Connecticut Stadium Loss Could Top $250 Million: The proposed Hartford stadium for the New England Patriots, which proponents had said would pay for itself over 30 years, would in fact likely cost the state $257 million in that time, according to the state legislature's Office of Fiscal Analysis. The new study, released on Wednesday, contradicted an earlier report by consultants KPMG Peat Marwick that had predicted the stadium would turn a small profit over the course of the deal; the Peat Marwick study, it turns out, failed to study whether fan interest was great enough to support high ticket prices, and completely ignored costs to the state from a controversial $175 million luxury seating sales guarantee.

A week earlier, the New Haven Advocate reported that the $375 million cost estimate for the new football stadium could go much higher when several hidden costs are factored in. The newspaper reported that while stadium construction costs are capped at $280 million (plus $25 million in inflation), environmental cleanup costs could go much higher than the state's $70 million estimate. Moreover, relocation of a steam generation plant now on the site could cost another $100 million; Connecticut Gov. John Rowland has agreed to provide a $115 million "capital improvement "fund" for stadium upgrades over the next 30 years; and the state could be on the hook for at least another $100 million in roadway and other infrastructure costs. Total public expense: upwards of $700 million. Total construction costs to be paid by Patriots owner Robert Kraft: $0.

At Wednesday's public stadium hearings at the state capitol, Kraft was peppered with questions about the financing package, and gave few concrete answers, leading state Rep. Andrew Fleischmann to say "overall they lost yardage today." State Sen. Biagio Ciotto, however, said he was swayed when Kraft kissed his son in public, saying, "That was not an act. He seems very sincere." Members of the general public lined up all day for a chance at three-minute speaking slots during the evening session -- where most expressed opposition to the deal -- but even then they were outflanked by team lobbyists, who paid people $8 an hour to hold places on line for stadium supporters.

Meanwhile, Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger has announced that he is looking into filing suit over the Patriots' plans to move, referring specifically to the NFL's stated promise that Boston will not be allowed a new team so long as the Patriots remain in New England. Gov. Rowland called the legal threat a "pipe dream," adding that Harshbarger could come watch the team in Connecticut "if he can get a ticket." . . .

Sportsco Corp., a group that includes former Toronto Blue Jays GM Pat Gillick, made a surprise $100 million (Canadian) bid for the Toronto SkyDome this week. SkyDome, which filed for bankruptcy protection last month and recently negotiated a new lease that grants the Blue Jays the bulk of stadium revenue, had been estimated to be worth no more than $62 million; Gillick's group is expected to use the dome purchase as leverage to buy the team, which owner Interbrew SA had earlier refused to sell to them. . . . The San Antonio Spurs' plans for a new basketball arena have hit an unexpected snag: the local school board, which must sign off on the $137 million tax increment financing that would pay for the new building. To help grease the wheels, the team offered an "incentive package" of between $28 million and $43 million in telecommunications and other equipment for the schools if the board approves the plan at its Dec. 14 meeting. Board president Bruce Bennett said he would listen to the team's proposal, but was not inclined to back the TIF plan: "We need to get back and do what we do best, and that is educating children. [The Spurs] need to get back to do what they do best and that is playing basketball." . . .

With Financial World magazine having ceased publication, former FW editor Michael Ozanian has taken his yearly sports team value estimates to Forbes. Among his findings: the Dallas Cowboys are both the most valuable ($413 million) and most profitable ($41.3 million a year) team in pro sports; sports leagues as a whole turned a $479 million profit in 1997; and the NBA, in claiming that most of its teams lost money last year, failed to count revenue from stadium naming rights and advertising, luxury suites, and team merchandise stores. . . .

New York Assemblymember Scott Stringer proposed Sunday that New York City look into buying the New York Yankees, saying the estimated $600 million purchase cost would be "certainly better than spending $1 billion on a stadium. Mayor Rudy Giuliani's response, through spokesperson Colleen Roche: "Scott Stringer's proposal is a concept that could conceivably work in two places: Communist China and Cuba." Public officials in Toledo and Columbus, Ohio, which own their minor-league baseball teams, were not immediately available for comment. --December 10, 1998

Pats to Hartford, Yanks to Cablevision?: Those footloose NFL franchises are at it again. On November 19, New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft announced he had struck a deal with Connecticut Gov. John Rowland to move his team to Hartford, where it would play in a new $350 million stadium to be built by the state.

Thanks to Al Davis' successful anti-trust suit against the NFL in the 1980s and the league's mammoth national TV contract that is shared among all teams no matter where they play, football teams have been relocating at a record pace in recent years. If the Patriots deal goes through, it will be the 6th time an NFL team has pulled up stakes in the 17 years since Davis' Oakland Raiders left town for Los Angeles. (Major League Baseball, by contrast, hasn't seen a franchise shift since 1972.)

The agreement between Kraft and Rowland calls for the new stadium to be paid for a 10% tax on tickets, concessions, and parking, income taxes paid by Patriots players and employees, and "indirect sales taxes" from spending in the vicinity of the stadium on game days. The Patriots would keep all naming rights revenue, concessions revenue (including from non-football events), and all luxury seating revenue after taxes. The state would also guarantee the team $17.5 million in luxury suite and club seat sales per year, with the state paying Kraft any shortfall out of the state treasury.

"It's not going to be an agreement where the state loses money," said Rowland spokesman Dean Pagani. For the state to break even on the deal, however, the new stadium would have to see 30 years of sold-out crowds at premium ticket prices -- as well as $42.5 million a year in sales of 125 luxury suites and 6,000 club seats, 10 percent of which would be returned to the state via the ticket tax. Combined with the ticket sales guarantee, this could put the state in the position of having to push ticket and suite sales in order to recoup their expenses -- a plan that failed dismally in Oakland, where the city spent $90 million to lure the Raiders back to town in 1996, then was unable to sell enough high-priced personal seat licenses to pay off its debts. (The Raiders have since threatened to break their lease and move back to Los Angeles.)

Immediate press reaction to the news of the Patriots deal was enthusiastic, with the Hartford Courant printing a special edition of the paper to celebrate the occasion. However, as the details of the project began to sink in -- and state legislators upped the estimated cost to $375 million -- critics began wondering about the costs of a deal that would be among the most lucrative fever for an NFL team. Consumer advocate Ralph Nader called the deal "corporate socialism" and "a litmus-paper test of how damaged democracy really is in Connecticut." . . .

Media/sports giant Cablevision's on-again, off-again attempts to buy the New York Yankees were off again over the Thanksgiving holiday, after a week in which current owner George Steinbrenner was rumored to be on the brink of selling 70% of the team for upwards of $350 million. That would have put the total value of the Yankees franchise in the neighborhood of the record $530 million purchase price of the expansion Cleveland Browns, set just three months ago. By month's end, however, negotiations had apparently resumed. . . .

The new stadiums for the Pittsburgh Pirates and Steelers, rejected by voters last fall but approved by local officials in a "Plan B" this spring, may be off the drawing boards after all. The Pennsylvania House ended its session Nov. 24 without voting to approve $300 million in state funding for the two stadiums and two more proposed for the Philadelphia Phillies and Eagles. When it was later discovered that a secret rider had been passed, without many legislators' knowledge, that would allow Gov. Tom Ridge to allocate the funding without legislative approval, Ridge vetoed the bill, saying he only wanted to win stadium funding "fair and square." Without the state's one-third contribution to the projects, city and county funds are on hold indefinitely.

Immediately, Pirates owner Kevin McClatchy went into action. McClatchy demanded a guarantee by Dec. 21 that the money was coming (unlikely, as the legislature is not scheduled to reconvene until Jan. 5), warned that he would be forced to sell off young stars without a new stadium ("I don't want to be standing here two years from now answering questions about why we have to let Jason Kendall go"), and threatened to sell or move the team ("We can't be here long-term if we can't put a competitive team on the field"). Steelers ownership was less inflammatory in its criticism, and had in fact recommended to Ridge that he veto the "stealth" funding bill out of fairness to legislators. . . .

The Toronto Blue Jays have a new lease deal at SkyDome, but it may yet be held up in court. The team, which had earlier threatened to return to aging Exhibition Stadium next year if it didn't get a more lucrative lease deal from SkyDome's private owners (one of which, to complicate matters, is Blue Jays owner Interbrew SA), reached an agreement on Nov. 26 to funnel more revenue from the money-losing stadium into the team's pockets; at the same time, the stadium management filed for bankruptcy protection. A group of SkyDome creditors now plans to file suit against the stadium and the team, claiming the new lease would provide the Jays with an extra $72 million (Canadian) over the next decade while evading $58 million in SkyDome debts.

The stadium's owners have also announced plans to seek tax breaks from the city, claiming the SkyDome is overvalued on the property tax rolls at $200 million. The Blue Jays, meanwhile, are reportedly looking into moving from the high-rent American League East to the less competitive Central Division. . . .

Major League Baseball announced Nov. 30 that it was pulling the 2000 All-Star Game from Miami's Pro Player Stadium and reassigning it to Atlanta's Turner Field. "We think these events should be in new stadiums," said MLB spokesman Rich Levin. "The Marlins have been told they will get an All-Star Game if they get a new stadium." Pro Player Stadium, the team's current home, is 11 years old. . . . The Kansas City Chiefs have asked the Jackson County Sports Complex Authority for upgrades to Arrowhead Stadium's 80 luxury suites. No indication how much the improvements would cost, or how they would be paid for. . . . More election day results: Voters in Round Rock, Texas, approved $7 million in public funding for a $13 million minor-league ballpark after heavy lobbying by future Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan; and voters in Manchester, N.H., approved a non-binding referendum to explore building a minor-league hockey arena. --December 2, 1998

Padres, Broncos Stadiums Approved; Blue Jays To Quit SkyDome?: Ending a string of five straight losses for stadium funding referendums, voters in San Diego and Denver on Election Day approved building new stadiums for the Padres and Broncos, to be paid for mostly with public money.

In San Diego, Proposition C, which would commit $275 million in public money toward a $411 million baseball stadium in the East Village section of downtown, was approved by a 60-40% margin. The opposition STOP C campaign was outspent in the end by stadium proponents by $2.5 million to $25,000 -- with most of the former coming directly from the Padres.

The day before the vote, a San Diego grand jury had issued an eight-page report accusing stadium backers of misleading voters about the costs of the project. "It is possible that the combination of the city's current financial position and the added projected cost of the ballpark project could force the future city government to reduce vital services and do serious harm to the city's credit rating, thus adding to the cost of other future capital improvements," wrote Foreman Peter J. DiRenza.

In Denver, a new football stadium to replace the Broncos' current home, Mile High Stadium, was approved by a 57-43% vote. Stadium backers had mounted a $2.3 million media and lobbying campaign for a yes vote, backed by at least $1.4 million (and rumored to be much more) in donations from Broncos owner Pat Bowlen. (The opposition had a budget of roughly $30,000.) A six-county sales tax hike will now contribute $260 million toward a $360 million facility. . . . .

SkyDome, which started the modern-stadium craze when it opened to capacity crowds in the summer of 1989, could be left without its prime tenant if the Toronto Blue Jays aren't granted lease concessions. Interbrew, which owns 90% of the Blue Jays (and 48% of SkyDome), threatened last week to move the team if they are not granted a greater share of stadium revenues from concessions, luxury boxes, and club seating. A team spokesman said the club was investigating playing the next two seasons in Exhibition Stadium -- a converted football stadium where the team played from 1977 to 1989, and which is scheduled for demolition next month -- or of building a baseball-only stadium if a new lease cannot be worked out. SkyDome, which was built by the province of Ontario but later sold to a private group headed by Interbrew, is already on the brink of insolvency, reeling from $65 million (Canadian) in debt and the loss of revenue from the locked-out Toronto Raptors basketball franchise, which is already scheduled to move to a new arena early in 1999. . . .

