Field of Schemes
sports stadium news and analysis

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Neil deMause moc.semehcsfodleif@lien

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August 26, 2010

MLBleakgate Watch: Miami official demands more stadium cash from profitable Marlins

The fish are really hitting the fan in Miami now over those revelations that the Florida Marlins owners weren't really losing money when they sweet-talked local governments into giving them $478 million for a new stadium:

  • Miami-Dade County Commissioner Rebecca Sosa called for the Marlins to cough up more dough for the stadium, now that the team's profits are revealed. (It was actually a letter to Mayor Carlos Alvarez asking that he "explore alternatives to the possibility of securing a greater financial contribution from the Marlins towards the stadium construction," but I like my wording better.)

  • Marlins president David Samson shot back that "a contract is a contract" and insisted no more money would be forthcoming from the team. He also told a local sports radio interview that he "absolutely never" lied about the team's finances (as when he said in 2007 that owner Jeff Loria was "committed to stop losing money"), and that all that annual profit actually went to "pay down debt," save up for the team's own stadium costs, and build up the team's minor-league operations.

Meanwhile, more on yesterday's argument from St. Petersburg Times sports columnist John Romano that the documents show the Tampa Bay Rays are likely losing money, as they were shown making a slim profit in 2008 and their payroll is up since then while revenues are down. Noah Pransky of WTSP-TV writes on his Shadow of the Stadium blog:

In making his argument about the Rays' limited television revenue, Romano ignores the fact that the problem is likely to remedy itself in a few years.
From 2009 to 2010, Rays' television ratings have soared more than 70 percent. And while it doesn't mean a ton of extra money right now, it will in 2017 when they begin a new yet-to-be-negotiated television contract.

As entertaining as all this is, all of this debate about "how much do teams have" is still a bit beside the point: Regardless of whether they're turning a $10 million profit or showing a $10 million loss (and likewise regardless of whether those numbers mean anything real — one Miami accountant notes that the Marlins' financials appear to show $10 million a year in "costs" that are really salary payments to team owner Jeff Loria), anyone rich enough to own a sports franchise can "afford" to buy a stadium the same way you or I afford to buy a house: You go to the bank and borrow the money, then pay it off from your income over the years. That's true whatever the profit-and-loss baseline is that you're starting from.

Or to put it even more simply: If the added revenues the Rays (or the Marlins, or whoever) expect to get from a stadium are enough to pay off the stadium debt, then shouldn't they be paying for it? And if they're not enough, then what's the point in building a new stadium in the first place, other than as an excuse to bail out the team's finances with public dollars?

August 25, 2010

MLBleakgate Watch: Wait, Marlins weren't really going broke without a new stadium?

Okay, the Great Baseball Financial Document Foofaraw is taking a weird turn. Today's meme is that the fact that the Florida Marlins have been turning a profit shows that they didn't really need that $478 million in public stadium subsidies after all. As Yahoo! sportswriter Jeff Passan put in a column last night:

Most harrowing is the takeaway that baseball's biggest welfare case could have funded a much greater portion of the ballpark. In 2009, when the Marlins started spending some of their profits on their portion of the stadium, they still had an operating income of $11.1 million. The team fought to conceal the $48.9 million in profits over the last two years because the revelation would have prompted county commissioners to insist the team provide more funding. Loria, an art dealer with a net worth of hundreds of millions, wouldn't stand for that. He wanted as much public funding as possible - money that could've gone toward education or to save some of the 1,200 jobs the county is cutting this year.

Equally outraged are Miami-Dade county commissioners — or at least, the ones who voted against the stadium deal in the first place. Commissioner Carlos Gimenez told the Miami Herald: "[The idea] is horrible and the financing is even worse. And now you see they took us for a ride ... I tried to make it a condition on the contract that we see the books. This shows me they could have put more into the stadium than they did. We could have sold less bonds." Added Commissioner Joe Martinez: "None of us were aware of this. ... I do believe that if some people had known they were taking a profit, they would have voted differently."

Not to say "I told you so" or anything, but... seriously, didn't anybody bother to read Forbes before this? You know, the magazine that estimated that the Marlins were turning a $43.7 million profit in 2008, as against the leaked documents' $39.2 million? If, as Martinez insists, "none of us" on the county commission were aware of this, then that betrays a pretty serious failure of background research by Miami's elected officials.

The real news, as the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's excellent Sarah Talalay makes clear in her blog post today, isn't that the Marlins were making a profit, but that team execs were lying when they claimed they weren't. Writes Talalay:

Each time Forbes released its annual team valuations, Samson disputed the figures saying he didn't know Forbes sources, but he also insisted the team wasn't making a profit, and if there was one, team owner Jeffrey Loria would put it back into the team.
There are several examples of this, but here's one from 2007, when Samson was asked about Forbes' reporting the Marlins had the highest operating income of the leagues' 30 teams at $43.3 million and with a league low payroll of $24.8 million:
"Very often the mistake that's made is they look at revenue sharing numbers and the team's payroll and take the difference and see profit without looking at our expenses," Samson said.
Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria "would want any dollar extra going into payroll," Samson said.
"What's happened is he committed to stop losing money, but he has never said he makes his living from the operation of the Florida Marlins. He simply doesn't want to lose all his money."

Finally, on the journalistic flip side, you have St. Petersburg Times sports columnist John Romano, who argues that the documents really show that the Tampa Bay Rays do need a new stadium, because while the team is turning a profit, it's only doing so because it's getting revenue-sharing money, and winning while spending less than the Yankees and Red Sox.

So let me see if I can follow the logic: Tampa Bay taxpayers should give money to the Rays for a new stadium because, even though the team right now is both winning and turning a profit, there are other teams that are able to win the same and turn a profit while spending more? Does Florida have some sort of citizen right to throw $16 million a year at A.J. Burnett that I don't know about?

UPDATE: Romano points out that his main argument was that if the Rays turned a $14 million profit in 2008, when they went to the World Series, they likely lost money last year, when they missed the playoffs and had a higher payroll.

That's a fair assessment, but it still makes for a weak case for a new stadium, which is still not going to put the Rays into the same spending echelon as the Yanks or Red Sox. At best, it might afford the Rays an extra $20 million or so a year — call it one Carl Crawford, or 1.2 A.J. Burnetts. Or, if they ran their team like Jeff Loria, a couple of Picassos.

July 29, 2010

Rays stadium talks put off till November

At least the city of St. Petersburg and the Tampa Bay Rays agree on one thing: They'll be putting off any stadium talks until November, after the conclusion of the World Series. This follows the last week's debacle in which St. Pete Mayor Bill Foster offered to allow discussion of stadium sites just north of his city limits, and the Rays responded with a metaphorical raised middle finger.

This will give both sides time to prepare for what could be an ugly November. City attorney John Wolfe has already talked about getting court injunctions to prevent the Rays from negotiating stadium deals with other cities (something that's prohibited in their lease), and additional court battles could ensue over how much the team would have to pay the city for breaking its lease early.

"I'm not looking forward to the fall," Wolfe told the St. Petersburg Times. "I'm not sure what they're going to do. I don't know what their real plan is." Wanna bet it'll include sending Selig back to town at some point — maybe for the postseason if the Rays get there as expected — to make his usual vague threats?

