CNN. The CNN "iReporter" says that "accoring to officials" the entire upper deck will be demolished in 3 weeks — I'll see if I can confirm that.
[UPDATE: David Lombino of the NYC Economic Development Corporation confirms to me that the upper deck will be gone in three weeks. This means that all that will be left once fans arrive for Opening Day on April 13 will be a few exterior walls, which for better or for worse should spare them this kind of scene.]
Silverdome owner knows these guys, see
The possibly crazy guy who bought the Pontiac Silverdome last year for $583,000 has given his first interview on the subject of what he plans to do with his new inflatable toy, and he sounds, well, possibly crazy — even after accounting for his speaking in stereotypically broken English. Take it away, Andreas Apostolopoulos:
"We're gonna spend a lot of money here, create a lot of jobs, meet a lot of new people. It's not for sale, and it's never gonna be for sale. ... When I seen it, I like it. I knew there was a lotta work to be done. But work doesn't scare me, you know?"
Apostolopoulos says he's been approached to use the Silverdome, which costs $1.5 million to maintain even when idle, for events like horse racing, polo, and soccer. The people behind these proposals were described by Apostolopoulos as "some guy" and "another guy." Though they already have monster trucks lined up, so maybe tomorrow it'll be major league polo. Or monster truck polo!
Chicago businessman claims seat scheme can fund Vegas arena
The guy behind Las Vegas' abortive 2004 bid to woo the Montreal Expos is back on the scene, this time with a new financing plan for the city's proposed arena. The brainstorm of Lou Weisbach — a Chicago-based Democratic fundraiser and marketing businessman who previously tried to buy the Cubs, is to sell luxury boxes and personal seat licenses, but with a twist: Instead of paying their license fees up front, they'd pay for them over time, like a home mortgage. (This is actually how most luxury box deals already work, but never mind that for now.) Weisbach calls the concept "Equity Seat Rights," and notes that it's been used by the University of Kansas and UC-Berkeley to help finance expansions of their college football stadiums.
Leaving aside that from a stadium builder's perspective, it doesn't really matter whether your funders give you the money up front or over time (any more than a home seller cares much whether a buyer is paying cash or taking out a loan), could this actually work? The projected cost of building an arena is at least $400 million, not counting land. Weisbach says that by selling 1,000 PSLs — oops, ESRs — plus 150 suites, he could make the project work with no public money.
The big question here is what he could get for the suites: If they were to go for a quarter-million per year apiece, which is the low end at L.A.'s Staples Center (which has four pro sports teams to the Las Vegas arena's zero), that would indeed cover most of his construction costs, regardless of whether the ESRs sold. If the price were lower, not so much. And that's assuming that they all sell — it's going to be dicey, to say the least, to get people and corporations to pay top dollar to seats at an arena with no guarantee of what team if any will even play there.
Add in that Vegas' baseball stadium plan also initially was proposed to be taxpayer-free, but then turned out not to be, and there's plenty of room for skepticism here. Though in the Las Vegas Sun article on Weisbach's plan, it was called "a common-sense approach" by Chad Wilkins, a consultant who ... erm, works for Weisbach. But if you can't trust a consultant to a marketing guru, who can you trust?
March 10, 2010
Yankee Stadium demolition picks up pace
I dropped by Yankee Stadium yesterday, where the pace of demolition is picking up as the June completion date nears. (Not to mention, cynics might note, opening day, by when the Yankees might like to have the picked-apart corpse of the House That Ruth Built out of sight as much as possible.) The left-field grandstand has a large hole in it now, and several deep gashes where work crews are preparing to take down more sections.
There's also a growing crowd of people on the nearby #4 elevated train platform, snapping a few photos but mostly watching the demolition in grim silence. Yesterday I met an off-duty policeman who said the scene was "sad," and that he'd worked the final game at the old stadium; he also pointed out the old Yankee logo etched into the exterior outfield wall, now exposed for the first time in decades by the demolition crews. (See more photos below the jump, click to enlarge).
March 09, 2010
Food fight over Texas Stadium implosion
The plans to have a processed-cheese product sponsor the demolition of Texas Stadium has run into opposition: The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine says it's "inappropriate" for the city of Irving to promote unhealthy foods, and instead offered $75,000 for the city to use the stadium implosion to highlight childhood obesity.
Irving Mayor Herbert Gears said this didn't make any sense to him, but the committee has a plan and everything:
The physicians committee also suggested the city use a banner that depicts on overweight man eating cheese under the words, "Cheese really blows you up."
Gears called the proposed banner "tacky" and "offensive" in its depiction of a "stereotypical overweight person."
March 05, 2010
Vegas hit with two competing tax-subsidized arena plans
I'm being interviewed by Las Vegas radio on Monday morning (tune in here at 6:50 am Mountain time), and now I think I know why: Two would-be developers have proposed building a sports arena near the Strip, and will be presenting plans to county commissioners in the next couple of weeks.