The New Jersey Nets, unhappy with their current lease at Continental Airlines Arena and threatening a move from the Meadowlands to Newark, signed a new lease last year that sounds like a win-win for the team. The new agreement gives the Nets a greater share of arena revenue, in exchange for tying the team to the Meadowlands through the 2007-2008 season. However, the team can leave the state beginning in 2004 without paying penalties, and can move elsewhere in New Jersey (such as Newark) at any time. . . . New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon says he hopes to have an agreement with the city on a new $500 million baseball stadium by next June, with construction to be completed by 2003. --November 4, 1998

They're Dropping Like Zambonis: An NHL franchise declared bankruptcy for the first time in two decades last month, and another may follow before the year is out. Pittsburgh Penguins owners Roger Marino and Howard Baldwin, facing lawsuits from former star Mario Lemieux and Fox Sports Pittsburgh, among others, filed Chapter 11 in October in hopes of forcing Pittsburgh Civic Arena manager to tear up their lease. (The team plans to continue its normal operations.) Meanwhile, New York Islanders owners Steven Gluckstern and Howard Milstein, embroiled in similar battle with SMG over their lease at Nassau Coliseum, are reportedly considering filing Chapter 7 and liquidating their interest in the team, in which case the franchise could end up being run by the league. Both sets of owners are ultimately seeking new publicly funded arenas. . . .

As the New York Yankees and San Diego Padres met in the World Series this month, each team's city was gearing up for a battle over ballpark funding. . . . In New York, a state appeals court overturned an earlier ruling placing a Manhattan stadium referendum on the November ballot (see October 8 entry). City council speaker Peter Vallone, the referendum's main backer, has promised to try again in 1999. . . . The New York Post's Phil Mushnick reports that top executives at all four city dailies accepted seats in George Steinbrenner's private suite for playoff games. "Interesting, too," writes Mushnick, "is that at a time when polls find New Yorkers prepared to reject a proposal to build Steinbrenner a new stadium -- should the issue come to a vote -- many editorialists see it George's way." . . . San Diego, meanwhile, moves toward its own vote next week on Proposition C, which would devote $275 million in city hotel tax money toward building a new $411 million baseball stadium for the Padres. The Prop C campaign has benefitted from nearly $2.2 million in contributions ($1.7 million from the Padres owners themselves), and "Yes on C" ads on everything from the Qualcomm Stadium outfield wall to stadium beer cups to local Pizza Hut boxes. Meanwhile, says Strike Three On Proposition C (STOP-C) co-chair Chris Michaels, "People are reluctant to put 'No on C' stickers on their cars for fear of people thinking they're against the Padres, or un-American." . . . New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani had his own comments on the San Diego battle at a Yankee "pep rally" on October 15, two days before the start of the World Series. "I know what's going to happen in San Diego when they vote down Proposition C," Giuliani said. "I've watched the history of the last 10 places that voted down money for funding stadiums and lost their team." The mayor didn't mention which 10 places, and with good reason: No city in history has lost its team after voting down a stadium referendum. . . .

With billionaire Florida Marlins (and Florida Panthers, and National Car Rental) owner Wayne Huizenga claiming he lost $34 million on last year's championship Marlins team, sports economist Andrew Zimbalist took a closer look at the numbers for the October 18 New York Times Magazine. Huizenga's revenue figures, he discovered, did not include Pro Player Stadium's 195 luxury boxes or 10,000 club seats, all of which were diverted to Huizenga's separate stadium management company; the team also undervalued its cable contract with Huizenga's Sportschannel Florida, and paid Huizenga $5 million in rent on Pro Player Stadium. Zimbalist's estimate of the actual Marlins bottom line: a $13.8 million profit. . . . Another noted public stadium opponent, Indiana University's Mark Rosentraub, made headlines in San Diego when he issued a report endorsing the proposed Padres ballpark as a way of refocusing development downtown. The study's sponsor? Major League Baseball, which paid Rosentraub $13,000 for his work. . . . Subscribers to Fox Sports New York are enraged that the cable channel has been yanking New York Islanders games off the air, claiming low ad sales. FSNY's parent company, Cablevision, owns the competing New York Rangers. . . .

The Oakland A's have invoked a clause allowing them to go year-to-year in their lease on Oakland Coliseum. Public officials now have 120 days to find a local buyer willing to pay at least 90% of the reported $135 million asking price for the team, or the A's could be sold and moved. "In the best of all worlds, we would like to find a way to build a baseball-only venue for this team in the Bay Area," said team co-owner Steve Schott in a statement. Schott has been rumored to have interest in moving the team to neighboring San Jose, a city whose voters twice rejected publicly funded baseball stadiums in the early '90s. --October 26, 1998

Courts Rule on Yankees Stadium, Islanders Arena: A state judge has ruled that New York voters may go to the polls in November to decide whether to spend city money on a new Manhattan stadium for the New York Yankees. On October 7, Judge Douglas McKeon ruled against Mayor Rudy Giuliani's attempts to knock the stadium referendum off the ballot with a city charter revision vote, calling the mayor's charter revision commission a "virtual charade" stocked with "old friends and political allies." Polls have indicated that a ban on Manhattan stadium funding would pass overwhelmingly. Giuliani has already appealed the decision. . . . One week earlier, a state judge ordered the New York Islanders to return to Nassau Coliseum, ruling that the building was safe to play in. The team's new owners are demanding a new arena, but have refused to pay one-third of construction costs, as requested by the county. . . .

The Montreal Expos, still unable to come up with funds for their proposed $250 million ballpark, extended an October 7 deadline indefinitely last week, the third such extension since team ownership started setting deadlines this spring. MLB commissioner Bud Selig visited Quebec Premier Lucien Bouchard on Monday, telling him that the team will move without a new stadium. Two days later, team president Claude Brochu announced that he would sell his stake in the team if local owners could be found, while Expos chairman Jacques Menard declared, "If there is no stadium, I can assure you that we'll sell to the States." The most-rumored target for an Expos move has been Washington, D.C. or Northern Virginia, but no ballpark plans are in place there, and Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos has territorial rights to the region. . . .

Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer released his long-awaited plan for refurbishing Yankee Stadium on September 27. The $535 million project would add 120 luxury boxes, restore the stadium facade that was removed in the 1970s renovation, and add improved highway and mass-transit links and a new waterfront park. It would include $175 million in city funds, with the rest of the money coming from unspecified state, federal, and private sources. . . . The San Diego Padres began handing out voter registration forms to fans during late-season games, in anticipation of the November 3 stadium referendum. The pro-stadium campaign raised nearly $1.2 million through September 30, including $800,000 from the Padres themselves; the opposition Strike Three on Proposition C reported raising $1,995 and spending $1,128 during the same period. . . .

The San Francisco Giants have announced big ticket price hikes for when their new Pacific Bell Park opens in 2000. Bleacher seats will go from $6 to $10, box seats from $13-$18 to $18-$23, and upper deck reserved seats will double in price from $7.50 to $15. . . . The city of Louisville has found way to meet a shortfall in building a new ballpark minor-league Louisville Sluggers: use $3 million in state reimbursements for charity care at University of Louisville Hospital. . . . The Phoenix Coyotes have announced plans for a $600 million hockey arena in nearby Scottsdale, with a proposed opening date of 2001. No funding has been approved for the project; the team says it will contribute a "substantial" amount, but won't say what that amounts to. --October 8, 1998

Sky's the Limit for Team Sale Prices: The record sale price set earlier this month by the Cleveland Browns expansion team -- $530 million, to local billionaire Alfred Lerner -- lasted less than a week before Rupert Murdoch's Sky Broadcasting System plunked down an even $1 billion for England's legendary Manchester United soccer club. Apparently all that money changing hands has gotten to New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, because news reports have indicated he's once again considering selling the team to Cablevision, which already owns the Knicks and Rangers and both of New York's cable sports channels. Estimates of the sale price had already been as high as $650 million, which would represent a tidy 6400% profit for Steinbrenner in his 25 years of owning the club. "If Manchester United could go for a billion dollars, then all bets are off for what the Yankees will go for," sports marketer Dean Bonham told Street & Smith's Sports Business Journal. . . . Meanwhile, Steinbrenner is apparently blocking plans by the New York Mets to place a minor-league team in Coney Island, where it would play in a $20 million city-built stadium. "That would be wrong, to try to hold up the city in that way," said Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has been the prime backer of a $1 billion ballpark for the Yankees to head off threats of a move to New Jersey. . . .

Five days after issuing a temporary injunction barring the New York Islanders from playing home games outside of Nassau Coliseum, state supreme court judge Burton Joseph has ordered a safety inspection of the arena, which the team claims is unsafe. Friday's scheduled exhibition game could be postponed. . . . After meeting with San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown and NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, San Francisco 49ers president Larry Thrailkill announced that a new stadium wouldn't cost an extra $175 million after all. Thrailkill, who had earlier said any cost cuts would be "very difficult" and that "I would be less than honest if I told you anything else," emerged from the 45-minute powwow to announce that the team would find a way to build a stadium for no more than the initial estimate of $325 million, $100 million of which will be paid by the city. . . .

Sports fandom is increasingly becoming a province of the wealthy, according to a series on stadium-building on ESPN Sportszone. Citing a soon-to-be-released study by a Vanderbilt economist, ESPN reported that income levels of season-ticket holders in 1994 were 90% higher than that of the average American, up from 58% in 1972. An ESPN poll also found that 86.2% of readers prefer going to an older stadium with cheaper tickets over a new stadium where tickets are more expensive. . . .

Plans for a new stadium for the San Diego Padres got some expected support and ran into some unexpected obstacles in September. The San Diego County Taxpayers Association, after heavy lobbying pressure from stadium backers, endorsed the project. But at the same time, the Wall Street bond rating agency Standard and Poor's announced that it was lowering the city's economic outlook from "stable" to "negative," citing plans to build the $411 million ballpark project with city funds. This could lead to a lowering of the city's bond rating, which would mean higher borrowing costs for any future city projects. . . . Pittsburgh Pirates executives now project that even after the opening of the new $228 million PNC Park, scheduled to open in 2001 at public expense, the team will still not be able to afford a player payroll competitive with other teams in the league. Owner Kevin McClatchy says the solution lies in more revenue-sharing from the richer teams. --September 24, 1998

49ers, Islanders Levy Move Threats: A little over a year after the San Francisco 49ers won a referendum for a $100 million in public funding for a new $325 million football stadium, the team has announced that they miscalculated the cost. By $200 million.

Team president Larry Thrailkill, who is operating the team while siblings Eddie DeBartolo and Denise DeBartolo York engage in a custody battle for the franchise, said that a new stadium was still necessary, and that the team wouldn't pay the extra cash. "Our competitors are in a better situation in these private-public stadiums because they've gotten a bigger public contribution. If we have to take $10 million every year for stadium costs that should go to contracts for Steve Young, Jerry Rice, R.W. McQuarters, J.J. Stokes, Terrell Owens or whomever, we can't do that."

Mayor Willie Brown, who lobbied incessantly for the stadium project last year, declared that the city will not be the one to pay, either. "I have asked the voters for $100 million," he told the San Francisco Examiner, "and that's frankly all I intend to ask the voters for. Period." Brown, Thrailkill, and NFL president Paul Tagliabue are set to meet Sept. 18 to discuss the situation. . . .

In Uniondale, Long Island, meanwhile, moving vans backed up to Nassau Coliseum on Thursday and carted off the worldly possessions of the New York Islanders. This a day after the Islanders sued the arena's managers, claiming they had failed to maintain the building in safe condition. The Islanders ownership, which is in the midst of a battle with Nassau County over a replacement for the building, say the team could play games this year at Madison Square Garden, or in Hartford or New Haven. . . .

