January 31, 2012
Oakland calls time of death on Victory Court
This just in: Oakland's Victory Court stadium plan for the A's is officially dead, thanks to the demise of the state redevelopment agencies that would have funded it. But you knew that already.
We now return you to your regular programming.
Minnesota pushing e-pulltabs for Vikings; local governments still unsure of funding
For those of you who aren't sick to death of hearing the latest Minnesota Vikings non-plans, here's today's updates:
- The Minnesota state legislature has definitely settled on electronic pulltabs as the means of funding its share of stadium costs. The bill's main sponsor, Rep. Morrie Lanning, says the measure could raise $72 million a year, which would be more than enough to pay off the state's $300 million share; it's not clear whether anyone has looked at whether e-pulltabs would cannibalize other existing state gambling revenue, but hopefully somebody will before this thing is actually voted on.
- Ramsey County is working on yet another financing plan for its share of a stadium, after sales tax and food and beverage tax hikes were rejected by the state government. No hint yet what the new plan will be, but the legislature is willing to give them more time to think of something, especially since it's not like Minneapolis has figured out what it's doing, either. County commissioner Tony Bennett hopes to have a funding plan ready by next week, but it's always a bad idea to go holding your breath in these situations.
Santa Clara files lawsuit against 49ers stadium referendum
It looks like the San Francisco 49ers court battle has begun: Santa Clara Plays Fair is reporting (still not on their website, but they sent out a press release [UPDATE: now it's online]) that the city of Santa Clara has filed suit against the group's petition filing for a referendum on the revised stadium plan. The city had previously indicated that it felt the referendum was illegal, since a 49ers stadium plan (albeit not this one) was previously approved by voters in 2010; now the matter will be up to a judge — or in all likelihood, several, as it works its way through the inevitable appeals.
In other 49ers news, plenty of fans are still hopping mad about the sky-high prices for season tickets plus personal seat licenses that were unveiled last month. We'll see how many of them actually carry through with their threat to cancel their season plans once they're offered the chance to downgrade to cheaper, crappier seats — that helped alleviate some of the sticker shock faced by the New York Yankees, among others — but it can't be a good sign that one longtime season ticket holder is actually threatening to become an Oakland Raiders fan.
January 30, 2012
Vikings still mulling Arden Hills, add 4th Minneapolis site
Okay, the Great Minneapolis Vikings Stadium Site Search has officially jumped the shark in terms of ridiculous plot points: As if having four problematic stadium plans (five if you count Shakopee) on the table weren't crazy enough, now the Vikings say they're looking at yet another site in Minneapolis. This one, a few blocks away from the Metrodome, would allow the team to keep playing in its current home while a new one was built, rather than moving to the University of Minnesota's new stadium — something the Vikings owners don't want to do both because it doesn't have a roof and it doesn't allow beer sales, though that could change.
One possible reason for the Vikings to be opening this can of worms: Many NFL owners are apparently opposed to the team playing at TCF Bank Stadium, since they wouldn't be happy with either the reduced revenues the Vikings would be bringing in or the not-up-to-the-NFL's-lavish-standards facilities for visiting teams there. SB Nation has even speculated that this could push the Arden Hills site back onto the legislative radar after Gov. Mark Dayton called it "not viable." Is it time for someone to repropose Blaine yet?
Rams, St. Louis battle over London "home" games
A couple of weeks ago, new St. Louis Rams majority owner Stan Kroenke upped the ante in his simmering lease war with the city of St. Louis by scheduling one "home" game a year for the next three seasons to be played in London's Wembley Stadium. This was widely seen as a slap in the face of his hometown as he tries to angle for either a new or improved stadium to replace the 17-year-old one that was built by the city to lure the Rams in the first place.
Now, St. Louis has slapped back, insisting that playing home games across the Atlantic would violate the team's lease, which requires that the Rams play all their home games at the Edward Jones Dome. And then the team slapped back in return, issuing a statement that they "look forward to having amicable and meaningful dialogue with the CVC on many issues and believe those conversations should remain between the parties."
The issue here likely isn't over whether St. Louis fans get to watch one less game a year in person — after the last few years, Rams fans could be forgiven for wishing that their team played all its games somewhere far, far away — but rather that it gives the city a bargaining chip in its lease squabbles with Kroenke, who's trying to exercise a "state-of-the-art" clause to threaten to move the team if he doesn't get a new stadium. The city faces a Wednesday deadline to produce a stadium plan that could be implemented by 2015, or else the Rams could conceivably break their lease after the 2014 season — though as we've seen elsewhere, getting out of a lease doesn't do much for you unless you actually have someplace else to go.
Dolphins: We built our stadium all wrong, fix it please?
Miami Dolphins officials dropped by the Miami Herald offices on Friday, and one of the discussion items was the team's unhappiness with Sun Life Stadium's current seating arrangement:
"We have the furthest distance from the sidelines with our lower bowl in the NFL," {Dolphins president Mike] Dee said. "We have the fewest number of seats in that lower seating level between the 20 yard lines, between the goal lines, in the NFL. Not just the facilities that compete for Super Bowls. We've got to fix that ...
"At the same time, we may look to amend capacity in areas where we may have too much. Right now, we have the largest upper deck in the NFL -- 35,000 seats. The next facility in line is 27,000. The Redskins took 10,000 seats out of their upper deck this past year. We're looking at all those things to retrofit the stadium to today's standards."
And by "we," Herald reporter Armando Salguero makes clear, Dee meant "someone other than us":
[T]hat costs money. And neither the legislature, nor local politicians are volunteering to pay for that. The public would likely vote down a ballot measure for such expenditure. And owner Stephen Ross is in no hurry to spend the multiple millions of dollars it would cost to do the project.
Not noted in the article: The Dolphins actually own Sun Life Stadium, having built it in 1987 with private funds. (The distant sidelines were so that the stadium could also host baseball as a way of boosting revenues — something that worked even better when then-owner Wayne Huizenga sold the Marlins but kept collecting high-priced rent.)
For the moment, Salguero speculates that the Dolphins could tarp off part of the upper deck to reduce capacity, but it sure sounds like this is the start of a renewed Dolphins campaign to ask for public money to renovate their private stadium, after last year's attempts crashed and burned so spectacularly.
January 27, 2012
Canada: No arena subsidies if it's for a pro team
In yet another indication that Canada remains a different country from the U.S., the federal government is threatening to withdraw funding for an amateur hockey rink in Laval, Quebec, because it's learned that a minor-league pro team might move there:
There are growing rumours that the Hamilton Bulldogs of the American Hockey League — the farm team of the National Hockey League's Montreal Canadiens — are planning to move into the Laval arena when it will be built.