July 28, 2010

Rays to St. Pete mayor: Our way or the skyway

So much for that minor olive branch from St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster, offering to let the Tampa Bay Rays consider sites just north of his city. After a meeting with Foster yesterday, Rays president Matt Silverman fired back yesterday with a terse "thanks, but no thanks":

To secure the long-term future of the Rays here, any search for a new ballpark site needs to explore all of the Tampa Bay region. This is what we repeated to Mayor Foster today. We thanked him for his gesture, and we conveyed to him again that we will consider sites in St. Petersburg and Gateway when we are considering all potential sites in Tampa Bay.
Our organization is singularly focused on the pennant race at hand. Come November, we will work to formulate a process for a ballpark site search with the City of St. Petersburg and Pinellas County.

That's not unexpected — the Rays management clearly wants to at least consider a move to Tampa, if nothing else to increase their chances of finding some government body that'll pay for the stadium — but it indicates that this battle is likely to turn even uglier, with the possibility of lawsuits coming into play. St. Pete city council chair Leslie Curran declared herself "extremely disappointed by the [Rays'] response," adding, "The Rays need to focus on St. Petersburg and exhaust all those opportunities." Looks like there's gonna be a gumfight.

July 23, 2010

St. Pete mayor's plan would only give Rays a little rope

The invaluable Noah Pransky has dug into St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster's offer to let the Tampa Bay Rays move outside city limits, and finds that it's not actually that much of a concession: There are only two new sites Foster would allow the Rays to consider, and both are barely beyond the city line.

That's not likely to make the Rays happy, since their goal looks to be to set up a bidding war among the cities and counties on either side of the bay, the better to find somebody, anybody, who has some cash to pay for a stadium.

Meanwhile, Pransky also reports that the Rays have given $50,000 to a group promoting light rail in Hillsborough County. If they get a rail line allowing Tampa fans to get to downtown St. Pete, does this mean we can forget about all this new stadium nonsense?

July 21, 2010

St. Pete mayor to okay Rays move outside city limits

Stop the presses! Somebody has blinked in the standoff between the Tampa Bay Rays and the city of St. Petersburg, and it's St. Pete Mayor Bill Foster:

Mayor Bill Foster is proposing changes to the city's contract with the Tampa Bay Rays that would allow the club, for the first time, to explore alternate sites to downtown's Tropicana Field.
Foster said the amended agreement would permit the Rays to consider a stadium anywhere in St. Petersburg and the "greater Gateway area," which would include land outside city limits.

This is a minor blink, to be sure — Foster has essentially shifted from "only in St. Pete" to "only near St. Pete" — but it's a blink nonetheless, and it's not entirely clear what's in it for the mayor, who gives up a piece of leverage (the lease clause prohibiting the Rays from talking to any neighboring cities or counties) for nothing. Possibilities: 1) Foster was getting pressure from other local electeds to not be an obstructionist in getting a new stadium deal done; or 2) he figured it was better to throw a carrot to the Rays to at least talk about staying on his side of the bay, to head off talk about a move to Tampa. (Not that the Rays took the bait yet — team execs so far have had no comment.)

In any case, even though it's a potential stadium's site that has gotten all the media attention, the real issue, as Noah Pransky points out, is how to pay for one. And there they're still pretty much nowhere.

July 12, 2010

Rays stadium wars, day 22: Can't we all just get along?

It had been three whole days since anybody tried to throw out any ideas to resolve the Tampa Bay Rays stadium non-crisis, so thankfully on Friday the Tampa Bay Partnership stepped up to the plate to offer to broker talks between the team and Tampa Bay government agencies over the team's future home.

"The city of St. Petersburg and Pinellas County played a pivotal role in bringing the Rays to Tampa Bay, and now our region must pull together in a collaborative, inclusive and transparent way to ensure that the Rays remain and prosper here," wrote Partnership leaders Gary Sasso and Stuart Rogel.

So, what exactly is this group? It's a public-private marketing, public planning, and lobbying group that's led by local business leaders: Sasso runs a local corporate law firm, and Tampa Tribune publisher John Schueler is the group's vice-chair. What they can contribute to the debate isn't all that clear — St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster says he'll only talk about plans that keep the Rays in his city, and team officials wouldn't comment at all — but hey, at least they got their name on the telly.

July 06, 2010

Rays stadium wars, day 16: Rumors, rumors everywhere

I've been off on an extended holiday weekend, but fortunately for stadium news junkies, Noah Pransky's Shadow of the Stadium blog has been keeping up on the latest in the Tampa Bay Rays stadium battle. Among the recent developments:

  • The Tourist Development Commission of Pinellas County — for those not up on Florida Gulf Coast geography, that's the St. Pete side of the bay — is drafting a plan to use $70 million in hotel tax money to help build a new Rays stadium starting in 2015. (The 1% hotel tax surcharge is being used to pay off Tropicana Field currently, so won't be available until then.) If the TDC approves the plan, the county commission would then need to approve spending the tax money on a stadium — and, of course, the Rays would need to okay a Pinellas County stadium, not to mention come up with close to $500 million in additional funding.

  • The St. Petersburg Times notes that lots of other baseball stadiums have rail stations nearby, but Tropicana Field doesn't, largely because Tampa Bay has just about the worst mass transit of anywhere in the U.S. A 1% Pinellas County sales tax for public improvements expires in 2020, and if renewed could be used to build a rail station near a new Rays stadium — something that would first require building a rail line in the first place, something that voters could decide as soon as 2011, though even then it might not connect to Tampa, defeating much of the purpose for the Rays as far as luring fans from across the bay.

  • Meanwhile, a former Congressional candidate has started a website called Bases Loaded Orlando to lure the Rays to that city, according to Pransky (though he doesn't provide a link, and Google can't seem to find it).

Add it all up, and you get ... not much solid, but it keeps the Rays stadium debate in the papers, which is important for a team that's taking the long view in terms of what gets done and when. It's a strategy that's worked before, for the Minnesota Twins and Florida Marlins among others: Keep enough balls in the air, and one of them might eventually fall where you want it to.

June 28, 2010

Rays stadium wars, day eight: Don't look to Tampa for money

As Noah Pransky noted on Friday, newspaper coverage of the Tampa Bay Rays stadium battle has finally started to include some actual investigations, now that Rays owner Stuart Sternberg has declared that it's on. Yesterday, it was the St. Petersburg Times taking a look at how a new stadium in Tampa might be funded.

And as the Times' three reporters wrote: "Sternberg asked the community to at least start to have this conversation. He might not like how it sounds." It sounds, according to the Times, like this:

"Thank you very much, Rays, for telling us to have this conversation," likely mayoral candidate Ed Turanchik said. "Now please go away for a while. Because we've got to deal with more pressing matters.
"There's no public money for this."
"You're talking about trying to keep your police department and your fire department intact," possible mayoral candidate Dick Greco said. "As much as we love baseball, it may be a very, very difficult thing to make happen."
Bob Buckhorn, definite mayoral candidate, posted on his Facebook page after Sternberg's announcement: "If the Rays are going to move, why not a downtown Tampa stadium?" A few days later, though, on the phone, his initial pep was more muted. The chances his would-be taxpayers might pay for part of it?
"Nil," he said, "or something similar to that."
"We're in the middle of a financial crisis at all levels of government," Hillsborough County Commissioner Mark Sharpe said. "We're not in a time when the government can be laying out hundreds of millions of dollars for a new stadium."