The Montreal Expos' campaign for a new ballpark is doing almost as poorly as the Expos themselves. In August, Jean Coutu, the pharmacy magnate who heads the stadium promotion committee, expressed pessimism about the ballpark efforts; soon after, Quebec premier Lucien Bouchard announced that the province wouldn't put public money into the proposed $250 million-plus project. Next up: An offer to fans to put their names on bricks at the new stadium, as part of a $299 package deal that also includes game tickets. . . . With all five Democratic gubernatorial candidates in Minnesota opposing public money for a new Twins stadium, Citizens United for Baseball in Minnesota has endorsed Doug Johnson, who would at least consider using gambling revenues or user fees to fund a new ballpark. The primary is on Tuesday. . . . Line of the week (from the San Francisco Chronicle's Ray Ratto): "Some opponents claimed the stadium actually passed because hundreds of dead people cast thousands of votes, but an independent investigation found that the number of actual dead voters was insufficient to change the outcome, and that some cemeteries were not represented at all." --September 15, 1998

What About BOB?: The city of Phoenix made front-page headlines in August when it reported that sales tax revenues in the downtown area were up 34.1 percent since the opening of the Arizona Diamondbacks' new Bank One Ballpark. But how does this figure compare to the $253 million public cost of the stadium itself? Poorly, it turns out. Through the first six months of 1998, downtown tax receipts were up $352,961 over a similar period the previous year, meaning at the present rate it would take 358 years for the stadium to pay for itself. Moreover, it's not clear how much of the increased downtown activity can be attributed to the stadium itself, or whether the new business was coming at the expense of other neighorhoods -- citywide, sales revenue was up 7 percent for the first six months of 1998, a slight improvement over the previous year's 5.4 percent increase. . . .

In related news, a University of California graduate student has become the latest analyst to find no economic benefit to cities from building new sports facilities. Jack Sylvan's study, "Professional Sports Subsidy as Economic Development," found no sign of impact on economic activity from the presence or absence of sports teams in seven California cities. "This refutes the claim by professional sports boosters that sports franchises stimulate the local economy," wrote Sylvan, whose study won the annual McClure Award for the nation's best master's degree project in urban planning. . . .

The list of historic ballparks threatened by the wrecking ball grew by one August 18, when it was reported that the Los Angeles Dodgers may consider razing Dodger Stadium and replacing it with a new facility. The reason: luxury boxes, which would cost as much as $200 million to add to the current stadium, nearly as much as a new building would cost. No word on when a decision will be made, or on whether owner Fox Broadcasting will pay the costs of either renovation or a new ballpark. . . . The New York city council has overridden Mayor Rudy Giuliani's veto of a planned November referendum to ban funding of a Manhattan stadium for the Yankees. Next stop: court, where city council president Peter Vallone is suing to stop Giuliani from knocking the issue off the ballot by proferring his own referendum on charter revision. --September 4, 1998

Spurs to City: Forget the Alamodome: The San Antonio Spurs have announced plans for an 18,500-seat arena to be built in an abandoned rock quarry in the northeast part of the city. Under the plan, the arena would be built with tax increment financing, whereby local property taxes are diverted to pay for the cost of a construction project. (TIF money is currently being used to help finance the new San Francisco Giants ballpark.) The building, which the Spurs hope to open by 2001, would be owned by the city and county, and managed by the team. A poll of registered voters in Bexar County last year found 61 percent opposed to using tax money for a new basketball arena. . . .

The Mesa, Arizona, stadium board has voted to indefinitely delay a public vote on a proposed $1.17 billion football stadium and convention center project. The referendum, which if approved would provide a new home for the Arizona Cardinals, had been scheduled to go on the ballot this November. . . . The owners of the Montreal Expos are reportedly considering the sale of tax-deductible "flow-through" shares in the club to help finance a new ballpark. Flow-through shares have never before been used outside of the mining and oil-and-gas industries, and would require new parliamentary legislation to be used for a sports team. The owners have admitted that their initial plan to sell $100 million in seat licenses for the new stadium has failed. . . .

Bronx Rep. Jose Serrano recently visited the White House to ask President Clinton to make Yankee Stadium a national landmark. Clinton's response, according to Serrano: "Can I do that?" Landmarking, which would prevent the demolition of the stadium, would require the approval of Congress. . . . New York state senator Richard Dollinger and consumer advocate Ralph Nader are among those calling on Buffalo Bills owner Ralph Wilson to end the TV blackout of Bills games in Syracuse, N.Y. Though Syracuse is 150 miles from Buffalo, a sliver of Yates County is within the NFL's 75-mile blackout radius, and the league has ruled that the CBS affiliate in Syracuse, which provides the broadcast signal for Yates County, must not televise games with unsold seats. The state recently gave Wilson nearly $100 million to build luxury boxes. . . . A group of Sacramento businessmen have developed plans to build a 10,000-to-15,000-seat Triple-A baseball stadium in West Sacramento, with the intention of relocating the Vancouver Canadians Pacific Coast League franchise. Financing for the ballpark is not yet in place. . . .

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig recently announced that most tickets for World Series games would double in price this year. Bleacher seats will now go for $40 apiece, and box seats for $150 each. Postseason ticket prices are set by the commissioner's office. . . . The Rochester Rhinos minor-league soccer franchise boast more season ticket holders than all but three major-league soccer teams, but they don't have their own stadium, sharing Frontier Field with the Rochester Red Wings minor-league baseball club. So with hopes of landing a Major League Soccer expansion franchise, the Rhinos are asking for between $25 million and $30 million in state funds to build a 20,000-seat soccer-only stadium, MLS' requirement for new teams. --August 20, 1998

Birmingham Nixes Stadium Project: Call it strike five: On Tuesday, Birmingham, Alabama became the fifth straight region to vote in a public referendum not to put tax money into a new sports facility. Coming on the heels of last November's votes in Pittsburgh and Minnesota, and this May's referendums in North Carolina and Toledo, Ohio, the Birmingham vote caps a nearly year-long losing streak for sports owners and their stadium-building allies.

The Birmingham stadium was packaged as part of MAPS (the Metropolitan Area Projects Strategy), a $700 million stadium/convention center complex that would have been funded by a 1% sales tax hike. (The new stadium would have been used either to draw an NFL franchise to relocate, or for a team in the proposed NBC/Turner Sports-backed league.) MAPS is the brainchild of sports consultant Rick Horrow, who sold a similar package to Oklahoma City in 1993; that project quickly went over budget and fell behind schedule, and a planned hockey arena may be scrapped for lack of funds.

As election day began, it was widely expected that MAPS would fail, with many residents sharing the sentiment of "no" voter Jane Richard, who told the Birmingham Post-Herald on leaving the polls, "Take the domed stadium out, and I'd pay a 2 percent tax." The newspaper reported that the football stadium was the key negative in convincing people to vote against the proposal, which ultimately lost by a 57%-43% margin.

Birmingham Mayor Richard Arrington, a MAPS supporter, declared following the vote, "It's the voters who make the decision and we've done that tonight, and that's all that we can ask for." . . .

For New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, democracy is not such a simple matter. After a new poll last week again turned up overwhelming opposition to putting public money into new ballparks for the Yankees and Mets, Giuliani declared, "They're wrong. They're just wrong." Raising the specter of the Brooklyn Dodgers' move to Los Angeles 40 years ago, the mayor sniped, "I suspect if you had taken a poll back then on the use of public money they would have said no. Intelligent people learn from the past. . . . All of what I've just told you is called wisdom rather than knee-jerk following the polls." . . .

When Todd Jacobson, editor of the Towson University student newspaper, discovered that Baltimore Ravens owner Art Modell was scheduled to receive an honorary degree from his school, he questioned the propriety of honoring the man who took the Browns out of Cleveland in search of a more lucrative stadium deal. "Are jealousy and greed the characteristics Towson has tried to instill in its graduates?" wrote Jacobson. "No, but their last act at Towson will be hearing a man with no conscience lecture them on what it is like to be in the real world. 'Take the money, no matter what you have to do for it. The almighty dollar supercedes integrity and if you have a conscience, you aren't going to succeed.'" Modell, who once declared that "the pride and presence of a professional football team is far more important than 30 libraries," gave a 12-minute speech about a time he yelled at a referee, and warned students not to do drugs. . . .

The Center for Responsive Politics reports that corporations that own major-league sports teams have already donated more than $1.2 million this election cycle to candidates and political parties. Topping the list: Disney (Anaheim Angels and Mighty Ducks) and Time Warner (Atlanta Braves and Hawks), with about half a million dollars in contributions each. Other big spenders include NBA Commissioner David Stern, Florida Marlins and Panthers owner Wayne Huizenga, and Chicago Bulls and White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf. . . .The San Diego city council voted unanimously August 4 to put a $411 million Padres ballpark to a public referendum. The stadium project, which would be backed by $275 million in public money, will go before voters in November. --August 5, 1998

Twins Staying Put Two More Years: Two and a half months after their plans to move to North Carolina were scuttled by a negative public stadium vote, the Minnesota Twins signed a two-year lease extension on the Metrodome July 24, tying them to the Twin Cities at least through the year 2000. In exchange, the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission will give the team about $1 million a year in ticket tax revenue, and drop a lawsuit against the team for exercising an escape clause in its lease. The Twins owner is expected to renew their demands for a ballpark to replace the 16-year-old Metrodome, but he faces an uphill battle: top stadium booster Gov. Arne Carlson leaves office this fall, and five of the seven candidates to replace him have come out against public funding of stadiums. . . .

The Massachusetts House of Representatives voted 138-12 on Tuesday to approve $57 million in state infrastructure spending for a new stadium for the New England Patriots. Pats owner Robert Kraft, however, had previously rejected the money as insufficient, insisting that at least $72 million in public money was necessary for him to build a new stadium in Foxborough. "This is the end of negotiations," warned Republican representative Ronald Gauch, "and they better take this offer." . . .

If 44,000 petitioners in Cincinnati get their way, Hamilton County will vote this fall on where to build a new stadium for the Reds. The team wants the new ballpark, planned to open by 2003, to be built on the riverfront; the petition drive would force the county to locate the stadium at an alternative site in the Broadway Commons. A sales-tax hike to fund the $297 million project was approved by voters in 1997. . . . The Tennessee Oilers, who were relocated from Houston before the 1997 season in exchange for a lucrative new stadium deal, will get a new nickname after this season. For Houston fans hoping to see the name return to their town, a la the expansion Cleveland Browns franchise set to begin play next year, don't count on it: NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue announced that the Oilers name would be "retired" by the league. --July 31, 1998

Sibling Rivalry Stalls 49ers Stadium: Siblings Eddie DeBartolo and Denise DeBartolo York are still squabbling over who owns the San Francisco 49ers, leaving plans for a new football stadium up in the air. The $525 million stadium/mall project was narrowly approved last summer in a referendum with widespread allegations of vote fraud, but "none of this is going to move ahead until there's peace in the barnyard," a source told the San Francisco Chronicle. Meanwhile, 49ers president Carmen Policy, who helped spearhead the stadium project, quit the team Wednesday and announced he was joining a bid for the new Cleveland Browns expansion franchise, which will begin play in 1999. . . .

Syndicated columnist George Will raved about the possibilities of a new San Diego Padres ballpark on Wednesday, touting the "tremendous participatory measure of the ballpark in energizing the community" and calling Camden Yards the third most important thing to happen to baseball since World War II, following Jackie Robinson and free agency. Will just happens to be a member of the Padres board. . . . With the Tempe, Arizona, city council still hesitant about entering into a new tax district for a new football stadium and convention center complex, the neighboring city of Mesa has apparently decided to go it alone on the $2.3 billion project. . . .