Ottawa is now warning that it will pull the plug on the project unless if obtains guarantees that the arena will not be used by an AHL or a major-junior hockey team. Otherwise, the government fears that it will be hit with a new round of lobbying for other sports infrastructure projects in cities like Quebec City, Edmonton and Regina.
"If we allow a breach in our policy, we're toast," a federal official said.
From the sound of it, part of the reason for the reversal was griping by city officials in Quebec City that the Laval arena was getting federal stimulus money and their own proposed NHL arena (which still isn't any closer to having a team than when it was approved last year) wasn't. Still, the concept that giving public money to one team might be a bad idea because it will encourage other teams to ask for it too is a notion that most U.S. officials would likely find ... well, foreign.
Minneapolis council opposes Mondale's stadium vote end run; legislature turns toward e-pulltabs
The latest in the Minnesota Vikings stadium scrum:
- State stadium negotiator Ted Mondale thinks he can get around Minneapolis' voter-approved ban on using city money to fund a stadium without a referendum by instead having the city vote to direct the funds to stadium authority, and then that body would spend it on a stadium, so that "it really isn't the city spending that money." Pretty clever, eh? Except that apparently Mondale never asked the Minneapolis city council about his idea, and a majority of the council now opposes funding a Vikings stadium without a public vote, after councilmember Sandra Colvin Roy declared that doing so would thwart the "will of the people." (She even cited the Occupy movement as a reason that government shouldn't so easily dismiss voters' concerns.) Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak retorted, "We're not going to do a referendum in the city. We are going to have a referendum in a couple years when I stand for re-election." He might want to check with George Petak before saying that too loudly.
- It looks like whatever state bill emerges to fund a stadium will use electronic pulltabs in bars and restaurants as its funding mechanism — which should come as no surprise, given that that's pretty much the only option that doesn't involve either raising taxes or getting sued by Native American tribes. It's still early, though, and even if the state finds enough money for its share of a stadium, there's still the matter of the local government share (see above) that the Vikings are insisting on.
Indianapolis to lose money on Super Bowl
Every so often, I get a call from a journalist asking what I think the economic benefits are to a city of hosting a Super Bowl. To which I can now answer with a link to this Indianapolis Business Journal story:
Scores of businesses in and around Indianapolis are licking their chops in hopes of scoring a windfall from the city's hosting of the Super Bowl on Feb. 5.
But the city entity that manages Lucas Oil Stadium, where the game will be played, expects to lose money.
The Capital Improvement Board of Marion County is budgeting for total Super Bowl expenses of $8 million and revenue of nearly $7.2 million, leaving a loss of $810,000.
The main added costs are for extra police time and hiring of additional temporary workers. That's partly made up for new tax revenues from the estimated $200 million in spending that will go on in the city during Super Bowl week,
But that tax money is limited, in part because, notes the IBJ:
- The NFL is using its tax-exempt status (yes, the NFL is tax-exempt, and yes, lots of other people also think this is ridiculous) to get its wmployees out of paying hotel and restaurant taxes.
- Food and beverage taxes collected inside Lucas Oil Stadium also won't be going to the CIB, but will be diverted to the NFL.
However, Indianapolitans will at least get the thrill of watching the Super Bowl on TV and knowing that they could be there, if only they had tickets. Plus the free publicity that comes from the world learning what it's like in Indianapolis in January. With benefits like these, who needs tax revenues?
January 25, 2012
Santa Clara council rejects 49ers referendum, setting up court battle
As expected, the Santa Clara city council last night rejected petitions calling for a new referendum on a proposed $1.2 billion San Francisco 49ers stadium, ruling that while enough signatures were collected, the issue is not "referendable" because the project was already approved in a public vote in 2010.
Several people who spoke at what sounds like a raucous council hearing, however, raised questions about whether what the council passed in December is what voters approved two years ago:
But dozens of opponents showed up in force to complain they were "ripped off." They brought glossy 2010 campaign materials funded by the 49ers that showed the team, NFL and stadium revenues would be responsible for 88 percent of the project's cost.
"That is what this community bought, but that is not what you agreed to last month," stadium opponent Kate Grant said, holding up the campaign flier. "The terms of this agreement have changed dramatically."
The dispute is now almost certainly headed for court, which if history is any guide could take a while. With the 49ers hoping to break ground this spring, whether the referendum drive can stop the stadium from going ahead could depend on whether a judge is willing to grant an injunction against the project continuing — though it'll also be interesting to see how the bond market responds to a bond issue whose legality is being challenged in court. If nothing else, that planned 2014 opening date now seems even more optimistic than it did last month.
Florida homeless-shelter bill wouldn't actually recoup stadium subsidies
Apparently there's a small problem with that bill to require Florida stadiums that received public funds to double as homeless shelters. As Stephen Nohlgren of the Tampa Bay Times reports, the original requirement was introduced in 1988 to win support for allowing sales-tax money to be kicked back to help pay for construction of the stadium that went on to become Tropicana Field, current home of the Rays — a subsidy scheme that's since been used by numerous other sports teams. The bill, proposed by state senator Michael Bennett, would require that stadiums immediately set up shelters on off days, or else refund all the cash they've received.
And the problem? Take it away, Nohlgren:
But in fact, only one stadium listed by legislative analysts — the Miami Dolphins' Sun Life Stadium — is owned by a team that received the sales tax exemption. The other 17 are owned by cities, counties or public sports authorities. Refunds would be borne by taxpayers.
The bill doesn't seem to have much chance of passage in its current form, regardless, though it's always possible it will lead to some debate on legislation that would actually affect the sports teams that Bennett is upset about subsidizing. I wouldn't hold your breath, though.
January 24, 2012
U-T San Diego covers own stadium plan, mayor hates it
And we have our first glimpse at how U-T San Diego (the former San Diego Union-Tribune, renamed by its new developer/right-wing activist owner Doug Manchester) plans on covering the $1.5 billion Chargers stadium/convention center/kitchen sink plan proposed by its own publisher in Sunday's paper. Today, reporter Matthew T. Hall takes a look at the viability of the waterfront stadium plan, albeit under the somewhat self-aggrandizing headline "Waterfront stadium plan revives debate." Among the highlights:
- Chargers stadium czar Mark Fabiani says the team remains focused on a stadium at a bus yard in East Village, but that the waterfront site could be a fallback option.
- Union leaders, who would face the displacement of dockworker jobs, are "willing to listen."
- San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders "declined to comment."
Not included in the piece: Any attempt at analyzing where on earth the money would come from for this plan. (Manchester made some suggestions of his own on Sunday, but they didn't add up to $1.5 billion.) Sanders' position, meanwhile, was reported very differently in other news outlets:
Mayor Jerry Sanders said Monday he opposes U-T San Diego's proposal for a new Chargers stadium and expanded convention center...
Sanders has expressed support for the stadium being part of a wider entertainment district, but not the way it was proposed Sunday.