And so on. Now, it's not uncommon for elected officials to make "no tax money" pledges about sports facilities, as they know that public funding is generally looked down upon by the public — it's why TIFs, which have the pretense of being "new" revenue, have become such a popular option. Still, this is a pretty hard line to be taken by politicians being wooed by a sports franchise, especially when you consider the number who say they don't think public money will be worth discussing even five or seven years down the road when the economy improves. (Or not, as the case may be.)

The upshot is that it looks like Sternberg's stadium campaign is going to be a long, long-term affair — declaring that they want to consider all their geographic options is no doubt not just a sign that he'd ideally prefer to be closer to the Tampa side of the bay, but an acknowledgment that he's going to need to cast his net as wide as possible in hopes of finding somebody, anybody who can cough up $400 million in stadium subsidies. As one stadium expert — okay, it was me — told the Times, this is how stadium campaigns have been waged for two decades now: "They find the weakness in the opposition, and just beat people down."

June 25, 2010

Rays stadium wars, day five: St. Pete fires back

Still more news in the brewing battle over the future of the Tampa Bay Rays, which is looking increasingly like a standoff between ownership and the team's municipal landlords:

In any case, the only ones whose positions matter much here are the Rays and Foster (and the St. Petersburg city council), since that stadium lease needs to be resolved in one way or another before anyone can start talking about new stadium — or how to pay for them, an even stickier question that so far hasn't been broached at all. TV reporter and stadium blogger Noah Pransky sums up the current media battle nicely:

A NY millionaire flies down and says, "I know you're paying tens of millions of dollars a year for the right to host my (for-profit) business, and I know you still have many more millions to pay...and even though I agreed to stay for 17 more years....I decided it's only going to be 5-10...and I expect you to start paying a lot more money after that."
And somehow we think the bad guy is the Mayor of St Pete, looking out for his taxpayers' investment?

June 22, 2010

Rays stadium wars, day two: Threats and counter-threats

If Tampa Bay Rays owner Stuart Sternberg's goal yesterday with his vote of no confidence for St. Petersburg was to kick-start public discussion of a new stadium, he got it in spades: Both the St. Petersburg Times and the Tampa Tribune are crammed with articles today on the future of the Rays. Among the highlights:

  • Sternberg's declaration that he will only participate in a region-wide stadium search "gave a jolt to the community of developers in the region," according to the Tribune, though the only developer actually cited is former Tampa mayor Dick Greco, who has a plan to build something at the Florida State Fairgrounds in Hillsborough County that might or might not include a stadium. "Everyone needs to come together and work on what sites could suit their needs, with the right location and amenities," said Greco. "This is going to start a race of people trying to do just that."

  • As for what he'll do if a stadium plan doesn't materialize, Sternberg told the Tribune editorial board on Monday: "If I don't get a sense that there's real cooperation and movement here, I'd sell the team. And there'd be no reason for anyone else to keep it here." Trib columnist Joe Henderson rightly called this a page from "Strongarm Tactics 101" — though, somewhat oddly, Henderson said he was less worried about the team moving than about Sternberg selling it to an owner who would run it into the ground.

  • While Sternberg carefully avoided actually threatening to move the team, he showed that he's mastered the non-threat threat, declaring: "If I were just coming into this, and you dropped me in the middle of the United States, this isn't going to be one of the top five markets that doesn't have baseball." Asked for clarification, he said there are "at least five" markets without baseball teams that are more attractive than Tampa Bay. Immediate speculation focused on Charlotte and Las Vegas, though those are both actually smaller markets than Tampa Bay and, of course, neither has a major-league-ready stadium or any plans for one; after that... San Antonio? Hartford? Stu, can you tell us what letter it starts with?

  • St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster, knowing that the Rays have a Tropicana Field lease that could allow the city to sue for damages if the Rays even talk to another city about moving there before 2027, threatened to do just that, saying, "Like it or not, we are married and joined at the hip until 2027. The city of St. Petersburg, quite frankly, won't be brushed aside." Foster did, though, say he'd be willing to negotiate "if the price is right" — though it wasn't clear whether he meant the price of a new stadium or the price of a buyout from the lease.

  • Hillsborough County Commission Chairman Ken Hagan fired back, saying St. Petersburg leaders need to admit that "if we do not have a regional dialogue, we may well be looking at the Charlotte Rays or the Las Vegas Rays." The Times editorial board, meanwhile, called on Foster to "stop threatening lawsuits and start thinking more creatively," while praising Sternberg for speaking "responsibly and clearly about the Rays' need for a new stadium," saying, "He did not make threats, and he did not make demands." Not directly, anyhow.

At this point, Foster's position seems a reasonable one: The lease is the only piece of leverage he has, and it's a pretty good one, since there's no way Sternberg wants to go through a protracted legal battle before he can even begin stadium talks in earnest. St. Petersburg's best option might actually be to negotiate a buyout in which Sternberg pays the city to be allowed to talk to other cities — or, more likely, to promise St. Pete a large wad of cash in the event that the team moves out of the Trop before the lease is up. That way St. Pete would get some value for its lease, plus would get the Trop site to redevelop — while letting Tampa and Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties fight for the right to sink money into a new stadium, if they so choose.

Yes, it would mean "losing" the Rays. But if you ask St. Pete residents if they think it's worth $250 million — the minimum public investment needed to build a new stadium, according to Rays exec Michael Kalt — to avoid driving across the bay to see Rays games, my guess is most of them would take the cash.

June 21, 2010

Sternberg: Lease-schmease, we want out of St. Pete

So Tampa Bay Rays owner Stuart Sternberg didn't declare his love for St. Petersburg after all. As Noah Pransky reports:

Stu said the Rays would not negotiate exclusively with St. Pete, despite their current use agreement. Said he'd only listen to stadium proposals through a process that considers ALL stadium possibilities.
Quotes include: "We need to be in a location that makes it easy for our fans to reach."
The Rays will not be playing in Tropicana Field when our current lease expires in 2027."

Or, per Jonah Keri:

RT @jasoncollette Sternberg's presser in one sentence: "Baseball will not work long-term in downtown St Pete". Agree 120%!

Of course, as Pransky notes, none of this is really news: The Rays have been hinting that they want to get closer to their fans on the Tampa side of the bay for well over a year now. (Or as one commenter on the Channel 10 live chat put it: "guess I missed something. He didn't tell us anything.") What Sternberg's statement appears to be is a shot across the bow of St. Pete, as well as an attempt to head off the city's threatened lawsuit, in effect saying, "We're only going to talk new stadiums if we can talk to everyone, so if there's no talking going on, blame St. Pete."

Now, St. Petersburg officials may well not care, given that they have a lease in place that binds the team from even talking about leaving Tropicana Field for the time being. But if nothing else, Sternberg's statement refocuses the pressure on the city, while getting people talking about where a new stadium should go rather than whether one should be built (or, god forbid, who would pay for it) — and that's what good p.r. is all about, right?

Rays to announce new stadium push today?

