A’s owner totally can get $1.1B in Vegas stadium money, says someone whose checks he signs

access_time personNeil deMause

While we’re at it with the unnamed sources, one “close to the Oakland Athletics” tells the Nevada Independent that team owner John Fisher does too have $1.1 billion in private financing lined up for a new Las Vegas stadium, he just won’t tell anyone what it is for a couple of months yet:

The financing plan covering a $1.5 billion baseball stadium on the Strip “is in place,” according to sources close to the Oakland Athletics, but any public discussion of funding will wait until December…

In December, the A’s are expected to provide written confirmation of the financing for the ballpark, according to a team source. The financing needs to be in place before construction can begin on the ballpark.

Seriously, Nevada Independent, why is this news? “A’s officials say Fisher will be able to pay for his share of Vegas stadium” has already been reported, so what’s new about different A’s officials (or the same ones, who knows?) saying so again, this time on condition they not be identified? Did you only watch “All the President’s Men” while looking at your phone and come to think that the reason Deep Throat was to be believed was that he was standing in a shadowy parking lot, not that he had provided verifiable information previously?

Fisher’s people did provide some information yesterday, but it wasn’t about the finances. Rather, they released new draft development and lease agreements for discussion at today’s Las Vegas Stadium Authority Board, which included some fresh stadium schematics:

It’s still a little tough to tell exactly how Fisher plans to fit an entire stadium onto a 9-acre site, but it looks like part of it will be keeping the actual seating section relatively small — only 30,000 actual seats, plus 3,000 standing-room spaces — and limiting the concessions areas to the spaces under the seating decks, which goes against current trends and could limit his ability to create massive food courts and club spaces that have helped boost revenues at other new stadiums. I’d also be interested to hear from any engineers about whether that massive roof has enough support structures planned to hold it up — it would be weird for schematics like these not to include that, but given the massive columns that other stadiums’ roofs need, it’s a question worth asking.

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Somebody (hint, hint) says Jerry Reinsdorf could sell White Sox to Nashville-linked ownership group

access_time personNeil deMause

The Athletic reported a weird story yesterday, citing “sources briefed on the matter but not authorized to discuss it publicly,” that Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf is discussing selling the team he’s owned since 1981. According to the article, Reinsdorf in “in active discussions” with a group led by former MLB pitcher Dave Stewart and player agent Lonnie Murray.

Why is it weird? For one thing, the 88-year-old Reinsdorf has previously said he planned to hold on to the team as long as he was alive, leaving it to his heirs to figure out what to do with it afterwards. (Though he’s the White Sox principal owner, Reinsdorf reportedly only owns about 19% of the team.) But also, Stewart and Murray almost certainly don’t have anywhere close to the couple billion dollars or so it would take to buy the White Sox; on top of that, they don’t have any particular ties to Chicago, with Stewart previously having helped lead efforts to get an expansion franchise for Nashville.

It’s certainly possible that Stewart and Murray, who would become the first Black majority owners in MLB if they bought a team (and could raise the funds to be the majority owners), figure that buying a team in Chicago would be a faster and more certain route than waiting for the possibility of one in Nashville. Or it’s possible that they have designs on buying the White Sox and moving them to Nashville, though that would seem like an expensive way of going about it, given that Chicago is the nation’s #3 media market and Nashville is #27.

Or, given that this came out of nowhere based on unnamed sources and that Reinsdorf has previously played footsie with Nashville to try to scare up public stadium funding in Chicago and that is literally his signature move, maybe this is Reinsdorf himself leaking news of the sale talks to kickstart talks about his $2 billion Chicago stadium funding demands? There’s no way to be sure without knowing who the Athletic’s Brittany Ghiroli heard this from — even then it might not be possible to know who if anyone directed them to spread the rumor, but at least if we had a name we could make an educated guess. Unnamed sources really are bad for humans and other living things.