Queens store owner John McDonagh dragged a shopping carts filled with more than 40,000 signatures New York's City Hall Wednesday in support of a public referendum on a new Yankees ballpark. Mayor Rudy Giuliani has already convened a city charter revision commission with the power to knock any competing referendums off the ballot, but McDonagh is hopeful that attorney Richard Emery -- the lawyer who first forced the city into charter revision a decade ago -- will be able to file a legal challenge to stop Giuliani from blocking a ballpark vote. "Let the people decide whether they want hundreds of millions of their hard-earned dollars spent to help the millionaire Steinbrenner who lives in Florida," said McDonagh. --July 24, 1998

Padres Cut Stadium Deal, But Details Are Scarce: The city of San Diego and the Padres, fresh from striking a deal on a new baseball stadium for the team, have released a one-page report summarizing ballpark financing plans: $411 million total cost ($267.5 million for construction and $143.5 million for land and infrastructure), with the Padres and other private contributors putting in $115 million, the city $225 million in hotel tax money, the Centre City Development Corp. $50 million, and the remaining $21 million to be raised by "other." "As simple as a recipe for s'mores," observed the San Diego Daily Transcript's Kim Peterson, noting that the city's ballpark task force has yet to even see the full agreement. The deal is expected to go before voters in November. . . .

Minnesota's Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission has offered to drop its lawsuit against the Minnesota Twins if the team agrees to a two-year lease extension while looking for a local buyer. The commission had sued the Twins over the team's plans to exercise the escape clause in its current lease, charging that the low attendance figures that triggered the clause were the result of the 1994 baseball strike and other poor management by the team. Meanwhile, Charlotte, North Carolina, has set an early August deadline for the Twins to decide whether they will move there for the 1999 season, though no major-league ballpark exists there, and no firm construction plans are in place. . . .

New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, who had earlier promised to remain silent on his stadium plans until after the season, last week engaged in a public skirmish with city officials over attendance at Yankee games, asserting that it would take a record 3 million fans this season to convince him to stay in the Bronx. Then on July 14, Steinbrenner penned a Daily News op-ed titled "How to keep the Yanks in New York." Saying that "New Jersey beckons," The Boss warned New York not to "force us to do what we don't want to do." He also raised the specter of a city-funded ballpark in the Bronx to replace Yankee Stadium, saying, "A modern new stadium in the Bronx is one [option]. The West Side proposal is enormously attractive as well." . . .

The man who shot Maricopa County supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox last August in outrage over her approval of a publicly funded baseball stadium for the Arizona Diamondbacks was sentenced to 15 years in prison July 13. At his sentencing, Larry Naman talked for 40 minutes about his shooting of Wilcox, saying her vote for a ballpark without putting the issue to a referendum was a crime against the citizens of Maricopa County. . . . In what the Baltimore Ravens were calling the "Super Flush," hundreds of fans simultaneously flushed all 1,074 toilets and urinals July 15 to test their new stadium's plumbing. No casualties were reported. . . . We incorrectly reported July 8 that both Tempe and Mesa, Arizona, had approved a new sales tax district to fund a project that includes a football stadium for the Arizona Cardinals. In fact, only Mesa has approved the district; the Tempe city council is set to consider the matter at its July 23 meeting. (The original news item has now been corrected.) . . .

The city of Milwaukee and state of Wisconsin continue to squabble over $18 million in infrastructure costs for the Brewers' Miller Park, now under construction in the County Stadium parking lot. Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist insists that the state promised to help the city raise this money, but state officials, who are already on the hook for at least $160 million of the project, say no way. Milwaukee is already late with its first $9 million installment, which was due July 1. --July 16, 1998

Raiders Sue To Break Oakland Lease: The Oakland (formerly Los Angeles, formerly Oakland) Raiders filed suit against the city of Oakland Tuesday, asking to be released from a 1995 agreement to remain in the city for 16 years. The team claims that city officials falsely promised sellout crowds as an incentive for the team to return from Los Angeles.

To entice the Raiders to return to Oakland, the city and county embarked on a massive reconstruction of Oakland-Alameda County Stadium, adding a towering wall of luxury seating where the baseball bleachers had been. (The Oakland Athletics were so upset by the changes that they are now threatening to leave town for Sacramento or elsewhere.) The construction was expected to be financed by the sale of personal seat licenses, but sales were far below expectations, and local taxpayers are facing losses of as much as $20 million a year.

Oakland City Manager Robert Bobb recently proposed that the team extend its lease by 10 years, allowing the stadium authority to extend the term of the PSLs, which currently expire in 2005, indefinitely. The Raiders rejected that plan.

"We have yet to see anything from the Raiders except anger and hostility," said Oakland Mayor Elihu Harris. . . .

The steel footings for the Detroit Tigers new ballpark are scheduled to be sunk this week, even as team owner Mike Ilitch continues to scramble to find financing for his share of the $260 million project. . . . The city council of Mesa, Arizona, has approved its half of a proposed new sales tax district with neighboring Tempe to help fund a massive $2.3 billion complex that would include both a convention center and a new football stadium for the Arizona Cardinals. Next step: drafting a ballot measure by August 20 to put before voters in November. . .

San Diego County is reportedly considering spending as much as $45 million in county money on a new baseball stadium for the Padres. The team has refused to budge beyond a $100 million contribution to the proposed ballpark, which is planned to go before voters in November. . . . A front-page article in the July 6 Boston Globe headlined "Sox appear set to swing away on Fenway plan" contained little new information about plans for a new Red Sox ballpark. "Final touches on a financing plan are being made," according to the report by Anthony Flint, but no indications were given where the money would come from. And a team spokesman was quoted as saying, "Everything has slowed down right now, pretty much to a stop" on the new stadium. . . .

Jay Weiner of the Minneapolis Star Tribune has composed a list of demands the public could make in exchange for lease concessions for the Twins and Vikings. Among them: a living-wage provision for stadium workers; requirements for affirmative action hiring and charitable contributions by the teams; and a guarantee that 10 percent of Vikings tickets cost the same as a movie ticket. "Greater minds could come up with other requirements that the teams must meet to fulfill their social responsibilities within the community," suggested Weiner. --July 8, 1998

Padres Make New Stadium Pitch: The San Diego Padres have released their final offer for construction of a new ballpark, offering to pay for any cost overruns -- but wants the stadium price tag to be $270 million, $10 million more than the city has proposed. The team insists it will not pay more than $100 million (including money from the sale of naming rights) toward construction costs, with president Larry Lucchino telling reporters, "We have no plans to negotiate any further." The Padres and the city have set an August 7 deadline for putting a stadium referendum on the ballot in November. . . . The California state court of appeals has rejected the Committee to Stop the Giveaway's attempts to put a referendum on the November ballot repealing last year's San Francisco 49ers stadium vote (see June 24). the committee's Doug Comstock says they will now work to put the issue on the ballot in June or November of 1999. . . .

At a public stadium forum organized by the New York city council on June 23, sentiment was clearly against putting tax money into new stadiums for the Mets and Yankees, with many audience members suggesting the city should fix its crumbling schools instead of building new baseball parks. . . . Boston Red Sox officials addressed the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce June 23, but were unable to give any details of their stadium plans. "We're still trying to figure out all the variables," said Sox VP John Buckley. . . . A group of New Jersey businessmen have reached an agreement in principle to buy the New Jersey Nets, and are reportedly considering a move from the Meadowlands to nearby Newark. No word on who would pay for the proposed arena. --July 2, 1998

The research arm of the Maryland General Assembly reports that Gov. Parris Glendening massively overestimated the prospective economic benefits of the Baltimore Ravens football stadium opening this fall. Instead of the $184 million in annual economic activity and 2,792 new jobs that the governor predicted, the assembly's Office of Policy Analysis projects only $64 million and 889 jobs. With the as-yet-unnamed stadium costing the state $220 million, that would make for an abysmal per-job cost of nearly $250,000. State senator Christopher Van Hollen, who commissioned the report, said of the governor's office, "They keep coming up with these pie-in-the-sky estimates that are shot down by these independent organizations that have no ax to grind." . . . The Greensboro News & Record has finished tallying the cost per vote for each side in the recent stadium referendum in the Triad region of North Carolina: the pro-stadium side spent $899,000, or $16.26 a vote, while the anti-stadium side spent $33,000, or 34 cents a vote. --June 24, 1998

Plan B Hits Snags: Pittsburgh's proposed "Plan B" to fund stadiums for the Pirates and Steelers has hit some major stumbling blocks of late. The plan, which would divert $13.4 million a year in existing sales taxes into two new stadiums, asks for $70 million in funding from the Steelers, who insist they won't pay a penny more than $50 million. Meanwhile, the proposed site for the new football stadium, wedged in between the Ohio River, the Carnegie Science Center, and a highway, may be too small to accommodate the project. The Steelers have set a June 30 deadline after which they will consider other options, including a move to the suburbs. One suburban county commissioner has already said, "Are we willing to talk? Yes. Are we willing to put up $13 million [annually]? No." . . . The city of Milwaukee is still unsure how it will pay for its $18 million share of construction costs for the Brewers' new Miller Park, after a proposed "wheel tax" on car registration was killed in the face of massive public opposition. Mayor John Norquist may ask the state of Wisconsin, which is already on the hook for at least $160 million in construction costs, to help with the city's payment. . . . When Dallas Stars owner Tom Hicks' purchase of the Texas Rangers was approved last week, one part-owner of the Rangers saw his $605,000 investment skyrocket to $14.9 million in just nine years, thanks in part to the team's new taxpayer-financed ballpark. The lucky owner: Texas Governor George W. Bush. --June 18, 1998

Expos Extend Deadline: The Montreal Expos have extended a June 30 deadline for a new stadium to be in the works until September. Owner Claude Brochu has also committed to keeping the team in Montreal through the year 1999, and says a move for 2000 is unlikely. Attempts to raise $100 million in seat-license sales by the June deadline had been lagging, and the team recently announced it will go back to the drawing board for a new financing plan for the proposed downtown ballpark. (The new plan is expected to contain a mix of hotel taxes, tax-exempt bonds, and other tax subsidies.) While the team had made noises about moving to Northern Virginia, no ballpark plans are in the works there. . . .

While the politicians downstate battle over stadium plans for the Yankees and Mets, the New York state legislature has quietly approved $95 million in public subsidies for the Buffalo Bills in exchange for the team signing a long-term lease. Included are $63.25 million for stadium renovations, $3 million a year in direct payments to the team over six years, and $2.9 million in stadium rent payments to Erie County. Gov. Pataki is expected to sign the bill. . . . The day after New York city council president Peter Vallone introduced a bill for a November referendum to block plans for a new Yankees stadium, opposition councilman Andrew Eristoff admitted to the New York Post's Jack Newfield that the planned Manhattan stadium "is not really going to happen." Eristoff's fellow Republican, Mayor Rudy Giuliani, has vowed to block a referendum this fall, but even then the vote would just be rescheduled for 1999. . . . The San Francisco 49ers have filed suit against anti-stadium activists who are trying to put the team's proposed $525 million stadium/mall project back on the ballot this fall. The Committee to Stop the Giveaway has charged that last June's vote that narrowly approved $100 million in city money for the project was fueled by election fraud and misrepresentation of the facts of the deal. A hearing is scheduled for June 21. --June 14, 1998

Budget Battle Over Yankee Plans: The controversy over a new stadium for the New York Yankees spilled over into the city budget battle on Friday, as the city council for the first time in its history passed its own budget over the mayor's opposition. In a veto-proof 43-7 vote, the council passed a budget that restores money for libraries and after-school programs that Mayor Rudy Giuliani had cut from his budget, and axes seed money for the mayor's ballpark plans. Giuliani threatened to retaliate by refusing to spend money on programs he disapproves of. . . . Meanwhile, City Council President Peter Vallone has promised to press on with a planned November referendum on a new Yankee stadium, despite team owner George Steinbrenner's veiled threats on Thursday to move the team if he does. "How did George Steinbrenner enter into our negotiations?" asked Vallone, insinuating that Steinbrenner made the threat at Giuliani's request. . . .