Fire up the rumor mills: The Tampa Bay Rays have announced that team owner Stuart Sternberg will "make an important announcement regarding the future of the Rays franchise" today at 12:15 pm. (Weird time, but maybe he doesn't want to miss the end of the big Chile-Switzerland match.) Which has the St. Petersburg Times, among others, speculating that Sternberg will "finally expound on the team's position on a new stadium."

Of course, Sternberg's position on a new stadium has been pretty clear for a while now: He wants one, but doesn't want to pay for it. Presumably what the Times is hoping is that Sternberg will say he's picked a site from among Tampa, St. Pete, and northern Pinellas County, all of which have seen stadium plans of varying degrees of bakedness emerge in recent months.

It would certainly make some sense for Sternberg to declare that he's looking to negotiate with St. Petersburg for now, given that the city is apparently going to threaten lawsuits against any other cities that try to lure the Rays to break their lease before it expires in 2027. If talks end up going nowhere, as they did last time, then Tampa and Pinellas will still be there as fallback options, with a couple more years off the clock until the remaining part of their existing lease is short enough to be affordably bought out.

Or Sternberg could be announcing something else entirely. Best guess among the commenters on the Times site: "They are going to announce that they will now host the Yankees and Red Sox 81 times so that people will actually show up."

May 27, 2010

Rays stadium watch: When is a threat not a threat?

In the course of a long blog item at Creative Loafing on the Tampa Bay Rays stadium push (I'm quoted as well, though I don't say anything exactly earthshaking), Smith College economist Andy Zimbalist has this to say about Rays owner Stuart Sternberg:

"They haven't done what other teams have done, which is to make threats and give deadlines," says Zimbalist. "That's to be respected, since we do live in an environment where sports teams have a lot of economic power."

Well, sort of. Most team owners, as we've seen time and time again, don't make move threats directly, instead leaving it to league commissioners to do their dirty work for them. And Sternberg's track record here is actually pretty typical: First he said that Tropicana Field wouldn't "last" until 2020, then most recently he asserted that "we're not going to be there through 2027. It just can't happen. Baseball won't allow it."

That's a shade more oblique than your average threat, but it's still clearly both a threat and a deadline. Whether it's worthy of "respect" that Sternberg used slightly more polite language when making it is between you and your queen.

May 20, 2010

Even still yet another half-baked Rays stadium plan emerges

This should give the Tampa Tribune headline fodder for months to come: A seven-person investment team called "BuildItDowntownTampa" says it's looking to buy land in downtown Tampa for a Rays stadium.

Among the things the new group doesn't have: a stadium financing plan, a way around St. Petersburg's threatened lawsuit to hold the team to its current lease, spaces in its name, or people who are willing to be publicly identified as the seven investors.

It does, however, have a website, and a press release. And do you really need any more than that to get major media coverage?

May 12, 2010

Tampa Bay cities mull considering talking about building Rays stadium, maybe

Here's how much speculation over a new Tampa Bay Rays stadium is at a fever pitch: The Tampa Sports Authority just makes a brief reference to the possibility of building a sports stadium in its long-range plan, and that's enough to make headlines. Though, to be fair, some of the headlines also addressed the fact that Pinellas County is thinking about starting a new sports authority, though so far without even a specific mention of baseball.

None of this should come as any surprise, or really be news: Obviously, if the Rays can extricate themselves from their lease with the city of St. Petersburg, other localities are going to be interested in talking with them about a new stadium — though given the likely public costs that'd come along with that, you could make a fair case that whatever city doesn't end up with the Rays would be the real winner.

In other Rays news, the St. Petersburg Times reports that the first-place team's TV ratings are up, but their TV revenue isn't especially, since their contract mostly gives them a flat fee regardless of how many people are tuning in. Also, the article notes that since 31% of team revenue must be shared with the league, the marginal value of increasing revenues isn't as great as it might be in any case — the Times estimates that the Rays currently get about $30-40 million a year in league revenue-sharing money, cash that would disappear if the team significantly boosted its revenues. It's all making the supposed benefits of a new stadium look more and more dubious — though obviously the Rays would take one if somebody else were footing the bill.

UPDATE: The intrepid Noah Pransky reports that the Tampa Trib was apparently so excited about the Pinellas sports authority that it put it on its front page, despite the fact that the county had already voted down the idea the night before. Some days the death of newspapers just can't come fast enough.

April 29, 2010

Tampa paper: Rays threaten to leave St. Pete (two weeks ago)!

What is it with the Tampa Tribune and old news? From today's paper comes word that the Tampa Bay Rays ownership would be perfectly happy to leave St. Petersburg for elsewhere in the Tampa Bay region:

City Council member Leslie Curran put the question to a test at a recent public meeting. Spotting Rays vice president Michael Kalt in the audience, Curran invited him to the podium and asked him point-blank: "Do you want to stay in St. Petersburg?''
"I don't think that's a question we are prepared to answer at the moment,'' Kalt said. "We want stay in the Tampa Bay area. We haven't ruled out any locations.''

Only two problems with this breaking story: First off, the Rays owners have made it eminently clear in the past that they'd rather go north from St. Pete. Second, Kalt's headline-making statement actually happened two weeks ago, as the Trib itself reported at the time.

The quality of Tampa journalism aside, Kalt's statement is an indication that the legal battle over the team's lease at Tropicana Field is only likely to escalate as the Rays increasingly look elsewhere. This could end up as big of a mess as the A's situation.

April 27, 2010

Trib's Rays story an instant replay

Thanks to the excellent Noah Pransky of Tampa's WTSP-TV, whose Shadow of the Stadium blog notes that that Sunday Tampa Tribune piece I went off on yesterday was actually a Thursday Tampa Tribune piece that that Trib reprinted on Sunday. On the front page.

Writes Pransky: "Never in my life have I seen a newspaper reprint a cover story from Thursday's paper on the cover of its Sunday paper. Not even my high school paper - desperate for material when Mr. Maddon wasn't cracking jokes over the loudspeaker - would re-print stories."

Pransky also takes the opportunity to re-link to his own post from last Thursday conveniently listing all the recent Trib articles arguing for a new stadium. Looks like the paper is trying to relive its old days of the Buccaneers stadium battle, when the Trib's managing editor (according to one of his staffers at the time), declared, "Our coverage of the stadium will be limited to finding solutions for it to be built."

April 26, 2010

Rays stadium financing: Could the team turn a profit?

The Tampa Tribune had a long piece yesterday running down everything that's wrong with the Rays' Tropicana Field, including that the skyboxes have obstructed views of the roof and that the food concessionnaire is crappy. (This may be the first-ever suggestion that a team should build a new stadium just to get out of a concessions contract. Tim Naehring and the chef's salad controversy notwithstanding.) But the more interesting tidbit is one that's almost brushed over in the article:

Without the amenities and attractions found at modern ballparks, the Tampa Bay Rays are missing out on a potential $40 million in additional revenue, experts said.

If true, that would be a hugely significant statement: Since the annual cost of paying off a new stadium has been estimated at around $30 million, that would mean the Rays could actually pay for a new stadium themselves without any public money at all. Yes, it would be a lot of work to go through just to get a net profit amounting to less than it would cost just to re-sign Carl Crawford, but a profit is a profit — and asking the public for $10 million or so is likely to be much more attainable than an entire $30 million.