"The city is ready to move forward now on a realistic plan to create thousands of jobs, protect our convention business and increase revenues for neighborhood services," Sanders said in a statement to City News Service. "We have to address these important priorities in a responsible way."
But at least the UTSD is all over the story of how much Twitter traffic its plan generated.
Santa Clara referendum petitions validated, vote still a ways off
The Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters has confirmed that Santa Clara Plays Fair has collected the 4,500 signatures required to force a vote on the $1.2 billion San Francisco 49ers stadium plan, which would require the city to put out $850 million in cash and get somewhere between all of it and not very much of it back.
Of course, Santa Clara has insisted that the stadium project isn't subject to referendum, so next stop will be, as promised, court. Stadium opponents have enlisted the ACLU to seek an injunction against starting stadium construction until the referendum issue can be settled.
Exactly how much the 49ers are committing to backstop the city's stadium bonds remains murky — I'm still puzzling my way through the rat's nest of the city's development agreement, and you're welcome to do the same if you want to play along at home. Though it's worth noting that Stanford sports economist Roger Noll did tell the Wall Street Journal last week that the city's return on its stadium investment could range "from pretty close to break-even to a catastrophe," which I'll take as validation of my own analysis.
Dayton: Crappy Metrodome site is only viable Vikings option
As if the Minnesota Vikings' stadium hopes weren't already looking dismal, Gov. Mark Dayton's office issued a statement yesterday making them even dismaler:
Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton told Vikings owner Zygi Wilf on Monday that the team's new stadium will have to be at the Metrodome site if a stadium bill is to pass the Legislature this year, Dayton's spokeswoman said...
Dayton spokeswoman Katharine Tinucci said it's not that the Democratic governor necessarily prefers the Metrodome site. But he believes that the stadium must be at that site if the bill is to pass during the legislative session that convenes Tuesday.
Tinucci added: "I can't say this is the governor's favorite" site. Hey, hey, enough with the hard sell!
The bright side if you're the Vikings owners (or dark side if you're an opponent of spending hundreds of millions of dollars in public money on a Vikings stadium) is that Dayton is at least attempting to focus legislative attention on one site, unenthusiastic as he may be about it. We'll see if this tactic is enough for the legislature to actually act on it, or if they decide to punt the whole mess to 2013 in the hopes that the laws of mathematics have been revised by then.
Florida bill would enforce law to use public stadiums as shelters
A pair of Florida state legislators have unearthed an old law requiring that state-funded sports facilities be used as homeless shelters on days when there's no event on, and is out to enforce it. "These organizations have failed to follow the law for over 20 years," declared state rep Frank Artiles, co-sponsor of legislation that would require teams that have received public cash to return it if they don't obey the law. "This is the simply the State of Florida holding them accountable."
While it's hard to picture the Miami Marlins, say, setting up cots around the Red Grooms home run sculpture, the bill is certainly getting media attention, and now has attracted an amendment to require publicly funded stadiums to ban TV blackouts of games. Which sounds like it has even less chance of being enforceable, but it's certainly interesting, to say the least, to see what options people come up with for demanding conditions in exchange for public funding. Of course, it would be easier if somebody had thought to demand them before actually opening the public's checkbook...
Louisville arena TIF fund on verge of needing bailout
Hey, remember back in 2010 when it was reported that Louisville's tax-increment financing district wasn't actually generating any incremental taxes, and if things didn't improve the city would need to bail out its stadium fund with general revenues? Well, guess what:
The revenue needed to pay for the 15-month-old arena at Second and Main streets is falling short of expectations, putting the project at risk of failing to cover its debt and having its bonds relegated to "junk" status.
The main culprit is lagging revenue in a special taxing district that forms the foundation of the arena's financing plan and is supposed to provide the Louisville Arena Authority with more than enough cash to pay its $349 million in bonds.
Arena authority chair Jim Host told the Louisville Courier-Journal that he has no plans to ask the city for money immediately, but did apparently tell city officials that he will ask for as much as an extra $3.3 million a year starting in 2013.
There are already plenty of reasons to be wary of TIFs, among others that much of the "new" tax revenue is actually money that would have been collected somewhere else in your city regardless. But the scariest part for city officials may be their uncertainty — a relatively small shortfall in consumer spending that causes tax proceeds to go down, not up, and in the words of subsidy expert Greg LeRoy, "a liability that was supposed to be taken care of by the TIF is now eating the lunch of the general fund."
January 23, 2012
San Diego paper proposes own damn $1.5B Chargers stadium plan
The right-wing businessman who bought the San Diego Union-Tribune (since renamed U-T San Diego) has made clear what he meant in saying local newspapers should be "cheerleaders" for stadiums, penning an editorial yesterday that proposed spending $1.5 billion on a waterfront stadium, expanded convention center, sports arena, parks, and beaches.
To pay for it, U-T owner Doug Manchester proposes a mix of funding sources: the $520 million currently slated for use to expand the convention center, $200 million from the sale of the Qualcomm Stadium site, $90 million by diverting funds currently used to maintain Qualcomm (no word on how the new stadium would be maintained), $50 million from selling the Valley View Casino Center arena, $50 million from the sale of naming rights, and $63 million from ticket fees. "These are only some of the many innovative ideas" for funding the project, writes Manchester (or his editorial minions — it's tough to tell, since much of the editorial package is unsigned). They had better be, since by the numbers provided here, Manchester's plan is still more than half a billion dollars short of paying for itself.
The public reception of the plan so far is hard to tell, given that the only daily paper in the city is the one stumping for it, so understandably isn't sending its reporters out to discern whether it's viable. With any luck, the independent Voice of San Diego will soon remedy this, but for now we'll have to make do with its recent profile of Manchester, with its memorable blind quote: "If there is a hell, Doug Manchester is the face of it."
Vikings stadium debate to be pushed to 2013?
In what should come as a surprise to no one, the pile of quarter-baked stadium plans issued for the Minnesota Vikings last week isn't doing much to resolve the state legislature's plans for whether to build a new home for the team. State stadium czar Ted Mondale said Friday that "time is not on our side right now" for getting a stadium bill voted on during this year's legislative session that starts tomorrow, and there's increasing talk of just kicking the whole debate back to 2013, when money will suddenly grow on trees.
Meanwhile, Dayton last week threw cold water on the idea of raising stadium funds via racinos, noting that the state's Indian tribes, which operate legal casinos, could sue to stop the installation of slot machines at Minnesota racetracks: "Passage of racino legislation to fund a new stadium is speculative. Even if it were to pass, several years of litigation in federal courts should be expected. Proceeds from racinos could not provide the assured revenue stream to back state-issued bonds until that litigation was resolved." The tribes apparently wouldn't sue over installing electronic pulltabs at bars and restaurants, but there's little political support for that plan at the moment.