The Minnesota Court of Appeals has cleared the way for Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III to conduct an antitrust investigation into the Twins and major-league baseball. Humphrey has charged team owners with conspiring to get publicly funded stadium by controlling franchise movement (see April 22). . . . Pittsburgh Steelers president Dan Rooney, complaining that the "Plan B" proposal for funding new stadiums for the Steelers and Pirates would demand too much money from the team, has said that if no acceptable agreement is in place by June 30 he will consider moving the team to the suburbs. . . . San Diego Union-Tribune columnist Don Bauder reports that he asked Padres owner John Moores if, since he was asking the public to put up most of the money for a new stadium, he would split any profits from the sale of the team with the public. Moores called it a "bizarre question." --June 8, 1998

A Lot By Any Other Name: Labatt's brewery has promised the Montreal Expos $100 million (Canadian) over 20 years for the naming rights to a vacant lot in downtown Montreal -- the site where team owner Claude Brochu wants a new ballpark to be built. The catch: The naming-rights fee is earmarked entirely for operating expenses, so none can go toward construction costs. Brochu is asking for at least $150 million in what he calls "creative solutions" -- likely tax breaks -- from the government to help build his dream stadium. . . . The Seattle Mariners' new ballpark set to open next July has a new name, too: Safeco Field. The insurance company is paying $36 million to the team in a 20-year naming rights deal; the state, which put up the bulk of the construction costs and owns the ballpark, will get zip. . . . With neither Minnesota nor North Carolina eager to build them a new stadium, the Twins now appear ready to ask for public subsidies in the form of cheaper rent on the Metrodome. The problem: This could leave the Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission, the public agency that owns the dome, without enough money to do needed maintenance. . . .

New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, just a month after saying he wouldn't address the team's future until after the season, has threatened that a planned referendum on building a new stadium with public money could drive the team from New York City. "I do not want to move the Yankees from New York, but I must warn: he is bringing us dangerously close," said Steinbrenner of city council president Peter Vallone's plans for a November ballot. Steinbrenner's statement did not say where he would move the team -- New Jersey Gov. Christie Whitman said in April that she will not spend public money on a Yankee ballpark (see April 29), and polls of both New York and New Jersey voters have found overwhelming support for keeping the team in the Bronx. . . .

The Ottawa Senators, claiming they are on the brink of insolvency, have asked Revenue Canada to grant permission to convert their debt to dividend-paying shares, which would reduce their taxes substantially. The Senators must first prove that they are on the brink of defaulting on their loans -- but have yet to provide figures on the team's finances. . . . The San Diego Union-Tribune's Nick Canepa reports that the Arizona Diamondbacks' Bank One Ballpark -- better known as The BOB -- leaves something to be desired as a baseball stadium. Touring The BOB, he wrote, "was more like mountaineering. Some 20,000 seats are in the park's upper deck, and this is high. It's 40 rows, 123 steps to the top. Steep steps. I sat in the top row and the players looked like ants." In addition, the grass in the retractable-roof stadium -- the first ever without artificial turf -- has begun to die. --June 5, 1998

Hockey Subsidies Unfair Trade?: The Canadian House of Commons is considering whether to challenge U.S. subsidies to hockey teams under NAFTA, the international free-trade agreement. Trade lawyer Barry Appleton estimates that Canadian NHL teams operate with $12 million a year less than their U.S. counterparts, thanks to U.S. tax and arena construction subsidies; the Winnipeg Jets and Quebec Nordiques have recently relocated to Phoenix and Denver in search of richer deals. "I think we have to start taking some lessons from our American counterparts and get tough and kick ass," said MP Nelson Riis. . . . All-Star catcher Mike Piazza's recent trade from the Florida Marlins to the New York Mets was hailed, oddly, as a step forward in both teams' quests for new stadiums. The Mets are hoping to raise excitement about the team as they prepare to demand a $500 million ballpark with retractable roof and field, while Marlins owner Wayne Huizenga has gutted his World Championship team in hopes that cries of poverty will convince south Florida to build them a new facility to replace 11-year-old Pro Player (formerly Joe Robbie) Stadium. . . . NBC and Turner Sports have announced they are "moving forward" on creating a new pro football league, possibly starting in the fall of 1999. . . . Mall developer Stephen Karp has publicly made a pitch to be involved in the building of any new Boston Red Sox park, telling Boston magazine, "It's entertainment. It's shopping. It's all the type of challenges we take on and enjoy." . . . In the latest twist in the Minnesota Twins saga, the anti-abortion group Prolife Minnesota has taken out billboards with the slogan "Save the Twins!" and a graphic of two fetuses in a disembodied placenta. Rumors that the group wants to supply every fetus with a luxury box with waiter service were unconfirmed at press time. --May 28, 1998

Backroom Deal Nears Completion in Pittsburgh: The Pirates and the city of Pittsburgh are reportedly near an agreement on terms for a new ballpark for the baseball team; left out of the negotiations have been area voters, who overwhelmingly rejected putting public money into new stadiums in a referendum last November. The Steelers, meanwhile, who are seeking a new stadium of their own, have agreed to turn over financial records to the Regional Asset District board -- but only on the conditions that the public body not make the figures available to the public. . . .

Two more studies have looked into how much sports facilities help city economies, and come up with the same answer: bupkis. After New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani released a report claiming that a new Manhattan ballpark for the Yankees would generate over $1 billion in economic activity (with no data to back it up), the city Independent Budget Office did its own study. The findings: "new stadiums do not produce economic growth in metropolitan areas [and] do not lead to increases in tourism, nor do they serve as a significant attraction to non-retail establishments." Meanwhile, North Carolina State economics professor Michael Walden recently conducted a study of job-growth data for 46 cities from 1990 to 1994, and found that cities with major-league sports teams have actually grown more slowly than those without them. Low cost of living and an educated populace were far better at prompting job growth, Walden found. . . .

With the Florida Marlins having traded off all but two starters from last year's World Championship club in a cost-cutting fire sale, two Marlin season ticket holders have filed class-action lawsuits charging the team with false advertising and breach of contract. Billionaire Marlins owner Wayne Huizenga has claimed the salary slashing is necessary unless Miami coughs up money for a new ballpark. . . . The Chicago Bears continue to explore locations in the surrounding suburbs for a new stadium. Suburban residents, fearing traffic nightmares, have thus far been cool to the idea. . . .

As promised, Charlotte, North Carolina, officials released a feasibility study of bringing a baseball team to town May 18, reporting that locals prefer football to baseball (but baseball to basketball), that many local businesses would buy tickets or PSLs, and that a team could hope to draw about 25,000 fans per game, which is less than the major-league average. They gave no details of how a new stadium would be financed, and appear unlikely to make any detailed proposals at next month's baseball owners meeting. A recent poll found 63.6% of city residents opposed to spending any public money on a new ballpark. --May 20, 1998

Expos Demand Stadium Money: Last month, after months of insisting that the team would build a new ballpark with private funds, Montreal Expos president Claude Brochu announced that have would ask the city, province, and federal governments to find "creative solutions" to help fund the stadium. On May 6, Brochu dropped the other shoe, asking for $150 million in subsidies for what he claims will be a $250 million project. Otherwise, he said, the team will be moved.

Predicting that player salaries will double by the year 2002, Brochu said that a new ballpark is necessary to field a competitive ballclub. He failed to mention that new, government-subsidized stadiums are one of the main factors driving the salary increase -- or that a new Montreal ballpark is likely to fuel demands by their competitors for new facilities, driving the salary spiral still higher.

The form of the government "involvement" (Brochu refused to use the word "subsidy") in undetermined at the moment. Possibilities raised include forgiving the GST (the national sales tax) on ticket sales, or the use of tax-free bonds, which are not generally used for sports construction in Canada as they are in the U.S. Also unclear is where the team would move if it left Montreal: North Carolina recently turned down funding a new baseball stadium, and other contenders such as Northern Virginia and Portland, Oregon, are nowhere near building a major-league park.

Also uncertain is whether $150 million in public funds will be enough. The Expos have raised just $33 million of the $100 million in private money they hope to use. And the $250 million estimate does not take into account costs for land, roads, subway improvements, water and sewer connections. . . .

The San Francisco 49ers may not get that new football stadium after all. It turns out that part of the land for the proposed stadium/mall complex that would replace Candlestick Park is a state park that was purchased with federal open space money, and can't be transferred without approval of the National Park Service. Meanwhile, one of the leaders of the opposition to last year's stadium referendum is gathering signatures to put a repeal referendum on this year's ballot, charging that last year's vote was tainted by election rules violations and that the scope of the project has changed significantly from what was presented to voters. . . . The owners of the New York Islanders are reportedly in negotiations to buy the New Jersey Nets basketball team and move them to Long Island. There are also reports that the two teams would play some or all games in the Mets' proposed retractable-field stadium (see April 27), but other sources have characterized this as a negotiating tactic to get new arenas or lease concessions from their current homes. --May 8, 1998

Voters to Stadiums: Drop Dead: Voters in North Carolina's Triad region yesterday overwhelmingly rejected a prepared-foods tax to help build a new stadium to lure the Minnesota Twins. Voter turnout was high, as was the level of opposition: 2-1 in Guilford County, and 3-2 in Forsyth County. (Both counties would have had to approve the tax for it to go through.) The result came despite a last-minute $300,000 advertising blitz by stadium backers. Afterwards, stadium booster David Stonecipher declared plans for baseball funding dead, saying, "This one is over."

But for the Twins, a new battle is likely to begin. The Greensboro News & Record reports that the Charlotte Sports Commission has scheduled a press conference for May 18 to present a feasibility study of baseball in that city. (The study was conducted by Max Muhleman, a noted sports consultant best known for popularizing the fundraising gimmick known as Personal Seat Licenses, wherein fans must purchase the right to buy tickets.) Prospects there are uncertain, however, with local business leaders questioning whether there is enough support for a baseball team in addition to the Hornets and Panthers.

The Twins are also expected to make a renewed push for a new stadium in Minnesota, where voters and politicians have thus far refused to consider public money for a new ballpark to replace the 15-year-old Metrodome. Despite the collapse of any viable threat to move the team, acting baseball commissioner Bud Selig insisted yesterday that "The people in the Twin Cities still have to deal with the stadium issue."

"No, we don't," retorts Rev. Ricky Rask, a Minneapolis child-care activist who helped lead the public-stadium opposition there. "That's absolute bull. There's nothing to deal with. We've said no. I don't know how many different ways we can say no. People have been extremely clear.

"What they need to deal with is reality. It's like a bunch of toddlers whose moms tell them they can't have candy before dinner, and they're going to whine and cry until they get it." . . .

Also voting May 5 was Toledo, Ohio, where voters by a 3-2 margin shot down a $37 million minor-league ballpark for the Toledo Mud Hens. There have been rumors that the team would leave town if a new stadium was not built, even though the Mud Hens are owned by the city itself. . . . Sign sighted at Sunday's Red Sox game at Fenway Park, targeted for demolition by the team's owners: "IF YOU BUILD IT, WE WON'T COME." --May 6, 1998

Rudy To Voters: Drop Dead: The only thing hotter than the New York Yankees is the political battle over their future home. With New York City Council President Peter Vallone determined to hold a referendum on a proposed Manhattan stadium, Mayor Rudy Giuliani responded Thursday by threatening to convene a city charter review commission that could block a public vote. Gene Russianoff of the New York Public Interest Group called the move "a shocking abuse of power," while New York Civil Liberties Union executive director Norman Siegel criticized the mayor's "end run to suppress the stadium question." . . . Meanwhile, a study has found that fans driving to a new Manhattan ballpark would be stuck in traffic as much as an hour and a half, with jams as far away as the Queens-Midtown Tunnel. . . .