The question, then, is: Is it true? The Trib never says which "experts" supplied that $40 million a year number, but let's look at the numbers to see if they make sense. According to Forbes, the Rays brought in about $156 million in revenue last year (and, not incidentally, turned and estimated $15.7 million profit). To add $40 million a year would essentially mean turning them into the St. Louis Cardinals ($195 million in revenue). If anyone reading this thinks that Tampa Bay has the same market potential as baseball-mad St. Louis — which, let's not forget, is currently in the honeymoon of its own new stadium — I've got a bridge to sell you.

Now, there's one important caveat on the Forbes figures: They're after revenue sharing, which the Cardinals pay into, and the Rays currently draw from. Normally, increasing revenues by $40 million would mean you'd lose about a third to revenue-sharing "taxes." (Depending on where you fell in the revenue spectrum; the formula is mind-numbingly complex.) Thanks to the Yankees loophole, however, the Cardinals can deduct their $16 million annual cost of their stadium bonds before paying revenue sharing. Some quick algebra (okay, not so quick — it's been a long time since 9th grade) shows that the Cardinals are likely bringing in around $50 million more than the Rays in order to end up with $40 million more net.

So let's be conservative and say that bringing in an extra $40 million a year in gross revenue would be the equivalent of just reaching the next revenue rung down from the Cardinals — say, the one occupied by the Washington Nationals ($184 million), Colorado Rockies ($183 million), or Texas Rangers( $180 million). Is that feasible? Maybe — Tampa Bay is a smaller media market than D.C. or Dallas, but larger than Denver. Though it also has 13% unemployment, which isn't really a great sign for prospective fan spending.

To sum up: If everything broke right, a new Rays stadium might bring in enough money for the team to turn a profit on it, barely. The only way for the Rays to get a windfall, then, would be to have the public pay for it — and even then (since they'd lose their stadium deduction), about a third of the new revenue would get siphoned off by MLB revenue sharing. So taxpayers are effectively being asked to foot the bill for $30 million in annual stadium subsidies, so that the Rays can get maybe $20-30 million more a year in net revenues.

In even simpler words: The Rays wouldn't make money on the stadium. They'd make money on the subsidy. And that, in a nutshell, is what's driving the new-stadium game: not obsolete stadiums, but the desire for public cash.

April 19, 2010

Rays stadium funding options: Hey, let's put on a show!

In a pleasant followup to the last time the Tampa Tribune took an extended look at the Tampa Bay Rays' stadium demands, yesterday reporter Michael Sasso examined how the hell anyone expects to pay for the thing.

Sasso's overall conclusion: "Hillsborough or Pinellas County likely would have to scrape together funding from numerous sources to cover the roughly $30 million annual cost of a new ballpark. And with 13 percent unemployment in the area, no one is sure that should be a priority." Some of the "likely funding sources," according to Sasso's talks with local electeds:

  • Unlike in Orlando or Miami, hotel taxes wouldn't bring in much money in the Tampa Bay area, at most $5 million a year.

  • A sales-tax hike would generate far more money, but Hillsborough County is already considering a 1% sales-tax increase for light rail and other transportation projects. (Not mentioned in the Trib article: The economy-dampening effects of sales-tax hikes.)

  • Tax increment financing could be used to siphon off new property taxes and divert it to paying off stadium bonds — Tampa already uses TIFs to generate $15 million a year to pay off the Tampa Convention Center. Sasso adds, "Property values are so low they could rebound significantly when the economy improves," though presumably the local governments were hoping to use that money to start paying for services again, not to pay off a new stadium.

This is all way early in the running-stuff-up-the-flagpole process, clearly, but it sure looks like the Rays, if anything, face an even more uphill battle piecing together funding as finding a stadium site. At this rate, we could well still be at this in 2027.

April 13, 2010

Twins stadium opens, Wrigley improvements unveiled, Rays and Yanks bicker over Trop

Baseball opening day was last week, but with half the teams starting the season on the road, yesterday marked first games at several stadiums, including something old and something new, plus a non-first-game at something that its tenants are outspokenly blue about:

  • The Minnesota Twins debuted their new $522 million Target Field (of which $387 million is being paid for by county taxpayers), and goggling fans described the new place as "intense and extreme" and "how baseball is supposed to be played." (The Twins had been indoors at the Metrodome since moving out of Metropolitan Stadium in 1982.) The Mankato Free Press calls it "ultra-intimate" and says the "second deck of the left-field seats hovers so cozily over the field that it's remindful of a Fenway Park Green Monster seat view &mdash minus the stiff cost." From my vantage point watching on TV, this looked like more than a bit of an exaggeration — the upper decks are set back fairly far and stacked relatively high, and the "party deck" in the left-field corner looks like a bit of an obtrusive eyesore (kind of a cross between San Diego's Western Metal Supply building and Citi Field's glassed-in Acela Club) — but it certainly is outdoors. If any FoS readers were there, I'd welcome hearing your thoughts in the comments section.

  • Wrigley Field held its 97th season opener (the 95th for the Cubs; the first two were for the Chicago Whales of the long-ago Federal League), and debuted the first of the offseason renovations that new owner Tom Ricketts has planned. The most talked-about improvements seemed to be to the bathrooms: "Clean, dry, toilet paper, it was very nice," said one female fan, while a male fan noted: "Much nicer, much cleaner, and I'm glad they kept the tradition of the troughs, but they do have some private urinals if you're into that kind of thing." Other changes include a spruced up back of the scoreboard and large banners of Cubs players adorning the front of the stadium. No glowing Toyota ad in the bleachers yet, though. (No, it wasn't recalled.)

  • The Tampa Bay Rays actually had their home opener last week, but the Yankees' first series of the year there sparked a war of words over Tropicana Field, starting when Yanks catcher Jorge Posada griped "it's not a baseball stadium" after a ball hit a catwalk and was ruled a single. (Note to Jorge: If stadium-specific ground rules aren't baseball, then what are all these for?) Rays manager Joe Maddon shot back: "Tell them we're trying to get a new yard ourselves. If they want to contribute in any way, we'll take it. ... We'll take all kinds of donations; any major-league team that wants to contribute to the new ballpark, we'd be happy to accept." Added Maddon: "We could just build it on Jeter's property out there." Maddon tactfully failed to mention that the Rays, along with 28 other major-league teams, are already helping pay for the Yanks' own new stadium.

April 07, 2010

Opening day Rays fans support, oppose new stadium

With the Tampa Bay Rays playing their home opener last night, the St. Petersburg Times reported that fans at Tropicana Field "had clear thoughts on what they want, and don't want, to see happen." Those clear thoughts included:

  • If the Rays have a good year, it "could start a domino effect" for a new stadium.

  • "If we win it all, it's still not going to make the Trop the Taj Mahal."

  • "To build a whole new stadium when this one is perfectly fine does not make sense to me, fiscally."

Those are clear individually, I suppose, though it's hard to say what they add up to. And they're certainly clearer than the statements by Rays owner Stuart Sternberg, who ignored Noah Pransky's call to be more directly involved in the stadium process; asked whether he'd support options for a possible move to Hillsborough County included in the ABC Coalition report, Sternberg replied: "I didn't disagree with much of what they said in the report," adding, "I don't expect to be mouthing off or anything. We'll take it day by day."