The St. Paul Pioneer Press, meanwhile, has a long article today on all the ways in which a new Vikings stadium could be bad for St. Paul, including a new commercial district in Arden Hills diverting shoppers from St. Paul businesses, and subsidies for Minneapolis' Target Center (which could be rolled into a stadium bill) making it hard for St. Paul's Xcel Center to compete for acts. The article includes these words, which should be chilling for any city hoping to pay off an arena by booking lots of concerts:
"It used to be who could give a better rate. I think it's going to come to a point in the not-to-distant future where it will be, 'Who can pay an act more to come?'" St. Paul City Council President Kathy Lantry said.
None of which should be exactly a surprise, especially since Minnesota already tore down one arena because of competition from the Target Center. It's suddenly news now to the Pioneer Press, though, apparently because "St. Paul officials and business leaders" are now "fretting" over these issues. Just so long as there are politicians saying this, and it's not just the paper being truth vigilantes.
January 20, 2012
Judge: Red Bulls owe property taxes on Harrison stadium
A New Jersey tax-court judge has ruled that the New York Red Bulls owe property tax to the city of Harrison, despite playing in a stadium built on land owned by a tax-exempt public agency. The decision, if upheld, means that the team owes $3.6 million in back taxes for 2010 and 2011, plus similar amounts going forward.
Without getting too deep into tax law, public land usually goes untaxed — but it can be taxed, or can be subject to payments in lieu of taxes, if it's used for a strictly private purpose. Given that all the money collected at Red Bull Arena flows to the Red Bulls, the judge ruled that the "public" nature of the land was an accounting fiction, and demanded that the team cough up.
Whether cash-strapped Harrison will see any money from this anytime soon is uncertain — the Red Bulls have promised to appeal, which could drag this out for years. (They're also still stiffing the city on $150,000 a year in rent.) But at least there's a chance of the city getting something back for its $80 million in land and infrastructure and $173 million new train station, aside from a bunch of muddy lots set aside for theoretical future development. (According to Business Week, payments from developers are running at just over one-tenth what was projected when the arena project was first planned.)
Given the number of teams that use the public-land, private-use dodge to avoid a stadium tax bill — which is to say, pretty much all of them — it's going to be interesting to see if this ruling sets any kind of precedent. Given that tax law varies widely from state to state, and who knows if this will hold up under appeal anyway, probably not, but it's an interesting idea for local governments to try to recoup some of the money they blew on stadiums in the hopes of sparking development that never arrived.
January 19, 2012
Dayton: Arden Hills "not viable," all Vikings sites have problems
Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton gave a talk yesterday about the passel of Vikings stadium plans issued last week, and the upshot was: You call these stadium plans?
"There's not yet a stadium proposal with a complete and sufficient financial plan," Dayton said. "No site's sponsor has adequately resolved the major unanswered questions in order to merit the approval to proceed."
Dayton said he was disappointed that neither the Vikings nor Minneapolis or Ramsey County had come forward with workable finance, site and political plans. He called the proposal submitted by Minneapolis last week "meager."
"You can't make a decision until you have all the facts," Dayton said.
In particular, Dayton all but ruled out the Arden Hills site in Ramsey County that Vikings execs prefer, insisting that it's "not financially viable" and that "unless the Legislature is willing to change its insistence on a voter referendum before Ramsey County can impose any kind of tax increase, the only two feasible sites become the Metrodome and Linden Avenue, both in Minneapolis." But the Minneapolis sites have issues as well, not least that nobody's quite sure how to pay for them either.
Meanwhile, the chief stadium bill author in the Minnesota state house, Rep. Morrie Lanning, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that while Dayton may have picked a front-running site, he has not: "I'm telling you, as stadium author, that's not where I'm at." At the same time, the rector of the Basilica of St. Mary, which is adjacent to the proposed Linden Avenue site, reiterated his opposition to the plan, saying he's concerned about both traffic issues and possible damage to the basilica from construction.
And as for the Metrodome, Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak's favored site? The Star Trib reports:
Dayton said the Metrodome location could work for a new stadium, but he was concerned that in 30 years, the site had never spurred any nearby economic development.
Ah, yes, let's blame the Metrodome site for that. Because everyone knows that all other stadiums have sparked huge development booms nearby.
January 18, 2012
Sternberg, Foster meet, don't discuss much re: Rays
Tampa Bay Rays owner Stuart Sternberg and St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster met for over an hour (Tampa Tribune) or about two hours (Tampa Bay Times) yesterday, and shockingly didn't manage to resolve all the issues around where the Rays will play, how to pay for it, and how to prevent global climate change without asking people to consume less fossil fuels. Per the Times:
Sternberg didn't go into details in a short interview afterward, but said the team and Foster reached no deals on the Rays' future in the city. ...
Sternberg said the two sides didn't discuss potential locations for a future stadium and there was no talk of how the Rays might buy out their contract to play at Tropicana Field.
Much of the discussion focused on how the city might help the team with marketing and improving upon home attendance in 2011 that was next to last, Sternberg said.
Of course, depending on what you consider to be the Rays' "stadium problem," that last item could go a long way toward solving it: If the Rays can improve attendance at Tropicana Field, they don't need to go worrying about breaking leases and spending hundreds of millions of dollars on a new stadium just to field a decent team and turn a profit. (Not that the Rays have been exactly hurting in either department of late.) If nothing else, this could be a sign that Sternberg plans to tone down his "Let me out of St. Pete!" rhetoric and take more of a long view toward any possible relocation across the bay ... or it could be that he was just making nice at the meeting and will go back to complaining bitterly next week.
49ers repeal petition claims more than enough signatures to force vote
And we're off: Santa Clara Plays Fair says it has compiled enough petition signatures to force a new referendum on the $1.2 billion San Francisco 49ers stadium proposal. With today the deadline for collecting 4,500 signatures, a just-released press release from SCPF (not on their site yet that I can tell) reports that the group has collected "nearly 11,000 signatures from Santa Clara voters asking the City Council to either repeal the development agreement and the financing plan for the planned 49ers stadium or submit them to the voters."
Next up is almost certainly the courts, given the city of Santa Clara's insistence that its stadium deal isn't subject to referendum, despite it being significantly different from the plan that voters approved in 2010. Tune in again next week for Preliminary Injunction Theater!
January 17, 2012
Cubs plan party patio, ad board in right-field bleachers
Chicago Cubs owner Tom Ricketts announced his latest planned change to Wrigley Field over the weekend, declaring that he'll build a "Budweiser Patio" in the right-field bleachers by Opening Day that will feature a dining area and bar seating a la recent additions to Fenway Park. It will also feature, according to the crappy rendering, a giant Budweiser ad and an electronic LED strip board, which would be quite a change for a ballpark that still relies on a hand-operated scoreboard in center field.