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Rays 2025 home stadium conjecturathon: One thing’s for sure, no one knows

access_time personNeil deMause

Yesterday it was the Tampa Bay Times’ Marc Topkin’s turn to have a go at “What will the Rays do for a stadium now that Tropicana Field’s roof was ripped off by Hurricane Milton?”, and here one would think that Topkin’s famed tightness with Rays management could actually provide some valuable insights. Unfortunately, either Rays officials aren’t talking or don’t know themselves what the future holds, because what we get from Topkin is a whole lot more speculation and conjecture — but let’s see if there’s any actual information hiding in the weeds of his article:

About the only thing that seems certain is that the team won’t be able to open the 2025 Major League Baseball season at home as planned on March 27.

This is the line that is getting attention, as other news outlets have started citing it as confirmation that the roof repair definitely can’t be done by opening day. And maybe it can’t, but as a longtime professional journalist and editor myself, I am obligated to inform you that when someone sneaks in that word “seems,” it’s a giveaway that they want to say something without actually having proof. If Topkin knew for sure that the Rays won’t be able to play at the Trop on March 27, he would have written “the only thing that is certain,” but he did not.

Is Topkin hearing from informed sources that the roof can’t be repaired in time for opening day? Is he just hearing it from scuttlebutt and rumor? Is he just looking at the shredded roof and going, “Yeah, that looks bad”? Could be any of the above.

There are indications of extensive damage elsewhere at the stadium. For example, some team offices on the fourth floor, which had drop ceilings under the overall roof, are now open to the elements.

This is a good point and useful information, but also doesn’t really indicate much about when or whether the Rays will be able to return to the stadium, since it’s not like team offices have to reopen in order for the team to play games there.

In a brief memo to staff last week, team leadership acknowledged there were “more questions than answers.” An update to employees is planned this week.

Tl;dr: Rays officials dunno either.

The Rays have to get a sense on whether they are looking for a temporary home for a few months, for a full season or for all three years. Plus, Major League Baseball will have a say, and the players union is sure to be involved.

Well, yeah. Both MLB and the MLBPA have to sign off on any temporary home for the Rays, which will involve looking at both playing conditions and working conditions for the players, such as clubhouse facilities, weight rooms, etc. The union is already engaged in discussions with the league over the A’s temporary move to a minor-league stadium in Sacramento for the next three years; MLBPA officials have been tight-lipped about what they’re demanding in order to give their signoff, so we can probably expect similar regarding the Rays situation. (It’s also possible the league owners could try to override the union by invoking a “force majeure” clause to declare this an emergency situation, but that’s a ways down the road yet.)

There will be a lengthy list of options, maybe 50 locations long, with some more suitable based on length of stay. And all come with concerns such as weather, location, facilities and/or scheduling conflicts based on the primary tenant.

Yup. Among the options suggested by Topkin:

  • St. Petersburg’s Al Lang Stadium, Clearwater’s BayCare Ballpark, Dunedin’s TD Ballpark, and Tampa’s Steinbrenner Field: Al Lang would need to be reconverted from soccer and tends to flood, while the other three all host minor-league teams that would complicate scheduling.
  • Port Charlotte, the Rays’ spring training stadium: Less than 7,00o capacity, nearly 100 miles away from their Tampa Bay fan base, and would likely need housing for players and staff.
  • Orlando’s The Stadium at the ESPN Wide World of Sports: Holds either 7,500 or 9,500 fans, depending on which source you trust, and has hosted MLB games on occasion before, but also has a packed schedule.
  • Miami’s LoanDepot Park: Not being used for much during baseball season since the Miami Marlins moved out, [NOTE: Sorry, read quickly and conflated the two corporate-named Miami stadiums; while others have suggested the Dolphins‘ Hard Rock Stadium as an option, Topkin didn’t mention that one.] Has a large capacity and has MLB-ready facilities, but is also all the way across the state and could cause scheduling conflicts with the Marlins.
  • Durham, Nashville, Charlotte, San Juan, Montreal, Omaha: Now you’re just naming cities.

Topkin doesn’t mention it, but since we’re spitballing: Splitting games between, say, Orlando and Miami, or two of the minor-league ballparks, seems like one reasonable option. Though it would be a nightmare for Rays fans, not to mention for Rays ticket sales — I can only imagine the conversations team sales agents are having right now with season ticket holders about what city and/or state their tickets will be good for next year.