ESPN's Rob Neyer, meanwhile, noting that the Rays' lease lasts through 2027, says he doesn't expect them to still be playing there then, "but what happens between now and then, I'm having a hard time seeing." Him and Sternberg both, I imagine.

April 06, 2010

Rays stadium coalition to open mouth; uncertain whether anything will come out

The ABC Coalition pushing for a new Tampa Bay Rays stadium is scheduled to speak before the Hillsborough County Commission on May 19, which could mean a repeat of its appearance before the Pinellas County Commission last month, in which the city of St. Petersburg threatened to sue if the coalition said anything that could be construed as interfering with the team's lease on Tropicana Field.

St. Pete city attorney John Wolfe says he's set to take action if the coalition engages in "tortious interference," but wouldn't say where he'd draw the line. Whether he objects to the coalition's testimony "depends on what they say," Wolfe told the Tampa Tribune.

Meanwhile, WTSP-TV reporter Noah Pransky makes a good point on his "Shadow of the Stadium" blog about the media debate so far (and no, I'm not just calling it a good point because he links to this site):

And just as I predicted back in the ABC Coalition's infancy, columnists and editorial boards are jumping on municipalities to act. But where's the pressure on the Rays to come back to the table with ideas (or even a fair request) of their own? ...
The time is now for the Rays to step up to bat and contribute more than their disappointment to the process. And fellow journalists, instead of penning editorials that encourage elected officials to work with the Rays (since there's proof they ARE trying), maybe we should be pushing the Rays' officials to work with them.

Of course, if the Rays wanted to go public with their stadium campaign, they wouldn't have left it to the ABC Coalition (which consists mostly of local business leaders — picked, ironically, by the city of St. Pete, which is now threatening to sue them if they talk about stadiums anywhere but their city) to carry their water for them. But you'd think that local newspapers might consider it their business to point this out — or then again, maybe not.

March 31, 2010

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 26, 2010

The sword of Seligcles

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 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.

February 22, 2010

Rays FanFest fans: Trop's just fine, so is St. Pete

In the latest Tampa Bay Rays stadium kerfuffle news, a randomish sampling by the St. Petersburg Times of fans who turned out for the Rays FanFest has determined that:

  • They like Tropicana Field just fine.

  • They think it could be even more inconvenient to drive to Tampa or points north than to St. Pete.

  • They (okay, one guy) think the Rays would sell more tickets if they'd "stop shooting off about how bad the stadium is."

Of course, there's a reason why "randomish" isn't accepted polling practice: You could reasonably argue that people who are already diehard Rays fans aren't the best test case for how to expand the team's reach. But it is mildly interesting that at least some fans have a rosier view of the Rays' dome home than the team's owner does.

February 19, 2010

Rays owner: This old stadium just doesn't go with our sofa

Tampa Bay Rays owner Stuart Sternberg has given a longish interview to the Tampa Tribune on why he feels his team needs a new stadium. The whole thing is worth reading, but here are some highlights, and comments:

I stated since the very first day I came in to anybody who would ask, and I was asked quite often, we're not going to be there through 2027. It just can't happen. Baseball won't allow it. Our partners in baseball won't allow it. The other teams won't allow it.

Well, not quite — he actually said it's going to get "really get expensive to maintain this place as years go by" and that Tropicana Field wouldn't "last" until "2020 to pick a year." But the bigger question is: What does "Baseball won't allow it" mean? That the league would contract the franchise without a new stadium? Force it to move? Send in the Marines? It's the nature of these sorts of threats to be vague, but this one's even vaguer than most.

[Tropicana Field is] a great place to watch a game, but for whatever reason people are not as attracted to it as they would be to another venue.

Not Perhaps the fact that the team's owner has publicly said that it's on the verge of obsolescence might have something to do with it? (Yes, the Trop is generally regarded as a pretty bad baseball stadium design, but it's worth noting that most of the actual fan complaints seem to involve it needing a paint job.)

We can sit down and look at a long list of every stadium that's opened up. They've all been very successful.

Of the seven teams that finished behind the Rays in attendance last year, four (Washington, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati) play in stadiums built since 1994.

[Asked if he would build a stadium himself:] I don't have that money. I don't.

This is the kind of answer that screams for a followup: What does Sternberg mean by that? True, he may not have half a billion dollars sitting around, but neither do any of the cities around Tampa Bay — they'd borrow the money, then pay it back over time. Does he mean that he can't front the construction costs, but would pay off the bond costs down the road? Or that he couldn't afford to make the bond payments, because new stadium revenues wouldn't be enough to pay off the construction costs? If the latter, wouldn't it be cheaper for Tampa and/or St. Pete just to give him some cash, rather than investing in a money-losing facility?

But now we're back to asking what it means for a baseball stadium to "last." And as we've seen before, that's a question that sports team owners really hate for anyone to think too much about.

Everybody and their sister has a Rays stadium plan

Oh, they're coming out of the woodwork in Tampa now: Yet another developer has floated an idea for a multiuse development project that would include a Rays stadium, this one in downtown Tampa.

Except that the developer in question didn't seem to intend for its plans to be public just yet, and backed the hell away from any specifics after the St. Petersburg Times leaked its designs:

"If there comes a day where the Rays want to leave the bay area region, this would be an option," [Land and Sand president Claire] Clements said of the conceptual plan that resulted. "That would be up to them, not me. It's just a vision."
Clements wouldn't say Thursday who she is working with on the project. She wouldn't discuss what, if any, efforts there have been to lock up land in the Channel district for a possible stadium, or how such a deal would be financed.
Nor did she deny working with anyone else or trying to obtain rights to land. She said she's not working with the Rays in any fashion.
Clements, 53, stressed that she had no intention of going public with any of her efforts until the Rays indicate they intend to leave St. Petersburg and Tropicana Field. She said she believes something her mother says: "If you stir it, it stinks."

Of course, Louis Brandeis put it slightly differently.

February 18, 2010

Yet another half-baked Rays stadium plan emerges

Throw another developer on the fire in the Tampa Bay Rays stadium chase: Former Tampa mayor Dick Greco says he's considering leasing land at the Florida State Fairgrounds in Hillsborough County (that's the Tampa side of the bay, for those keeping score) and building ... well, something there. Could be hotels. Could be the ever-popular "mixed-use development." Could be a stadium. "It could be a soccer stadium, it could be anything," Greco told the Tampa Tribune.

As trial balloons go, this makes the one about building a Rays stadium atop an old landfill seem downright specific, but it got Greco's name in the paper, so mission accomplished.

Meanwhile, St. Petersburg Times sports columnist John Romano suggests that Tampa Bay should only consider building a new stadium for the Rays if MLB solves its competitive balance issues so that small-market teams have a shot at competing with the Yankees and Red Sox of the world. (Yes, some small-market teams are successful, but as Romano notes, "You cannot argue that a franchise needs a stadium to remain competitive financially and simultaneously argue that payroll disparity has no impact on what happens on the field. Either money matters, or it doesn't.") His suggestions:

  • Raise the "luxury tax" on high player payrolls, or lower the threshold so that it hits more teams. Nice thought, but given that the Yankees have already been paying tax at a usurious 40% rate in recent years, and that didn't stop them from a free-agent-fueled World Series run last year, it's going to be tough to see how to slow them down. (Though a higher tax rate would generate some more revenue-sharing money for teams like the Rays.)