This is almost certainly an attempt by Ricketts to generate more revenue while dodging landmarks questions; as Cubs VP Mike Lufrano told the Chicago Sun Times, "It doesn't affect any of the historic features. It does not change the bleacher height or the outfield wall. It's a way to continue to modernize the park, but keep within the historic tradition of Wrigley Field." Still, they plan on going before the Landmarks Commission next month, just to be sure.
There's plenty to like about this plan — it keeps the Cubs in Wrigley, with no public money — and equally plenty to be squeamish about, if you're a fan of the pre-electronic brand of baseball that can be found now pretty much solely at Wrigley. (There's currently a small electronic board in center field, but this new one seems more likely to be the kind of strip board that can flash advertisements between batters.) If you're a fan of the renovated Fenway Park, though — recognizably the same, but with all the modern amenities like cupholders and electronic advertising signage — this is a sign that Ricketts is indeed headed in the same direction, though he presumably hasn't given up hope of getting public subsidies to help pay for it.
Leiweke: L.A. stadium will bring fans, jobs, no matter what "professors" say
While we're catching up on news, last week's New Yorker featured a long profile of AEG president Tim Leiweke and his media-shy boss Philip Anschutz, featuring much discussion of their company's proposed Los Angeles NFL stadium. Subscribers can read it here; for the rest of you, here are some of the choice stadium-related bits:
Anschutz and Leiweke had a specific model in mind [for L.A. Live]. "When we started dunking this up, we went to Universal Studios and Disneyland," Leiweke said. The theme parks have a very brilliant concept. If twenty million people go through Disneyland, why can't we build hotels, restaurants, and retail that service the twenty million people? That's all we did here." L.A. Live attracts only thirteen million people a year so tar. "But twenty million, soon!" he added—a prediction based on the assumption that the football stadium will he built.
That's a great nutshell description of how the modern entertainment titan thinks — how can we bring people in to see an event, then get money from selling them everything they'll spend money on during their visit? — but author Connie Bruck lets Leiweke get away with a bit of mathematical sleight of hand: a stadium is going to bring in an extra seven million people a year? Given that they're planning for a 70,000-seat stadium, that'd mean they'd need to either host 100 events a year, which is unheard of for a football stadium, or boost the popularity of L.A. Live just from proximity to the stadium, which is more plausible, but still a bit of a reach.
Many studies have shown that stadiums, after the construction period, do not generate new economic activity for a community; a dollar spent at a stadium is a dollar taken from somewhere else. At a town-hall meeting, one member of the audience said that the last time Leiweke had been asked about these studies he had said he would cite academics on his side of the argument. Who were they?
"I'd be more than happy to show you that," Leiweke responded. "And I'll make you a deal. I'll buy you dinner one night at L.A. Live, and we can sit there, look at three billion dollars in development, and we can question whether the professor that came in and said there will be no economic development that will come from Staples Center was right. I can show you studies—but how about I show you brick and mortar?" His questioner pressed about the research, and Leiweke, raising his voice, replied, "You bring your professor, who never has invested one penny in this community, and then I will bring all the union guys, who are sitting here with forty-per-cent unemployment, and you ask them, Do they want to let those people that have never spent a dime of risk in this community sit there and preach that there's no economic development and impact that's going to come from stadiums and arenas?"
In other words, a restatement of Leiweke's "professors in classrooms that have never built anything in their lives" quote. It's becoming clearer that Leiweke, from all accounts a pretty upbeat, effusive guy, resorts to name-calling when the subject of actual economic numbers comes up.
"This is not about doing a deal with the commissioner," Eric Grubman, the N.F.L.'s executive vice-president of business ventures, said. "This is about finding a structure and terms that will attract a team." In the league's view, the deal that Anschutz was proposing was doubly flawed: not only was he trying to get a share of a team at a discount but he wanted a landlord-tenant relationship that, in its control of revenues, amounted to a kind of asset-stripping. "It's unlikely the league or a team would approve this proposal," Grubman said. Six weeks earlier, Grubman continued, he had given Leiweke an outline of elements that he thought would persuade a team to sign with Anschutz. "Since they haven't quit, I have some optimism they're working toward it," Grubman said.
Tea-leaf reading a bit here, but that doesn't exactly sound like a ringing endorsement, which matches what was reported back in October about the NFL's disdain for the AEG plan. It's always possible that Leiweke has something up his sleeve that will enable AEG to turn a profit on a $1.2-billion stadium while leaving enough revenues left over for an NFL team to get rich off of them, but I wouldn't count on it. Unless people who build things instead of sitting in classrooms have developed their own kind of math.
Santa Clara attorney: 49ers petition drive illegal (or at least that's what city should say)
For those who missed it, on Friday Santa Clara city attorney Ren Nosky issued an opinion that the petition drive to force a re-vote on the San Francisco 49ers stadium project is illegal, since referenda can only be used to repeal "legislative" acts, not "administrative" acts. Since the city council is just carrying out implementation of a previously approved stadium plan, argues Nosky, no second vote is possible.
Of course, given that that implementation included going from $444 million in public grants and loans to $850 million, one might reasonably argue that this isn't actually the same plan that voters approved back in June 2010. Where's Plutarch when you need him for a ruling?
In any event, Nosky noted that his position doesn't hold any more sway than that of any long-dead Greek philosopher, saying: "I'm just advising the stadium authority on what position to take. My opinion doesn't matter. The courts would ultimately decide this." He did, though, manage to throw a wrench into a petition drive that's on a tight timetable (deadline: tomorrow) — that couldn't possibly have been intentional, could it?
January 13, 2012
Deadline for narrowing down Vikings stadium plans ends up narrowing nothing at all
Last night's deadline for Minnesota Vikings stadium plans, set by Gov. Mark Dayton in an attempt to give the state legislature a limited number of ideas to actually vote on, has come and gone, and the result is ... pretty much the same mishmosh that we had before this.
Ladies and gentlemen, your contenders for the New Home of the Purple and Gold:
- Ramsey County is sticking with its $1.1 billion Arden Hills plan, only with a new revenue source for $375 million in county money after its plan for a sales tax was killed last November: Instead, the county now plans on a whopping 3% food and beverage tax to raise the stadium cash. According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, county officials "acknowledged" that this tax plan "appears to lack political support."
- Where Ramsey County dropped a 148-page tome on Dayton's desk, the city of Minneapolis issued a slim four-page proposal focused on a new $907 million stadium on the site of the Metrodome, but without ruling out alternate sites near the Target Center and the Basilica of St. Mary, despite the fact that ruling out sites was supposed to be the point of this whole exercise. The city's $313 million share would come from redirecting tax money that currently goes to pay off the city's convention center, a plan that was already proposed in December, and roundly attacked by the Minneapolis city council. The state legislature would also have to overturn a voter-approved referendum that prohibits the city from spending more than $10 million on sports stadiums.