Both plans involve major public subsidies. One plan, pushed by the nonprofit Las Vegas Arena Foundation and Harrah's casino, would raise sales taxes by 0.7% in an "entertainment corridor" near the Strip, to help fund a $488 million arena. (No breakdown on how much money would come from the tax hike.) The other, from International Development Management, would reestablish a redevelopment agency to kick back property taxes to the developers — that's right, yet another TIF. The IDM arena would cost $751.7 million ($404 million for construction, $347 million for land).
As for who would play there, an IDM spokesperson said that the city "needs the arena to host bigger and better events." (Because, you know, there's nothing much to do in Vegas now.) This will no doubt fuel renewed speculation about an NBA franchise moving to Vegas, though the league hasn't been thrilled with the idea so long as betting on basketball is allowed there.
County commissioners, meanwhile, are both intrigued and wary of committing public funds — though not necessarily clear on how modern arena finances work. Commissioner Tom Collins — who, may I just say, has the best Vegas elected official name ever — told the Las Vegas Sun, "If it involves any public funding, then I think the county should own it." Noooooooooooooo!
Polls say "no" to Vikes stadium; Vikes say "bah" to polls
A poll of Minnesotans has found that 64% are opposed to state funding of a new Vikings stadium, with only 31% in favor. This is in line both with past polls on the Vikings stadium, and for that matter with how Minnesotans felt about spending public money on a Twins stadium before that.
Vikings stadium czar Lester Bagley, as you might expect, wasn't too thrilled with the poll results, telling the Minneapolis Star Tribune that such polls "ask the wrong question, which is whether it's important to keep the Vikings in Minnesota for the next generation. And to keep the Vikings, we have to resolve the stadium issue." (Presumably Bagley meant that whether to keep the Vikings in Minnesota was the right question.) He added that the new Twins ballpark would never have been built if "you put a finger up in the air to see what the polls are."
Good thing, then, that the state legislature agreed to build the Twins stadium without asking voters what they thought. Because as everyone knows, in Minnesota the only person whose opinion counts is Garrison Keillor's.
Yankee Stadium, Texas Stadium nearing full demolition
New demolition photos of Yankee Stadium and Texas Stadium. Yankee Stadium is slated to be completely razed by this summer, with construction on a new public park on the site to finally begin at that point; Texas Stadium will be imploded in a shower of processed cheese on April 11.
Yankee Stadium's Gate 2, interestingly, seems to be more or less still standing, though the part of the grandstand that was behind it is now gone. So it's possible that the city Parks Department is still considering the plan to preserve it as a memorial to the stadium, though that will likely depend on whether anyone can find money to do so — especially given that New York City has enough money troubles of its own these days.
March 03, 2010
Dolphins drop stadium reno tax ... for now
The Miami Dolphins are setting aside their push for a hotel tax hike to fund $250 million in stadium renovations, saying they'll now move ahead with a bid for the 2014 Super Bowl without renovation plans in place. Which contradicts somewhat Dolphins lobbyist Ron Book's earlier pronouncement that "we have to have something to show the owners, to show what we are doing to keep the stadium in a position that they find acceptable" for a Super Bowl bid to work, but that's just the sort of thing that lobbyists say, right?
Notwithstanding today's Miami Herald headline ("Miami Dolphins drop push to raise taxes for stadium upgrades"), the team is very much not dropping its push for a hotel tax hike or some other kind of public stadium subsidy, just putting it off for a few months:
The team backed off a plan to support state legislation that would have allowed Miami-Dade County to increase hotel bed taxes to raise dollars for stadium improvements. But the team and host committee officials are examing other funding options.
"We're not dropping either the idea of stadium improvements or the concept of pursuing public funding," [Dolphins CEO Mike] Dee said. "What we're doing is slowing down the process to match the ongoing discussion with the community."
Dee estimated renovation plans could be unveiled later this year.
Presumably Dee is banking on the economy having perked up by then, but he probably shouldn't count on it.
Roughriders stadium study endorses Roughriders stadium
Last July, the Saskatchewan director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation predicted that it was "a foregone conclusion" that the province's then-announced Saskatachewan Roughriders stadium study was "going to recommend a new domed stadium," given that it was being conducted by a stadium management company. That study was released on Monday, and surprise, surprise:
The study says the domed stadium would be the only 30,000-plus all-weather venue for all of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Montana and North Dakota and could draw 500,000 people each year. The facility could have an operating profit of $1.1 million annually if it was host to 31 events a year, including 11 CFL games, according to the study.
"The project is clearly economically feasible and will generate related and recurrent benefits throughout the province of Saskatchewan. The benefits are overwhelmingly positive," the study says.
I can't tell from the news coverage whether that's a $1.1 million annual profit after paying off construction bonds, or assuming somebody else foots the bill for building the thing. Not that it matters much, as the construction cost is a bit of a moving target anyway, according to the report: $386 million for a 33,000-seat fixed-roof stadium, another $45 million to make the roof retractable. And no one knows yet how it would actually be paid for, with Saskatchewan Enterprise Minister Ken Cheveldayoff saying:
"The feasibility report says it is feasible to go forward. Now we will look at the capital accumulation phase," said Enterprise Minister Ken Cheveldayoff, whose Saskatchewan Party government indicated a decision about whether or not to proceed will be made by late spring.