With U.S. hockey teams at a competitive advantage from the lucrative tax breaks they receive from their hometowns, the NHL has the solution for their Canadian counterparts: more tax breaks from Canada! That's what commissioner Gary Bettman and the owners of Canada's six hockey teams told a parliamentary subcommittee last week. Legislators were noncommittal. . . . Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos, meanwhile, has his own solution for the class divisions between baseball's haves and have-nots: have teams pool revenues to either build new stadiums for struggling teams, or disband them. "Instead of having 32 teams (after the next expansion), you might have 24," Angelos told the San Francisco Chronicle. "That would improve the quality of baseball." Angelos' fellow owners, already angry at him for refusing to field a team of scab players during the 1994-95 strike, are expected to be less than noncommittal. . . . North Carolina's Triad region is set to vote tomorrow on a new ballpark to lure the Minnesota Twins, but baseball officials are backing off approving the first franchise shift in 25 years, regardless of the vote's outcome. Commissioner Bud Selig, who previously had warned that the Twins would move if Minnesota didn't build them a new stadium, now says, "Even if a referendum passes there, it won't necessarily be built there. That's a decision the owners of the team have to make." Polls show the "No" vote's lead narrowing in recent weeks, thanks in part to a $700,000 ad campaign by the Vote Yes for Major League Baseball group. --May 4, 1998

Rudy Boxes Shadow, Wins In TKO: In a bizarre turn of events this week, New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has taken credit for defeating a threat by New Jersey to steal the Yankees that that state's governor insists never happened. It began on Monday, when the New York Post cited unnamed sources saying that the Yankees had received an "attractive offer" to move across the Hudson River. Later that day, Giuliani threatened to steal one of New Jersey's sports teams in retaliation.

New Jersey Gov. Christine Whitman, meanwhile, was issuing denials that any such discussions with the Yankees had taken place, insisting that she remains committed not to spending any tax money on a new baseball stadium. "The people talking to [Yankee owner George Steinbrenner] must be private investors," said a Whitman spokesperson.

Giuliani's response? "It is obvious that our strategy has worked. It seems that the prospect of New Jersey losing professional sports teams has made Gov. Whitman back off."

The brouhaha left Whitman and others wondering if the original story had been floated in an attempt to win favor for Giuliani's proposed $1 billion Manhattan ballpark. "You get a virtual reality war going and nobody watches what's really happening," said the New Jersey governor. "It's: 'I've got my own battles here, but I don't want anybody to see it. Let's make New Jersey the enemy.' We're not the enemy. We're not doing anything." --April 29, 1998

Slip Slidin' Away: You've heard of retractable roofs; how about a retractable floor? That's what New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon proposed on Friday, unveiling a model of a proposed new stadium that he says would cost $500 million. The ballpark, which would be built in the parking lot of Shea Stadium, has been described as a modern-day Ebbets Field, but fans of that cozy Brooklyn ballpark would have a hard time seeing the resemblance in the model, which features a retractable roof and a playing field that rests in a sliding "bathtub" that can be moved aside for such events as basketball or boxing matches. No word on how the stadium will be financed, but a Mets spokesman had previously said that the team would like the public to pay for about 80% of the cost. . . .

Yankee fans showed up at the re-opening of Yankee Stadium on Friday wearing hardhats and carrying signs reading "Good For 75 More." (This is the stadium's 75th anniversary.) One fan shouted at owner George Steinbrenner, who was seated in the section where a 500-pound piece of metal fell April 13, "Hey, Georgie, it's a shame you weren't sitting there last week." Polls continue to show overwhelming opposition among New Yorkers to moving the team from the Bronx, and a recent New Jersey poll found similar opposition to luring the Yankees there with a new ballpark. New York City Council President Peter Vallone has promised a November referendum on plans for a new Manhattan stadium. . . .

Stadium-tax proponents in North Carolina's Triad region have raised 28 times more money than opponents, according to financial reports. Yet despite their $700,000 bankroll, stadium backers still face a 2-1 deficit in polls as the May 5 vote nears. . . . Meanwhile, sports boosters in Portland, Oregon, are hoping to catapult that city into the major-league baseball sweepstakes with plans for a $160 million renovation of the 72-year-old Civic Stadium, which currently houses a single-A minor-league team and is nearly bankrupt. Critics are skeptical that a city the size of Portland could support a major-league team, especially at a site with no existing parking lots. Teams that have been mentioned as possible targets include the Oakland A's and Montreal Expos. --April 27, 1998

When In Doubt, Sue: Efforts to keep the Twins in Minnesota without building a costly new stadium got a boost Monday when a district judge ruled that the state attorney general may go ahead with an anti-trust investigation into the team's ballpark demands. The Twins and Major League Baseball had argued that baseball's anti-trust exemption should allow them to avoid subpoenas from Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III, but Judge Margaret Marrinan ruled that the exemption did not apply in this case. "The state's allegations," she said, "are extremely serious. If true, they might indeed run afoul of antitrust legislation, whether state or federal." Humphrey's office is investigating whether the Twins and other owners illegally conspired to extort a stadium from Minnesota. . . .

In New York, the war of words over stadiums continues, with Mayor Giuliani issuing a new rationale every day for a Manhattan ballpark for the New York Yankees. His latest proposal would funnel $600 million in commercial rent taxes into new ballparks for the Yankees and Mets, a plan that he claims would "result in, bare minimum, at least $1 billion more for out economy and thousands and thousands of jobs." A report by city planning director Joseph Rose and Economic Development Corporation director Charles Millard, both close Giuliani associates, claimed that a new Manhattan ballpark would generate $42 million a year in new taxes and create 9,442 new jobs -- but gave no indication of how it had come up with those numbers. . . . A new Manhattan ballpark would make at least one New Yorker happy. Sandy Frucher, writing in Sunday's Daily News, said that such a stadium would be a "vehicle for the future" that would "spur a long-needed Renaissance in a district that has confounded planners for 50 years. Identified as "former president of the Battery Park City Authority, Frucher has another title to his credit: Executive Vice President of Development for Olympia & York, the huge real estate firm that owns a large chunk of that part of Manhattan. --April 22, 1998

It's Not A Stadium, But It Plays One On TV: The hype and hot air was flowing fast and furious in New York over the weekend, as Mayor Rudolph Giuliani tried to capitalize on last week's incident at Yankee Stadium to push for new stadiums for the Mets and Yankees. On Friday, Giuliani announced that selling naming rights to a new ballpark could raise as much as $100 million, omitting to mention that the total cost for a single stadium could run 10 times that figure.

Two days later, the Daily News reported that Giuliani was preparing to announce plans for two new stadiums: one for the Yankees on the West Side of Manhattan, and one for the Mets in the current parking lot of Shea Stadium. (The News reported, apparently without irony, that "[Mets owner Fred] Wilpon said he definitely would contribute an unspecified amount of money to the cost of construction.") While refusing to confirm or deny the Daily News report, Giuliani did say he would build a new stadium without hiking sales or hotel taxes, and promised a "surprise" to be announced on Friday the 25th.

Though Giuliani has grown accustomed to getting his way on matters of city policy, he faces some stiff opposition to a Manhattan stadium plan. Governor George Pataki said through a spokesperson that he'd rather the Yankees stay in the Bronx. And City Council President Peter Vallone vowed to block city funding of any new ballpark, saying he'd take the issue to voters in a public referendum if necessary. (A recent poll found 81% of New Yorkers opposed to moving the Yankees from the Bronx.)

When told of Giuliani's claims that a Manhattan stadium would be cheaper to finance, Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer, who backs a renovation of the current Yankee Stadium, snapped, "Give me a break. I thought part of the quality-of-life campaign stopped three-card monte in the city." --April 20, 1998

Male Caucasian, 60s, Believed Armed With Stadium Demands: "This latest incident only adds fuel to [New York Yankees owner George] Steinbrenner's fiery pitch for a new stadium," joked Craig Kilborn, host of Comedy Central's "Daily Show," after the still-mysterious fall of a piece of metal into the Yankee Stadium seats. "Mr. Steinbrenner was unavailable for comment, however, because he was at Sears returning a blowtorch and a hacksaw." . . . The Boston Red Sox plan for a new ballpark across the street from Fenway Park is already hitting snags. The Boston Herald revealed Thursday that part of the preferred site is contaminated with hazardous waste from an old printing plant. Meanwhile, the plan to clear the site by eminent domain may run afoul of a state law restricting such moves to "open blight" neighborhoods. None of this stopped the Boston Globe from editorializing in favor of a new stadium, calling Fenway "too cramped and unprofitable to allow the team to thrive in the high-priced baseball environment of the 1990s." In fact, the Boston park is the sixth-most profitable in baseball, according to Financial World magazine, outearning such new ballparks as Toronto's SkyDome and Chicago's new Comiskey Park. . . .

Several Los Angeles teams are planning what would be the nation's first three-team sports arena, with the Lakers, Kings, and Clippers all planning to share the new Staples Center scheduled to open in the fall of 1999. The project, which received a record $100 million naming rights fee from the office supply company Staples, is complicated by the seemingly impossible scheduling conflicts that would result, and by Fox' interest in buying a share in the Kings, who would then in turn buy part of the Lakers. Since Fox already owns 20 percent of the New York Knicks and Rangers, the move could be blocked by league conflict-of-interest rules. --April 18, 1998

Yankee, Shea, Fenway Marked For Death: "Well, that was fun," remarked one Yankee fan on her way out of the team's first home game in Shea Stadium in two decades. "Now I hope we never have to do it again."

Baseball fans who want to see their favorite teams stay in their favorite ballparks may be in for an ugly time of it. On a day in which New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani reiterated his call for new stadiums for the Mets and Yankees, the Boston Red Sox leaked word of plans to demolish perhaps baseball's most beloved ballpark, Fenway Park, and replace it with a new, modern facility across the street.

The new building, to be built across Yawkey Way to the southwest of Fenway Park, "might retain some of the present field dimensions and could be made to look like Fenway," according to a front-page story in the Boston Globe. Parts of the old ballpark would be demolished, while other parts might be kept as a baseball museum and park, including the legendary Green Monster, which would be relocated outside the structure.

What this would mean for the community around Fenway, and how construction would be financed, were left unstated. Also, as the Globe understated, "Fan attachment to the old Fenway Park is another major hurdle for the Red Sox." Save Fenway Park, a group of fans, community activists, and preservationists, plans a series of TV commercials featuring fans saying why Fenway Park should remain where it is.

In New York, Giuliani repeated his desire to build two new stadiums, one each for the Mets and Yankees. "The justification for a new stadium is economic," said the mayor. "If the Yankees and Mets both had new baseball fields, and they were drawing what the Indians and the Orioles draw, we would make back the cost of the stadium in a few years."

Told of Giuliani's remark, sports economist Allen Sanderson quipped, "Yeah, and if pigs can fly." --April 15, 1998

Day Two: Yankees Held Hostage: "Buildings, when they are maintained, will last quite a long while," said New York City director of emergency management Jerry Howard on radio station WFAN today. "This was a well-built stadium."

Howard's calming words, coupled with his agency's clean bill of health for Yankee Stadium after the first of an expected three days of top-to-bottom inspections, soothed New York Yankees fans fearful that the piece of metal that fell yesterday was a sign of the ballpark's age. The faulty part has been revealed to be an expansion joint originally installed in 1927 when the stadium was being enlarged, and is believed to be the only such joint in the entire ballpark. "We're at a loss at this point as to why this joint worked its way out between these two beams," said Howard, who added that the joint had already been replaced with a new model by Tuesday afternoon.

Some local politicians, though, continued to act as if the "Crumble In The Bronx," as the New York Post headlined it, had made the House That Ruth Built obsolete overnight. "Both the Yankees and the Mets are entitled to new baseball fields," said Mayor Rudolph Giuliani Tuesday morning. "The best reason for it is that the cities that have new baseball fields are substantially outdrawing the Yankees and the Mets, and these are two of the best teams in baseball, in the largest city in America. And you know, this is a sport, and we all love it. But this is also a tremendous business for the city."