- Shakopee has its own plan for a $920 million stadium funded by race track slot machines and a whole pile of other fees and taxes, as discussed yesterday.
Or if you want to see all that with less information and more pretty pictures, the Star Trib has got you covered.
This whole mess now gets kicked back to the state legislature, whose members told the Star Tribune that they don't plan on moving fast on a bill: Main stadium sponsor Sen. Julie Rosen said she may now slow down movement on a stadium bill "to make sure that we have all the figures right and everything's going forward," while House Speaker Kurt Zellers said it was "not my job" to try to drum up stadium votes. It looks like another long, long spring in St. Paul.
49ers' hefty PSL prices raising eyebrows
The San Francisco 49ers put "stadium builder licenses" (aka personal seat licenses) up for sale this week for 9,000 seats at their planned Santa Clara stadium, and the initial reports seem to show a fair bit of sticker shock among fans.
The prices on the initial round of lower level club seats run from $20,000 to $80,000 for a lifetime license to buy tickets (fans then still need to pony up for tickets as well). That's significantly more than the PSLs that the New York Giants PSLs (which topped out at $20,000) and Jets (top price $84,000, but with some lower-level seats priced as low as $2,500 after PSL sales stalled) and even more than the Dallas Cowboys PSLs, which run from $16,000 to $50,000.
If commenters on the official 49ers message board are any guide, this could be a tough sell, with 84% of those polled saying they have no interest in buying PSLs at these prices. (Sample comment: "I was prepared to pay $10K per seat to keep a similar location, but twice that AND a ticket price increase of over 250% is just plain crazy.") This could change as lower-priced PSLs become available for non-club seats, obviously, but it's certainly not a good sign for the 49ers as they try to avoid the a Jets-style PSL glut and last-minute price slashing.
All this should be of concern to Santa Clara, because the PSL money is slated to be used to pay back $450 million in public debt that the city stadium authority will be borrowing from the 49ers, at 8.5% interest. [UPDATE: Sorry, confused two different stadium loans there for a minute. For the full explanation, see my original post, which got it right.] If there's a shortfall ... well, nobody's exactly sure what happens, except that it'll be the city's problem, not the team's. It actually presents a weird incentive for the 49ers in setting prices — if they price seats too high and they don't sell, they're still guaranteed to get their cash from Santa Clara (except for the actual tickets they'd end up eating, obviously), which may be one reason the team has been so aggressive about pricing.
Of course, there's also that petition drive underway to hold a revote on the entire stadium project, which makes this not exactly the best time to piss off your fan base. The stadium opposition group Santa Clara Plays Fair issued a press release last night touting radio show host (and former weatherman and current climate change denier) Brian Sussman's switch from the pro-stadium camp to the anti-stadium side, with Sussman telling listeners, "My eyes were finally opened when the football team informed me my four seats in the new stadium would cost $160,000." How many of his fellow fans balk at those prices could determine whether the Santa Clara succeeds or fails — and just possibly, whether it gets built at all.
January 12, 2012
Shakopee enters Vikings stadium sweepstakes at last second
With Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton's deadline for Vikings stadium proposals coming up at 5 pm today, there was a surprise entrant yesterday: The previously unheard-from suburb of Shakopee, whose newly elected Mayor Brad Tabke presented Dayton with his own plans for a stadium that, he said, would be the cheapest to build, at a mere $920 million (compared to an estimated $925 million for a Minneapolis site and $1.1 billion for the pollutant-laden Arden Hills site).
"This is definitely not pie in the sky," Tabke told KARE-TV. "This is a really good option for the Vikings and for Minnesota, and it solves a lot of problems that currently exist with all of the other stadium locations."
As for how Tabke would pay for it, he's proposing an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink plan:
- $45 million in up-front payments from Shakopee.
- $29 million a year in revenues from slot machines that would be added to the existing horse track and casino at Canterbury Park, which is in Shakopee.
- $400 million from the Vikings and NFL.
- $16 million a year from a mix of a ticket surcharge, lottery scratch-off games, PSL sales, and naming rights money (which the Vikings, don't forget, are counting on to pay part of their share).
It all sounds more than a little jury-rigged, but no more so than the Minneapolis and Ramsey County plans, really. Also, the Vikings owners say they're not interested, but then, they said that about Minneapolis at one point as well.
Meanwhile, the real drama, such as it is, will come this afternoon, when Minneapolis officials choose from among three proposed sites for their entry, as Dayton is imposing a one-site-per-locality rule to try to winnow down the number of plans out there. Then everyone can get back down to the real debate about how on earth — and why — to raise more than $500 million in public money for a privately used NFL stadium.
January 11, 2012
Davis threatens to move Raiders to L.A. (yes, again; no, different Davis)
Newly anointed Oakland Raiders owner Mark Davis made his first public remarks on the future of the team yesterday, and they were drawn straight from the threatmongering playbook:
"The timetable is yesterday. So that's where it is. We've got to get a stadium. We've got to get that done," Davis said Tuesday in his first public comments since taking over the organization in October following the death of his father, Al.
"It's such a competitive business. It really is competitive. We can't compete for a lot of the players that other teams can, at times."...
"We're trying to get something done up here but if we can't, we've got to get something done somewhere because we need to be able to compete," he said. "And that's where it's at."
The message is clear: If no new stadium is forthcoming in Northern California, then Davis will likely look south to Los Ange—
Davis said he has talked to groups in Los Angeles but hasn't received an offer he likes.
Well, alrighty then. It's no surprise that Davis hasn't liked the offers from L.A. — as covered here previously, they both pretty much come down to "if you pay for it, we will build," which isn't what most sports owners want to hear, especially in the NFL, where moving to a bigger market doesn't even get you more TV money. So this pretty much comes down to a reiteration of Davis' late dad's strategy: Complain loudly that you need a new stadium, and see what shakes loose, whether in Oakland, Santa Clara, Los Angeles, or Cucamonga. It's worked before, though sometimes you have to repeat it for a few years first.
January 10, 2012
Sacramento solicits bids for parking money to fund Kings arena
The city of Sacramento is moving ahead with that plan to solicit bids for its future parking revenues, issuing a request for qualifications to see who's interested in coughing up $200 million that could be used (part of it, anyway) towards a new Kings arena. City officials plan on presenting a list of qualified bidders to the city council by February 14, at which point the council can issue a formal request for proposals (i.e., honest to goodness bids, not just expressions of interest) that would take several months.