"We'll talk to the federal government, the provincial government, the city and the Roughriders to put a plan in place," Cheveldayoff said.
"I can say right now that each partner would have to come to the table and contribute for this report to go forward."
Whether this would be a good deal for Saskatchewan, needless to say, depends on who comes to the table with what. But no doubt the Roughriders are happy that the headlines were written before any of the costs were figured in.
Nets arena groundbreaking set for next week after court ruling
It's not quite all over but the shouting, but just about: A New York state judge dismissed a court challenge to the state using approved a court petition by the state (over landholder objections) to use eminent domain to seize land for the Nets' planned Brooklyn arena on Monday, clearing the way for construction to begin. Street closings are set to begin next Monday, with a ceremonial groundbreaking on March 11; as for evicting the remaining residents and businesses occupying buildings marked for demolition, the state Empire State Development Corporation says it "anticipates an orderly relocation taking place over the course of the next few months."
Barring a surprise injunction in one of the other remaining lawsuits, then, it looks like the Atlantic Yards project, or at least the Barclays Center piece of it, will be opening in Fall 2012 as planned — not as planned originally, mind you, but if you keep making enough predictions, one of them will be right.
Whether the rest of the project, including the affordable housing component, gets built anytime soon is another story, but Bertha Lewis, who brokered the housing deal in return for her support of the arena, has bigger fish to fry these days anyway.
March 01, 2010
Poll: Santa Clarans evenly split on 49ers stadium
An independent poll of Santa Clara voters has found them evenly split, 45%-45%, on whether to build a new stadium for the San Francisco 49ers. Caveat: The poll was only of 200 Santa Clarans, and has a seven-percent margin of error. Still, it's a sign that the vote could go down to the wire, despite the Niners' rather whopping campaign spending advantage.
The poll was reported by San Francisco Chronicle columnists Matier and Ross, who last week promoted the idea of a shared stadium in Oakland for the 49ers and Raiders, of which Alameda County Supervisor Scott Haggerty enthused, "I'm not sure how much public participation would even be needed, aside from providing the land. ... We've already been approached by one developer interested in building it." As Santa Clarans could tell you, "not sure" really isn't good enough when it comes to stadium finance plans.
Houston sports authority to build Dynamo stadium, unless it doesn't
Newspapers have long derided their sports sections as the "toy department" — more about cheering than actual journalism — but Houston Chronicle sportswriter Jose De Jesus Ortiz's article on Friday about progress towards a new Dynamo soccer stadium takes rooting in the press box to an extreme. De Jesus Ortiz begins by declaring that Dynamo fans should be "doing cartwheels" over the fact that, notwithstanding that still no one has quite figured out how to pay for it, city and county commissioners have asked the Harris County-Houston Sports Authority to be the builders and owners of the proposed 21,000-seat stadium.
Why is this good news? Because, according to De Jesus Ortiz, the authority already built for Houston "among the best stadiums in the United States for baseball, football and basketball." And then he goes further:
Contrary to what some would have you believe, taxpayer dollars weren't used to build Minute Maid Park, Reliant Stadium or Toyota Center.
"It was very carefully drawn to tax hotel, auto and seat licenses," [state Sen. John] Whitmire said. "So they've been great cost-effective venues to benefit not only Harris County but East Texas and Texas in general. We've received a Super Bowl, a baseball All-Star Game, a World Series and other major sporting events because of these stadiums.
"It cost no property taxes. It generates an increase in property taxes, which then you use for general services. It's a win-win. The venues are built with bonds and you pledge user fees, parking, hotel, rental cars, seat licenses. Then the stadiums increase the value of the surrounding area, which creates taxes."
That's a large mouthful of justification, but none of it comes down to "no taxpayer dollars" — at best, if you believe the argument that the stadiums raised property values (without merely redirecting property increases that would have taken place somewhere in Houston anyway), it's that "the stadiums were built with taxpayer dollars, but they ended up being a good investment in the end." It's a claim that's hard to evaluate, though, since De Jesus Ortiz didn't interview any economists or urban planners for his story — his only source, in fact, is Whitmire, who is the guy who came up with the idea of the sports authority in the first place, and so might not be the most objective observer.
Meanwhile, the more reality-based media — and yes, that'll probably be the only time I use that term to refer to a Fox TV news outlet — reports that there's a potentially large hurdle to the sports authority taking over the Dynamo stadium project, which is that the authority has a no-compete clause with the Rockets' Toyota Center that prohibits it from even discussing building a new stadium or arena within ten miles of that arena until 2013. Authority board chair Kenny Friedman says that he hopes the non-complete clause won't apply since the soccer stadium isn't planned for holding concerts; the board is expected to discuss this issue at a meeting today.