New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, meanwhile, told reporters that "If the Yankees want to come to New Jersey, we would welcome them with open arms." Whether they would provide open wallets is another question: New Jersey officials spoke of extending low-interest economic development loans and workforce development grants to a stadium project, but neither would come close to providing the $400 million or more that such a facility would require. . . .

Yet another sign of the new corporate ownership of the Los Angeles Dodgers: advertising signs behind home plate and along the new out-of-town scoreboards, expected to bring in millions of dollars a year for Rupert Murdoch's recent purchase. Next up: a feasibility study on turning the third deck of seating into luxury boxes. "We don't have a taxpayer-subsidized stadium, so our challenge is to increase revenue without changing the stadium's atmosphere," said team co-chief Peter Chernin of the ballpark built on a gift of hundreds of acres city land in the late 1950s. --April 14, 1998

The Sky Is Falling: The initial reports were brief and shocking: Monday night's baseball game between the New York Yankees and Anaheim Angels was being canceled because of "structural defects" in Yankee Stadium. A few minutes later, it was reported that a "500-pound beam" had fallen from the upper deck into the stadium's loge section, crushing several seats as the Yankees took batting practice. Mayor Giuliani, stressing that the stadium was about to turn 75 years old, announced that it would remain closed at least through Thursday, forcing Tuesday's game to be canceled and the next day's game to be relocated to Shea Stadium.

A few hours later, a less dire picture had began to emerge. The "beam" was in fact apparently an expansion joint, a piece of metal about the size of a car battery that allows the stadium's steel skeleton to expand and contract -- enough to put a dent in a seat (or an unlucky fan's head), but not an important structural component to the ballpark. And far from being 75 years old, the joint was apparently added quite recently, in a minor retooling that took place in 1981 after Yankee Stadium's $125 million gut rehab from 1974-1975.

But even if the immediate consequences for Yankee Stadium are minor, the Falling Beam Incident could have serious ramifications in George Steinbrenner's push for a new taxpayer-funded home for the team. At the Yankees' home opener the previous Friday, Yankee p.r. flack Howard Rubenstein had complained of "horrendous" traffic and parking and "bathrooms and seating [that] are sort of uncomfortable and inadequate," and insisted that a rehabbed Yankee Stadium would not satisfy The Boss. "The eventual stadium would have to be a new, modern stadium," he told the New York Times.

Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, while publicly asserting his allegiance to the Bronx, has nonetheless again begun talking up the benefits of a new stadium in Manhattan, something that would cost taxpayers an estimated $1 billion. Though Giuliani has claimed that the revenue from such a ballpark would be "off the charts," there is no economic evidence to support that. And a poll of New Yorkers last week confirmed what previous polls had found: 80 percent of those surveyed want the Yankees to stay right where they are.

The most important fan of all, however -- Steinbrenner -- has yet to be heard from. And when he does, it could have more impact than a 500-pound piece of falling metal. --April 13, 1998

Wild And Crazy Guys: The Minnesota legislature must not have been as smart as it looked. Five months after turning down the Twins' request for state aid for a new baseball stadium, legislators approved a plan to advance a $65 million interest-free loan to the city of St. Paul to help pay for a new hockey arena for the Wild. The state senate is also considering yet another bill to build a new Twins ballpark. Senate Minority Leader Dick Day, in an attempt to outdo Majority Leader Roger Moe's earlier "St. Paul got pantsed" remark regarding the hockey arena, called the new Twins bill "foo-foo dust." . . .

Just when you thought tickets couldn't possibly get any more expensive, here come two new baseball stadiums to prove you wrong. Tropicana Field, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays stadium that has already been completely renovated once at taxpayer expense, features $195 box seats behind home plate that are equipped with computer terminals displaying stats, replays, and a World Wide Web interface. The Arizona Diamondbacks' new Bank One Ballpark (better known as BOB) answers with its own private swimming pool beyond the rightfield fence. A one-game rental on the pool will run you a paltry $3,800. . . . The latest proposal by the Boston Red Sox would see the team replace legendary Fenway Park with a larger replica built across the street from the original. Reaction was skeptical, with city officials, local community leaders, and the Save Fenway Park! group all arguing in favor of retaining the existing ballpark. . . . The Montreal Expos are dropping hints of their intentions to move to northern Virginia next year if a new downtown stadium is not approved for Montreal -- even though Virginia is at least three years away from having a major-league ballpark in place. . . .

Cleveland taxpayers unhappy with $39,000 pricetag on the Cleveland Browns stadium model they're paying for (see March 30) should count their blessings: they could live in Houston, where the model for the new Houston Astros ballpark, complete with a sliding roof, came in at a whopping $60,000. The Houston Rockets, meanwhile, continue to lobby for a new arena, with owner Leslie Alexander saying "we want to win championships, and you need [a new arena] to win" -- this just three years after the team won back-to-back NBA titles. And here we thought it was just Clyde Drexler who had gotten old in a hurry. --April 9, 1998

The Smell Of, Er, Spring Is In The Air: The first game ever at the Arizona Diamondbacks' new Bank One Ballpark (public cost: $300 million) featured a 3-0 exhibition loss to the Chicago White Sox, $8 beers -- and toilets that backed up, a malfunctioning scoreboard, no hot water in the umpires' showers, and several fans who found there were no seats to match the tickets they had been sold. The Arizona Republic newspaper, which is part-owner of the team, reported that "team officials were optimistic that everything would be finished for Opening Day." . . . On the eve of the team's home opener, New York Mets manager Bobby Valentine welcomed fans to the ballpark by declaring, "Shea Stadium isn't a good building to come to . . . I'm sure of that. It's not a pleasurable place to be." The Mets are lobbying the city for a new ballpark. . . .

In what may be a new record in accelerated obsolescence, the NFL has told the city of San Diego, which just finished a $76 million facelift to Qualcomm Stadium for the 1998 Super Bowl, that it must perform another $20 million in renovations if it wants to be considered for the 2002 game. . . . UNC-Charlotte economist John Connaughton has released a study claiming that a new ballpark in the Triad region of North Carolina would generate $140 million annually and 3,152 new jobs. Connaughton dismissed the many other economists who have found little or no economic benefit from new stadiums, saying, "I question their sincerity." . . . While pro-stadium volunteers worked the crowd at a Minnesota Twins exhibition game in Winston-Salem March 31, about a dozen protestors picketed outside, telling fans, "Enjoy the game, vote against the tax." (The pro-stadium effort, backed by the local chamber of commerce, has raised $600,000, compared to just $5,000 for Citizens Against Unfair Taxes.) One fan, unskilled in the art of analogy, argued to the Greensboro News & Record, "This is where people went to lunch counters and said, 'We're as good as anyone else.' Well, we are as good as anyone else. And we deserve a national franchise." --April 1, 1998

St. Paul Gets Pantsed: Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Roger Moe didn't mince words last week when asked about the deal given the Wild hockey franchise by the city of St. Paul. "I think St. Paul got pantsed," said Moe. "It will go down as the greatest sweetheart deal ever." This after it was revealed that not only must the city and state provide a combined $95 million toward a new arena, but the contract with the team prohibits raising any of these funds via new taxes on the team, players, or customers. . . . In Cleveland, meanwhile, cost overruns have struck again -- this time involving a model of the stadium now under construction for the new Cleveland Browns football team. Featuring laser-etched components, the model's price rose from $35,000 to $39,000 because of last-minute design changes. "I put this in the same category with the Pentagon's $5,000 toilet seats," said city councilman Michael Polensek of the model, which has been placed on display in the City Hall rotunda. . . .

The debate over the proposed ballpark for the Minnesota Twins in North Carolina gets curiouser and curiouser. Last week, State House Speaker Steve Wood, who opposes using taxpayer money, said he'd ask for the May 5 vote on public funding to be delayed because he was afraid it would lose. Meanwhile, public funding advocate State Sen. Mark McDaniel has introduced a plan that he says would build the ballpark with private funds. Tune in next week as the North Carolina legislature decides that white is black and war is peace. . . . Cleveland Indians owner Dick Jacobs is reportedly considering making the ballclub a publicly traded company, possibly as part of an effort to raise money for a bid on the new NFL franchise approved for Cleveland last week. Don't get your hopes up of a stockholder rebellion against high ticket prices, though -- even if Major League Baseball lifts its prohibition on offering stock to the public, Jacobs intends to maintain control of a majority of voting shares, making the stock certificates little more than pricey collectors' items. --March 30, 1998

A Million Here, A Million There . . . : The record $350 million sale price set last week by the Los Angeles Dodgers may not stand for long. The next day, it was reported that New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner was considering a purchase offer from media giant Cablevision (owners of the Knicks and Rangers) that could top $500 million. And this week, the NFL approved a new Cleveland Browns expansion team for 1999, a franchise that should draw an expansion fee of between $300 million and $500 million. The values of both teams have been artificially inflated by stadium subsidies -- the Yankees both by the current city-renovated Yankee Stadium and by the rumors of a new Manhattan ballpark, the Browns by the $247 million stadium now rising at public expense on the old Municipal Stadium site. Without subsidies, team owners would be forced to put more money into building and maintaining their own stadiums, and less into padding the purchase price. . . .

Denver Mayor Wellington Webb is trying to lift a proposed $100 million cap on costs that would be paid by the Denver Broncos for a new stadium, fearing that otherwise cost overruns would cause taxpayers' share of the now-$366 million project to soar. No word yet on how either the Broncos or the voters, who will decide on the stadium plan in May, are taking to Webb's proposal. . . . Overruns are likewise the issue in Wisconsin, where a stadium board building a new ballpark for the Milwaukee Brewers wants to issue $35 million in new tax-exempt bonds to lease such "operating equipment" as a scoreboard, sound system, and possibly even seats. If approved, it would be only the latest surprise increase in public cost for the project, which has already soared from $6 million to $160 million. . . .

When the St. Paul, Minnesota, city council agreed to spend $95 million on a hockey arena for the new Minnesota Wild expansion franchise last year, they may have had more on their minds than civic duty. Then-council president Dave Thune, it was recently revealed, was employed as a consultant for the construction firm M.A. Mortenson Co. when he voted to award it the $130 million arena contract without competitive bidding. The state of Minnesota is currently considering whether to chip in as much as half the cost of the arena; if they decide against it, the city will be forced to increase sales and hotel taxes to raise the additional money. --March 25, 1998

Musical Franchises: The baseball owners' meeting in St. Petersburg this week was dominated by two topics: the sale of the Los Angeles Dodgers to media baron Rupert Murdoch, and the proposed move of the Minnesota Twins to North Carolina. . . . The Dodgers sale was approved March 18, with Murdoch paying a record $350 million for the team, Dodger Stadium, and the surrounding land. Transformations to the ballpark are already underway, with some field-level seats being ripped out to make way for advertising signs, and plans for more regular seating to be removed in favor of corporate luxury boxes. . . . On the Twins front, it appears that no decision will be made on the proposed move to North Carolina until after the May 5 stadium vote there. (See May 15 entry.) "You can't approve relocation without a place to play," said would-be owner Don Beaver, who is now expected to seek funding for a ballpark in Charlotte (100 miles to the south) if the Triad stadium is rejected as expected. . . .