That timetable would seem to be a problem if you read the Sacramento Bee's description of the "impending March 1 deadline from the National Basketball Association for the city to come up with a financing plan for the $387 million facility," after which the league "would give the owners of the Sacramento Kings the freedom to once again explore moving the franchise." Except, of course, that the Kings owners have already said that that deadline isn't to be taken seriously. Unless you're a newspaper writer, that is.
In any case, it's still not clear that the city council will approve this whole mess, given that it would blow a $9 million a year hole in the city budget from now until the end of time. But right now it's the only straw Mayor Kevin Johnson's arena plan has to cling to, so cling they will — at least until the next arena plan with no idea for how to pay for it is ready.
Chargers staying in San Diego for 2012 ... but you knew that
This shouldn't really be news to anyone, but since everybody else seems to think it's news: The San Diego Chargers have announced that they'll be staying in San Diego this fall, and not moving to ... um, a stadium in Los Angeles that won't be built for at least another three years, if ever?
The Chargers have an annual window in which they can opt out of their lease by paying off remaining bonds on the Qualcomm Stadium expansion (about $24 million currently), a clause that mostly serves as an opportunity to create headlines every winter about how the team could be moving if it wanted to. Barring either an unexpected breakthrough in the Chargers' plans for a stadium attached to the San Diego Convention Center — which, as ESPNLA points out, the convention center wants no part of — or the sudden achievement of this, expect to see more of the same headlines next January.
January 09, 2012
News report: Ramsey County Vikings plan is toast
Twin Cities TV station KSTP is reporting that "sources" (not even "sources close to the deal," just "sources") tell it that "Governor Dayton and legislative leaders have told Vikings officials the Arden Hills site is 'unlikely to work'" for a new football stadium. If true — and it doesn't appear to be corroborated elsewhere — this would leave the three proposed Minneapolis sites as the team's only options. And those three will presumably be whittled down to one by this Thursday, Dayton's deadline for each local government to come up with one stadium plan and stick with it.
Meanwhile, KARE-TV reports that the Ramsey County petition drive to force a referendum on any stadium spending has kicked off, with a goal of 17,000 signatures. No word on how the petition-gathering is going, other than that opposition is "building."
All of which is just further evidence that last month's rumors of an imminent Vikings stadium agreement were severely off-base — as I Dislike Your Favorite Team notes in somewhat stronger language in the early front-runner for stadium news headline of the year.
Rays owner on meeting with mayor: Nothing has changed
Here's Tampa Bay Rays owner Stuart Sternberg on that upcoming meeting with St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster:
"I'm going to talk to him, and if he's got something to chat about other than normal chatting that would be great. If not, it will still be fine. It's always good to communicate. ... I don't sense anything has changed. I don't think the mayor is taking a hard-line approach. We're going to chat and see if something has moved at all."
The headline the Tampa Tribune chose to put on this story: "Rays' stadium issue is heating up." Which is at least preferable to the original headline before the copy editors got hold of it.
Ex-Red Sox PR flack: Henry sought public cash for Fenway reno
Buried in a long, somewhat self-aggrandizing article by former Boston Red Sox PR agent Doug Bailey in this month's Boston Magazine is this historical tidbit about the current ownership group's much-lauded renovations of Fenway Park:
In 2000 — before the Henry/Werner group bought the team — the state legislature had approved spending more than $300 million on improvements around the park as part of the then-owner's plan to build a new stadium. That plan fizzled, and with it the public funding, but now Henry, Werner, and Lucchino wanted to either revive the state's financial incentives package or quietly win a new round of funding. The finesse with which this had to be accomplished could not be overstated. There were some around the table at these meetings who argued vociferously to simply tie the Fenway Park commitment to public funds. In other words: "We'll only stay and renovate Fenway if we receive taxpayer assistance for infrastructure improvements." [Larry] Lucchino overruled them. The Red Sox would make the commitment to Fenway Park regardless of the infrastructure issue. Gradually, a media plan emerged: The team would guarantee that baseball would be played in Fenway on its 100th anniversary in 2012; highlight all of the money the new owners had already spent — and were going to spend — on improving the park; and extend an offer to help the state with infrastructure improvements. Implicit in that offer, of course, was that the state would kick in money, too.
The whole thing was going to be laid out at a press conference at Fenway on March 23, less than a month before the start of the 2005 season. It was a solid plan and might have gone off without a hitch, but it was nearly sunk when an overeager associate decided to give an exclusive advance to Globe columnist Joan Vennochi in a wrong-headed attempt to win some positive press. Joan is a friend of mine and a true baseball fan, but she is a fierce opponent of public financing for professional sports teams. In fact, she'd been one of Kraft's most dogged critics during his quest for taxpayer money to build a stadium in Boston. When the paper hit the door that morning, you didn't even need to read the column to know what it said. The headline told it all: "No Public Money for Red Sox." It would take months to recover from that blunder, which seriously set back the club's plans for taxpayer support. In the end, the team got less than $100 million.
(Here's the link to Vennochi's article, though it's subcriber-only.)
How seriously to take this story is hard to tell: The Red Sox owners' announcement of staying put at Fenway came off the next day without a hitch, after all, and it's not like Vennochi had had much success derailing earlier plans for public funding for a Red Sox stadium. (Bailey also gets the amount of the originally approved state subsidy wrong: It was $100 million, not $300 million; an additional $212 million in city funds was proposed but never approved.) Still, this is at least some indication that John Henry and Co. were planning to ask for more public subsidies for a Fenway renovation if they could get it — which, given Henry's actions as owner of the Florida Marlins, really shouldn't come as any surprise. To his (and Lucchino's) credit, he backed off once it proved politically impossible, and went ahead with the renovations anyway — though given that he was able to, it's worth wondering why the state of Massachusetts should have been chipping in to pay for it in the first place.
49ers, Santa Clara kick in more money for stadium land
After a years-long, often-contentious negotiation, the San Francisco 49ers finally agreed to a deal to rent land from the Great America amusement park for its new Santa Clara stadium — and it will end up costing both the team and the city millions of dollars.
For the 49ers, the price is straightforward: $12.5 million in cash for the right to build on the amusement park's overflow parking lot, and use the main lot on game days.
Santa Clara gives up something that's harder to quantify: Instead of getting a cut of Great America's profits when revenue passes $56 million (a figure that the park hasn't reached in recent years), the threshold gets raised to more then $64 million. Great America will also get guarantees of a reduced rent if it chooses to extend its lease beyond 2039.
Santa Clara officials say they'll make some of this money back from parking revenues, but given that the amusement park will also presumably have to be closed (or at least patrons will steer clear because of minimal parking) on game days, there's lost tax revenue there as well, making it even tougher to say the actual public cost of this deal. Regardless, it's likely going to provide a boost for those collecting signatures this week to get a re-vote on the ever-changing 49ers deal back on the ballot for this summer.