  • Move either the Yanks or Sox out of the Rays' division. That's not gonna happen — Yanks-Sox intradivision matchups make too much money — but the Rays might want to push for relocation to the A.L. Central, which right now could be won by a decent Triple-A team.

  • Eliminate the unbalanced schedule, which forces the Rays to play tons of games against the Yanks and Sox, while competing for the wild card against teams in the other divisions who play most of their games against weak intradivisional competition. This makes complete sense, but again is likely to fall to economic concerns (cf. above about Yanks-Sox games).

MLB commissioner Bud Selig, meanwhile, responded by saying the Rays need a new stadium. "I know it's the same message I've delivered a lot of other places, but it's so true here," Selig said at the Governor's Baseball Dinner. At least he recognizes he's becoming self-parody; they say it's the first step.

February 10, 2010

Pinellas developer proposes landfill as Rays stadium site

The Tampa Bay Rays have a new stadium proposal, kinda. A Pinellas County developer says if he gets 247 acres of free land for a development project on an old landfill site known as Toytown, he'd be willing to consider putting a Rays stadium there. Or letting someone else build a Rays stadium there. Or something.

The site, near the St. Petersburg airport, is probably farther south than the Rays would prefer, but beggars can't be choosers, and it is closer to affluent Tampa than the team's current home in downtown St. Pete. It's also worth noting that previous ideas for the site focused around building public parks there, but I guess a baseball stadium is a lot like a public park, only with a much higher admission fee, and you have to sit still while other people do the playing.

Meanwhile, the Rays have found themselves in hot water over another issue: Their planned sale of naming rights to their spring-training stadium in Charlotte County to a mining company that the county has been suing over pollution violations for a decade. The county, which actually owns the stadium but gave up the naming rights to the Rays when they moved there last year, was scheduled to debate the naming-rights deal yesterday but pulled it off the agenda after the Rays requested more time to "gauge community sentiment." Read: hope like hell that either this blows over in a couple of weeks, or somebody else steps up to bid as much for naming rights.

January 29, 2010

St. Pete to Rays stadium study group: Wrong answer! Go away now!

Whoopsie! Looks like that Tampa Bay Rays stadium commission stepped on the wrong toes when it suggested building a new stadium closer to Tampa, possibly in north Pinellas County or even Hillsborough County across the bay. The city of St. Petersburg, where the Rays currently play and which pulled together the A Baseball Community committee in the first place, is now telling the task force it doesn't want to meet with them to discuss their findings. "Any relationship the city may have had with ABC has been effectively severed," city attorney John Wolfe and city administrator Rick Mussett wrote to the city council this week, and other local officials concurred:

Council Chairwoman Leslie Curran said she would not put the ABC presentation on the agenda.
The coalition "kind of took on a life of its own,'' she said. "The purpose of it to begin with, as far as I understand, was to focus on St. Petersburg, and I'm not willing to bring any idea forward that goes outside the city."
New Mayor Bill Foster concurred.
"The city is not going to do anything that indicates we don't still believe that Tropicana Field is a suitable stadium,'' he said.

As amusing as it is for a city to refuse to read a report that it itself commissioned, what all this means for the Rays' stadium push is a bit unclear. On the one hand, the team has a long-term lease at Tropicana Field, and would undoubtedly need St. Pete's cooperation to extricate itself from the lease in exchange for returning the land to the city for development, as was floated once before. On the other hand, the specter of a move across the bay has at least gotten St. Pete eager to talk — both Curran and Foster invited Rays management to contact them directly about stadium talks. On the third hand, it seems like the Rays owners themselves would like to relocate closer to Tampa, so a new opportunity to open talks to stay in St. Pete might not be what they were hoping for.

Given all that, it's probably not surprising that Rays VP for stadium wheedling Michael Kalt issued a terse one-line statement that "We are not prepared to share our reaction at this time." Or maybe he's just too busy plotting his secret move to New Jersey.

January 26, 2010

Rays study hits all the stadium-playbook arguments

The A Baseball Community coalition (I just can't get enough of that name), the group of local business leaders put together by the city of St. Petersburg to support the Rays' stadium push, issued their final report yesterday, and it looked much like their earlier interim report: The Rays need a new stadium! And they need one closer to the area's population center in Tampa, a conclusion the group already reached last July.

As for why the Rays need a new stadium, the ABC report gives plenty of reasons. Now, way back in the first edition of the book Field of Schemes, we put together a list of arguments that teams and their boosters typically make for new stadium construction — a sort of stadium-seekers' playbook. (The chapter is entitled "The Art of the Steal.") How well did ABC hit all the typical rationales? Let's count:

  • The Home-Field Disadvantage: The 20-year-old Tropicana Field, says the report, is "nearing the end of its economically useful life" thanks to insufficiently lavish concessions concourses and luxury boxes. This term — "economically obsolete" — has become a popular shorthand for "No, the place isn't falling down, but we could make more money in a new one."

  • Faking a Move: The report warns that "the region now faces the risk of losing its baseball team at some point in the future," a scenario that it warns could cause "irreparable damage to the economic, social and cultural well-being of the region." Notwithstanding that thanks to the Rays' tough lease, that couldn't be a threat for at least a decade.

  • Leveling the Playing Field: The Rays need a new stadium "to stay consistently competitive," according to the St. Petersburg Times' summary of the report, which is kind of a funny argument to make just a little over a year after the team went to the World Series. Though it may explain why Rays officials have started muttering darkly that the team may need to trade Carl Crawford and Carlos Pena if revenues don't pick up in the near term.

  • Playing the Numbers: It doesn't look like the ABC report directly stresses the alleged economic benefits of building a stadium, though St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster did reply by calling the Rays an "economic driver for our city." Whether they're enough of an economic driver to be worth a new $550 million stadium even while the old one is still being paid off is left as an exercise for readers.

Left unstated in all this is where the money for a new stadium is going to come from — all involved seem to agree that now's not the time to talk about that, given that Florida is in the depths of an economic crisis. ABC chief Jeff Lyash, rather, suggested that this was the time to "actively build consensus and put a plan in place, so when conditions are supportive of raising revenue, we are ready to move." In other words, the goal of the report is to lay the groundwork now for a new stadium, in particular establishing that it's a "need" that must be addressed sooner or later, so that the team can begin floating specific plans once the state has some money again.

To its credit, the St. Pete Times ran a pros-and-cons box with opposition responses to the ABC arguments, including "Economic impact studies are often overblown," "Many fans like the Trop," and "Seventeen years remain on the Trop agreement." The big question here, though, is: Is it worth it to publicly subsidize a new stadium for the Rays, and if not, is it worth it for the Rays to build a new stadium on their own? To say that the team would be happier in a brand-spanking-new building so long as they didn't pay for it isn't news; the real test is whether there's really $550 million worth of benefits to go around (to both public and team) if one were built. If not, then no amount of economic recovery is going to make it a good deal, and it might be worth exploring cheaper options, like renovating the Trop — or starting a Fundable page to help pay Carl Crawford's contract.