The Pittsburgh Pirates have unveiled plans for a $233 million stadium on the city's North Shore. (See graphic.) The ballpark would be an "old-time" style facility holding 38,000 fans -- just about the same size as Forbes Field, the historic ballpark torn down in 1970 because it was deemed too small. It would be part of a planned $803 million sports complex that would also include a new football stadium for the Steelers; Pirates owner Kevin McClatchy still has not said where the money would come from. . . . While ticket prices soar and new suite-filled stadiums make cheap seats a rarity, baseball teams have come up with a new way to separate fans from their money: "six-packs," wherein tickets for popular games may only be purchased in tandem with five other, less attractive games. Both the New York Mets and Baltimore Orioles have announced six-pack plans; a similar scheme last year by the Chicago White Sox bombed when angry fans boycotted the plan. . . . As of March 4, the Nashville Predators expansion NHL franchise was still 3,000 tickets short of selling 12,000 season tickets for the upcoming season before a league-mandated March 31 deadline. If the goal is not met, the league could fine the team, take away draft picks, or withdraw the franchise altogether. --March 19, 1998

Twins Move Still Uncertain: "I've done everything I can to keep baseball here," Minnesota Twins owner Carl Pohlad announced last week. "Nobody seems to care whether the Twins stay or not." Pohlad was referring to the state legislature's continued refusal to put public money into a new ballpark, but his fellow owners seem to care plenty. As one member of baseball's Ownership Committee, which must approve any move, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune, "If you're going to move a team, it should be Pittsburgh or Montreal, who continue to fail to draw, even when they have winning teams. The Twins drew 3 million people in 1992." . . . In North Carolina's Triad region, meanwhile, the push for a new ballpark to lure the Twins south has hit a snag, as local Pepsi bottlers canceled its Vote Yes for Major League Baseball bottle-hanger campaign after complaints from supermarkets. (Wendy's backed out of a similar campaign last month.) Guilford and Forsyth County voters go to the polls May 5 to decide on a 1% prepared foods tax to help fund a $220 million stadium in rural Kernersville. . . .

Nine months into their corporate fund-raising drive for a new $250 million ballpark, the Montreal Expos have now reached . . . $32 million. Of the 18,000 seat licenses they hope to sell, more than 80% remain unsold. While the private fund-raising is expected to continue through June, owner Claude Brochu has already begun speaking of finding "creative solutions" to funnel public money into the project. --March 15, 1998

Denver Shows Broncos The Money: The Denver Broncos received a nice gift last month from the Colorado state senate, which upped the public portion of a new football stadium to $266 million. In addition, the public is to cover all cost overruns, which could be substantial if a retractable roof is added, as is not being considered. Voters in the Denver metro area are to go to the polls in May to decide whether to approve the deal. . . . Speaking of retractable roofs, the world's first-ever such gizmo, built at tremendous cost atop Montreal's Olympic Stadium in the 1970s (and currently broken), is set to be dismantled entirely this spring and replaced by a new $37 million permanent Teflon lid. This for a stadium that the Expos swear they will leave next year if a new ballpark is not in the works by then -- though this could prove tricky, as no other cities have a vacant major-league-quality ballpark available for them to move to. . . . Finally, the Minnesota Twins saga continues, with minor-league owner Mike Veeck heading up a group hoping to buy the team and keep it in the Metrodome. Current owner Carl Pohlad faces a March 31 deadline to consummate his deal to sell the club to North Carolina tycoon Don Beaver; major-league owners could vote on the proposed move during team meetings March 18-19. --March 12, 1998

Be Like Nike: If you didn't hear much about corporate involvement in the Nagano Olympics during the CBS telecast, don't be surprised. According to former CBS "48 Hours" reporter Roberta Baskin, who broke the story of Nike's labor practices in Vietnam in 1996, the network vetoed the rebroadcast of an updated version of her story last summer, after the company announced plans to sponsor the Winter Olympics on CBS. Both CBS News and CBS Sports reporters wore the Nike "swoosh" during on-air assignments in Nagano, though news reporters were abruptly de-swooshed after Baskin and others complained. (For more on CBS and Nike, see Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman's "Focus on the Corporation" column in the Multinational Monitor.) . . .

The latest proposal for a new football stadium for the New England Patriots would provide $72 million in state money for land, roads, and infrastructure for a privately built facility in Foxborough. (No word on where the money would come from to pay the resulting $2 million-plus in debt service.) Boston Globe columnist Derrick Jackson notes that while this is better than getting completely steamrolled by the NFL, "being sideswiped by a locomotive still hurts." . . . As part of the new plan, Massachusetts is considering taxing athletes on income earned during away games in their state. (The cities of Philadelphia and Kansas City already do so, and Pittsburgh is considering it.) The money would go toward the new Patriots stadium, but legislators are still confused as to whether the tax would cover 1/16 of a player's salary (for one out of 16 games) or 1/365. . . .

In San Francisco, an election fraud lawsuit by the Voting Integrity Project against the 49ers and the city is moving ahead. The suit seeks to nullify last year's razor-thin margin of victory for a stadium-funding measure, charging "violation of secrecy of the ballot, selecting early polling in pro-stadium areas, and other activities by city and stadium officials tainted the outcome of the very close (1500 votes) referendum." . . . Hamilton County commissioner Bob Bedinghaus says "old-time" baseball parks are a fad, and instead wants to renovate Cinergy Field for the Cincinnati Reds. Team exec John Allen, running the franchise for suspended owner Marge Schott, says he would agree only "if it looks like, feels like and smells like a ballpark." . . . Minnesota Governor Arne Carlson has asked Major League Baseball to delay the Twins move for a year so that a stadium-financing scheme can be worked out. The latest proposal was withdrawn February 18 by its sponsor, who said there were not enough votes to pass it. . . . The revolving-door tradition between the industry and politics hit San Diego last week, as mayoral chief of staff Kris Michell quit to take a job with the San Diego Padres -- as a lobbyist for a new downtown ballpark. She promises that she "will remain close friends" with Mayor Susan Golding, which should endear her to her new employers. --February 27, 1998

Padres Referendum Likely: San Diego looks to be headed for a November referendum on a new stadium for the Padres, which has been proposed for the South Embarcadero neighborhood near downtown. The team's current home, Qualcomm Stadium, was refurbished for football in 1996 in a deal negotiated by the city council that included guarantees of ticket sales, a clause that cost the city $4.5 million in 1997. In a related story, city attorney Casey Gwinn has ruled that the free luxury box at Qualcomm for the use of city council members does not represent a conflict of interest.

Patriot Games: The New England Patriots have a new funding idea for a proposed replacement for Foxboro Stadium, according to the Boston Globe: with TV revenue sure to drive up NFL salaries, have the state take the increased income taxes that result and return it to the team for stadium construction. This type of "tax increment financing" was bitterly criticized as a subsidy by a different name when the Minnesota Twins proposed it last year. As one Minneapolis Star Tribune reader wrote in, if the Twins can get player income tax money for a new stadium, "I think my income tax should go towards improving the place I work." . . .

Speaking of the Twins, three new stadium-funding schemes were proposed in the early days of February: a rehash of the player income-tax plan, a new income tax surcharge on players, and a sports lottery game. None is expected to make much headway in the state legislature. . . . Montreal Expos manager Felipe Alou became the latest to play the move threat card, opening the team's promotional caravan with the remark that "if we don't have a downtown ballpark, the team will leave." Who would pay for such a park is unclear, as is where else the team could move if it were not built. . . . Newspaper baron Kevin McClatchy, who could have triggered an escape clause to move or sell his Pittsburgh Pirates on February 1, instead announced that he expects funding for a new ballpark to be in place within three weeks. No word on whether Pennsylvania voters, who overwhelmingly rejected a stadium-funding plan in November, will be consulted on the deal. . . . Sports welfare burst onto the world stage at the opening of the Nagano Olympics, as hundreds of demonstrators protested the massive expenditure of public money on bringing the games to that Japanese town. The Nation magazine reports that the Japanese government spent $19 billion on the Olympics, most of which will benefit a few corporations. "We're impoverishing ourselves for twenty years to pay for a two-week event," local activist Masao Ezawa told writer Andrew Jennings. --February 9, 1998

Twins To Head South?: The Minnesota Twins saga drags on, with plenty of threats and counterthreats flying. The Metropolitan Sports Facilities Commission, unable to convince voters to ante up for a new stadium, challenged the escape clause in the team's lease in January. Minnesota Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III has also launched an antitrust investigation into the team's proposed move to the Triad region of North Carolina, prompting the Twins to seek a federal injunction against Humphrey. Meanwhile, baseball owners, who had previously promised swift approval of the move, now appear unlikely to vote on the deal before Triad residents go to the polls May 1 for their own stadium referendum -- one that polls show trailing by anywhere from 4 to 51 percentage points. . . .

In other news, the Baltimore Orioles have raised ticket prices by more than 15% for the second straight year, blaming "the cost of [fielding] a championship-quality team." (Both economic theory and empirical studies show that higher salaries do not raise ticket prices, though price hikes do benefit players.) Bleacher seats at Oriole Park at Camden Yards will now go for $9 a pop. . . . A Los Angeles city councilman who suggested that the Oakland (nee Los Angeles, nee Oakland) Raiders were about to move back to his city was called "ridiculous" by the NFL. Added one of his council colleagues, "We need the Raiders like the Titanic needed an iceberg." . . . New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, in his State of the City address in January, declared that both the Mets and Yankees are "entitled" to new stadiums that could cost taxpayers more than a billion and a half dollars. Giuliani also is pushing for a minor-league ballpark in Staten Island, a relative bargain at a mere $16-30 million in public money. --January 27, 1998

This site written and maintained by Neil deMause. All rights reserved. Lovingly hosted by Drizzle Internet.

Fieldofschemes.com is the companion website to Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public Money Into Private Profit, by Joanna Cagan and Neil deMause. Since 1998, we have been casting a critical eye on the roughly $2 billion a year in public subsidies that go toward building new pro sports facilities.

For more on this topic, browse our news archives, see related links below, or order the book, join our discussion list, or contact Neil.

Recently by Neil deMause

Nets to Newark could be a blessing (Metro NY)

As New Yankee and Met Stadiums Go Up, So Do Costs and Disruption (Village Voice)

Yankee and Shea Stadium Sell-Off! (Village Voice news blog)

How Much Is That Stadium In The Window? (Village Voice news blog)

Bloomie's fuzzy math on stadiums (Metro NY)

Dumb and dumber: The MSG tax wars (Metro NY)

The Yanks Got Balls: City Documents Show Team Billed Taxpayers for Souvenirs, Bar Tabs (Village Voice)

[Previous articles]

Stadium activist groups

Save Fenway Park! (Boston)
Develop Don't Destroy (Brooklyn)
No Jones Tax (Dallas)
No Stadium Tax Coalition (Minnesota)
Taxpayers for an Anoka County Stadium Referendum (Minnesota)
hellskitchen.net (New York)
Save Our Parks (New York)
MAPS for Millionaires (Oklahoma City)
Santa Clara Plays Fair (Santa Clara)
Citizens for More Important Things (Seattle)

Blogs 'n' things

Atlantic Yards Report (Brooklyn)
No Land Grab (Brooklyn)
Indy Tax Dollars (Indianapolis)
K.C. Hockey Buzz (Kansas City)
Stadium Facts (Santa Clara)
Clawback (national corporate subsidy blog)

Stadium and arena info

Stadium and arena deal summaries from League of Fans
Rod Fort's sports business pages
Judith Grant Long's data on full public cost of stadiums and arenas (all sports)
Congressional testimony on taxpayer-financed stadiums (March 29, 2007)
Latest estimates of public/private costs of Yankees and Mets stadium deals (exclusive to fieldofschemes.com)
Sports facility reports from the National Sports Law Institute
Ballparks.com (all sports)
SportsVenues.com (all sports)
Ballparks, Arenas and Stadiums (photos, all sports)
The Business of Baseball (baseball only)
Doug Pappas' business of baseball weblog (archive)

Stadium economic studies

Sports, Jobs & Taxes, edited by Roger Noll and Andrew Zimbalist (entire text online as GIFs)

Stadiums, Professional Sports, and Economic Development, by Robert Baade (executive summary only)

The Effect of Professional Sports on the Earnings of Individuals, by Dennis Coates and Brad Humphreys (PDF file)

Double Play: The Economics and Financing of Stadiums for the Yankees and Mets, by the New York City Independent Budget Office

New York City Independent Budget Office analysis of proposed Yankees and Mets stadiums (PDFs)

Loot, Loot, Loot for the Home Team (PDF file), from "