The 49ers, meanwhile, are taking the referendum campaign seriously enough to have asked a local electrical union to hire "interceptors" to disrupt the petition-gathering. The union has since toned down its web page seeking anti-referendum workers, but not before somebody did a screengrab of the original.
January 06, 2012
Dayton tries the Vikings stadium deadline thing again
The push to build urgency for a Minnesota Vikings stadium continued yesterday, with Gov. Mark Dayton setting a January 12th deadline for Minneapolis and Ramsey County to submit final plans for their pitches.
This is, of course, not the first time Dayton has tried this gambit, as the St. Paul Pioneer Press notes:
The Democratic governor set a similar timeline last fall to have information submitted in preparation for a pre-Thanksgiving special session, but that plan fell apart in the face of opposition from Republican House Speaker Kurt Zellers.
Since then, Dayton said: "We're left back in this sort of semi-Twilight Zone where we know some of the facts but we don't know all of them, and some people are showing cards and some people are not showing cards. That's why, again, we've got to get all the cards face up on the table."
And if it turns out that nobody has anything better than a pair of threes? As they say in the stadium business, if at first you don't succeed, try, try, again and again and again and again...
Rays, mayor to meet, compare notes on how little they agree
For those of you wondering what's been up with the Tampa Bay Rays stadium saga since October, we have this: Rays owner Stuart Sternberg and St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster have set a meeting for January 17th to talk over stadium issues. Here's a prediction of how it will go:
SS: "So, can we move to Tampa now?"
BF: "Hello!" (Waves lease in Sternberg's face.)
SS: "Check, please!"
For more on this, see Noah Pransky's analysis.
January 05, 2012
Vikings owner declares 'closer than ever' to stadium deal yet again
Zygi Wilf has certainly hit the ground running in 2012 on the "talking a good stadium game" front. On Tuesday, the Minnesota Vikings owner told reporters after meeting with new state senate majority leader David Senjem: "We feel that a deal is going to be in the works shortly." Today, he tells never-met-a-stadium-plan-he-didn't-like Minneapolis Star-Tribune columnist Sid Hartman that "right now we are closer than ever on making a deal happen and we're working very hard to making sure that we get this done" and that "I'm sure details will unfold over the next several weeks and months." Wilf also proclaimed that the Vikings had "momentum" for a new stadium — oh, wait, that was actually five months ago.
There does seem to be some backing for a stadium bill in the legislature — Senjem in particular is an advocate of racinos (racinos!) — but the problem remains how on earth to pay the $1-billion-plus price tag: The Minneapolis city council wants nothing to do with their mayor's plan, Ramsey County officials have declared that "the cookie jar is empty," and the state legislature has been throwing ideas against the wall willy-nilly in the hopes one of them will stick.
Don't forget, the Vikings actually had a stadium bill last spring, but it fell apart when nobody actually stepped forward to supply the $600 million in tax money that would have been required. It's always possible that Senjem and Wilf have secretly concocted something that generates money out of thin air, but I'll believe it when I see it.
January 03, 2012
New MLB debt rules: Will they affect A's stadium plans?
Newballpark.org, which is truly doing some outstanding work covering the Oakland A's stadium battles, reveals today that the new MLB collective bargaining agreement includes a change to the team debt rules that could affect team owner Lew Wolff's stadium plans. Namely:
The Debt Service Rule will be maintained, but the default EBITDA multiplier has been lowered from ten to eight, and from fifteen to twelve for Clubs incurring stadium-related debt in the first ten years of a new or renovated stadium.
If you just stared blankly at that sentence, you're not alone: I had to read it a few times before I could figure out what it meant. An attempt, then, to translate this into English:
- "EBITDA" is an acronym for "earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization," which basically can be thought of as "profit, before the tax attorneys get ahold of the books." In the past, MLB teams were (technically) required to keep their debt load below 10x this number, or 15x if they're building a stadium; now, those numbers get tweaked downwards to 8x and 12x.
- What, if anything, does this mean for the A's? Well, Newballpark.org, citing Forbes' figures, says the team's "gross income" (they really mean net EBITDA, since it's after expenses on things like players, or whatever you call those guys they fielded last year), has been $22-23 million the last couple of years. Assuming the A's can increase that a bit for next season following their recent payroll-slashing trades, they could be eligible to take on perhaps $360 million in stadium debt.
- That should be plenty of rope for Wolff to get a new stadium built: Even if it costs upwards of $400 million, he can always offload some of the stadium debt onto other entities — for example, by selling naming rights or PSLs in advance and using the cash to pay down part of the construction cost up front.
- If Wolff borrows, say, $250 million for a stadium, he'd need to be paying $20 million a year in debt service, or about the same as what the San Francisco Giants now pay. Newballpark.org speculates that this could be made up by hiking ticket prices, but keep in mind that the A's are also going to need any new ticket revenue to pay for better players, (presumably) pay off the Giants for their territorial rights, and provide any profit that Wolff expects from this deal. This is especially so if other revenue streams like naming rights and PSLs are being siphoned off to pre-pay construction costs.
In other words, sorry for the teaser of a headline, because it looks like the debt rule probably won't have much impact on the A's plans. The real problem remains not how to finance a San Jose stadium, but how to pay for one, especially if they have to indemnify the Giants. That remains a tight margin, which is no doubt why everyone involved has apparently been busily working the media to try to influence that price tag: Wolff no doubt has some idea what dollar amount he can afford to pay to the Giants, but whether he can get San Jose at that price, only Bud Selig knows.
Vikings lease expires, changing nothing
The Minnesota Vikings wrapped up their season on Sunday, leading to various variations on headlines reading "Vikings' Metrodome lease expires." Except for Minneapolis Minnesota Public Radio, which went with the more nuanced: "As season ends, Vikings insist dome lease is over."
That "insist" is a reference to the clause in the Vikes' lease that extends their lease by a year if they're unable to play a complete season in the dome; given that the team wasn't able to complete the 2010 season at the Metrodome because its roof collapsed, some have argued that the team could be bound to the dome for another year, if their state landlords really wanted to enforce it.
In any case, the issue of when the lease expires is pretty much moot, given that 1) the Vikings are welcome to keep playing at the dome, and are in fact expected to for a few years, even if they get a new stadium deal, 1) they don't really have any immediate options to move to, and 2) they could have moved last year if they'd wanted, just by agreeing to pay the last year's rent on the Metrodome. Still, it's not going to stop the Vikings, or the local media, from trying to make the end of the lease into a reason for urgency in the Vikings' stadium push.
Speaking of which, there's been a flurry of news items on the team's progress in that regard — the big news, such as it is, looks to be that they're considering yet another Minneapolis stadium site — but mostly things stand about where they did before the holidays: In the understated words of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, "Major questions need to be answered, not the least of which is who would pay for it and where it would go." Which is exactly what could be said about my purchase of this.