October 15, 2009

We're on the telly!

Field of Schemes has been a lot of things — a book, a website, a shadow puppet play written in rhyming couplets — but I'm pretty sure this is the first time we've become a point of contention in a mayoral campaign.

In any case, a big Field of Schemes welcome to those viewers who were watching the St. Petersburg mayoral debates, and if you're interested in what we've had to say about your fair city's current stadium controversy, here you go.

September 21, 2009

Rays could leave Tampa Bay ... in a decade or two

The St. Petersburg Times has analyzed the Tampa Bay Rays' current lease, and concluded that while it indeed binds the team to playing at the Tropicana Dome through 2027 — in fact, the team can't even talk to other cities about moving until then — and includes potentially onerous penalties, it would become easier for the team to buy its way out as that date approaches.

Though the contact (actually a "use agreement") stipulates that the value of having the Rays play there can't be measured in dollars alone, lawyers contacted by the Times say that judges tend to prefer assigning damages than actually issuing injunctions forcing a team to stay put; and then too, "The practical effect of an injunction becomes less and less the older [the Tropicana contract] becomes," says local lawyer Michael Keane, who predicts that if no stadium is in the works by 2019, the Rays could pay $100 million or so to bolt.

That still leaves a good decade worth of leverage on St. Pete's side, but the Times argues that the city will need to play its cards right: "Jettison the Trop too quickly and you sacrifice leverage that translates into tax dollars. Push too closely to 2027 and good-bye baseball." The best bet might be using the threat of trapping the Rays at the Trop for another 18 years to get the team to cough up more than the one-third of construction costs that they'd previously offered for a new stadium. Especially since it's not like there are any other cities with major-league-ready stadiums and fan bases that could offer the Rays a better deal — though if they're really willing to wait two decades, maybe San Antonio will finally be ready.

August 21, 2009

Rays stadium committee: We wanna Rays stadium!

The A Baseball Community coalition of business leaders studying a new Tampa Bay Rays stadium issued another report yesterday, and concluded that the Rays need a new stadium, and need someone else to pay for it. "Constructing a new stadium is required. It's no longer a question of if, but when," insists the draft report, adding that it should have a retractable roof, that it shouldn't be in downtown St. Petersburg unless it gets "iconic" surroundings, and that the public should pay for most of it.

An expected addendum to be released today will indicate that the Rays want a pony, and are prepared to hold their breath until they get one.

July 24, 2009

Tampa paper speculates on Rays move to Tampa

The Tampa Bay Rays owners haven't breathed a word about moving out of St. Petersburg, but that hasn't stopped the Tampa Tribune from speculating on whether they could break their lease and hightail it out of town, or at least across the bay to Tampa. Reports the Tribune:

Experts the Tribune interviewed hadn't studied the Rays' agreement and wouldn't give an opinion about whether a court would let the team out of it.

Okay, so that wasn't actually so dramatic. But, notes Trib reporter Michael Sasso, other teams have broken leases before, so it's at least conceivable, right?

Well, that depends on what's in the lease: With 18 years to go, if it has a strict penalty clause for what the Rays must pay if they skip town, then it would be prohibitively difficult to get out of it without St. Pete's permission. Though at least a move to Tampa would presumably forestall the threat of an antitrust lawsuit by the state of Florida, which is what kept the Rays off MLB's contraction list when contraction was being considered.

In any case, St. Pete officials promised to keep the team in town at all costs, with St. Petersburg City Attorney John Wolfe asserting, "We expect the Rays will honor their contract," and adding, "We expect that if the city and the Rays agree to a new stadium, it would be in St. Petersburg." Though he might actually want to reconsider: Having to drive across a bridge to see Evan Longoria could be a reasonable tradeoff for not having to help pay for the new place. Not to mention the city would get the benefits of reclaiming the Tropicana Field site, which was the whole point of the last Rays stadium plan — though perhaps it's too much to expect city officials to remember all the way back to 2007...

July 16, 2009

Can't tell the Rays stadium studies without a scorecard

Tampa Bay's A Baseball Committee — I swear, there is just no way to write that name without it looking doofy — is apparently set on making as many headlines as possible by releasing its Rays stadium proposals in dribs and drabs. And so far, it's working. Today the ABC Data Research and Realities subcommittee issued a study saying that a new stadium should be built with the largest population within a 30-minute drive, with the top-ranked site being near the Buccaneers' Raymond James Stadium in Tampa.

Meanwhile, the ABC Design and Development subcommittee issued its own report, saying that any new stadium should have a retractable roof — "we need to have a fully air-conditioned interior," said subcommittee chair Alan Bomstein, who as head of a construction firm certainly has no personal incentive to see a new stadium built — and seat 37,000 people. Unlike their current stadium, which is air conditioned and holds 36,973 people. Um, okay, but a new stadium would probably have a cool modern design by some hot firm like HOK/Populous, not like — eeeagh!

July 15, 2009

Rays study: Stadiums are expensive, let's build one!

The coalition of business and political leaders put together to explore options for a new Tampa Bay Rays stadium has issued its preliminary report, and concluded that... the Tampa Bay Rays need a new stadium! The report by the Tropicana Options Committee of A Baseball Committee — available here and here, though they apparently put the same attention to detail into orienting the PDFs as they did to naming their committee — compares Tropicana Field to newer baseball stadiums and determines that it would cost too much to make it look like a new one, almost as much as building a new building entirely.

What the study doesn't examine, of course, is whether either renovation or a new stadium makes sense at this price: The committee says that "Tropicana Field will require renovations if it is to continue to serve as a viable and marketable baseball facility," but is it really worth half a billion dollars just to have more legroom and allow fans to watch the game while on line for hot dogs? (At least one other team has decided not so much.) Bud Selig thinks so, but presumably he doesn't expect to be (or have the Rays be) the one paying for it.

The St. Petersburg Times' Aaron Sharockman, meanwhile, sums up the committee's findings as: "Renovating Tropicana Field is impractical, selling it now doesn't make financial sense and paying for a new stadium will be difficult when there's millions of dollars in debt on the old one." Though RaysIndex.com has the pithier headline.

May 22, 2009

Rays say "nay" to bay play

Or in non-assonant prose: Tampa Bay Rays stadium czar Michael Kalt declared today that the team was abandoning plans for a waterfront stadium in downtown St. Petersburg, effective immediately. While that was mostly a matter of closing the barn door after the horse — the city council is expected to soon approve a rezoning of the waterfront site that would preclude a Rays stadium — Kalt added that there are "big issues with downtown St. Petersburg as a site" in general, and indicated that the team would prefer to locate farther north in Pinellas County — presumably at one of these sites.

There's been much speculation over the years that the Rays would rather be closer to the wealthier Tampa side of the bay, which a move to central Pinellas would accomplish. The big question now is what's always the big question: Where would a stadium go, and who would pay for it? Presumably the old land swap deal for the site of their current home, Tropicana Field, could still be on the table, though given the reaction it got last time, not to mention what's happened to the Florida real estate market since then, I wouldn't be holding my breath.

This site written and maintained by Neil deMause. Copyright © Neil deMause, all rights reserved.

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