Back to assessing the damage:

There is more damage to the stadium that opened in 1990 without a primary tenant.

Engineering experts are expected on the property within the next week to get a better sense of the overall structural integrity (such as whether the roof struts are in danger of falling), the condition of the large video board and other features that were not designed to be exposed to elements, and other damage throughout the building, such as the exposed offices.

So there’s more damage than just the roof being ripped off, but we won’t know for a week or so how serious it is. That’s fine and fair reporting, but still doesn’t tell us much other than that if you’re going to replace the roof, you need to have viable struts to attach it to.

The city of St. Petersburg is responsible and has insurance to cover the costs.

We can dispense with “Why replace the roof on a stadium that’s about to be torn down?” at least: Because insurance will cover it.

A related issue is whether the overall damage throughout the Tampa Bay area leads to a delay in the timetable for the new stadium, which was to have its groundbreaking in January.

And will there be any revision in the glass-heavy design? Should it be fortified against higher than the Category 4 winds officials say it can withstand?

And what will the new stadium’s roof be made of? It sure looks translucent, which could be either glass or fabric, but I still haven’t been able to find any documentation on what material it will be or what force winds it would be rated for. (Topkin or one of the other two contributors to this article could have called Populous, the stadium architects, to ask, but apparently didn’t.)

So, not much more information here than we had before, other than that Rays officials seem very concerned about having a place to play come March, which one would hope they would be. More news in a week or so, maybe, once engineers have gotten a good look at those struts.

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Blogger again claims Browns owners want Brook Park dome, just as soon as they get $1.2B in public cash

access_time personNeil deMause

It’s time for another missive from NEOtrans, the Cleveland blog that first reported that the Browns owners were seeking a new stadium rather than renovations to their existing one way back in June 2022. The blog’s proprietor, railroad expert Ken Prendergast, has a particular propensity for stories with no named sources, and his latest is no exception:

It seems that the clock has run out on city of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County leaders on keeping the stadium downtown for the Cleveland Browns football team’s home games. NEOtrans has learned that the Browns’ owners, the Haslam Sports Group, are due to make an announcement soon, possibly by the end of this month, that they will put all their efforts into building a new covered stadium in suburban Brook Park.

Prendergast gives no indication — not even a “sources close to the team” or anything — who he has learned this from, so there’s no way to tell if this is news or a rumor he heard from someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about or an attempt by somebody to put pressure on Cleveland city officials to up their ante or what. And on top of that, it’s a rumor we’ve heard from him before: Back on August 6, Prendergast wrote, “In the coming weeks, the owners of the Cleveland Browns will reveal their plans to build a $3.6 billion domed stadium and associated development in the Cleveland suburb of Brook Park.”

That was ten weeks ago, so this still qualifies as “coming weeks,” but only barely. The latest post doesn’t provide any new info on Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam’s decision, repeating earlier reports that the stadium would cost $2.4 billion and the Haslams would want $1.2 billion of that in public money.

As for the Haslam’s half, there’s more unsourced reporting on where that could come from:

The Browns appear eager to tap a new source of capital. In August, the National Football League (NFL) owners approved the use of private equity investment as a component of the ownership structure of its teams. Private equity firms could purchase as little as 3 percent or as much as a 10 percent equity stake in a team…

Based on that value, a firm could pay anywhere from $180 million to $600 million to take an equity stake in the Browns. That, perhaps as much as anything, is why the Browns are now focused on Brook Park.

Huh? Sure, the Haslams could sell 10% of their team to private equity to raise half their private share of a stadium cost. But before this they could have likewise sold 10% of their team to a minority owner, or used 10% of their team as collateral for a bank loan, or sold some of their other $4 billion worth of assets, or any of a number of other things. Billionaires don’t generally lack ways to raise cash for a stadium deal — even A’s owner John Fisher has sources of money, if he can figure out how to pay it back — so much as ways to raise cash that don’t cost them more than they’d make on the deal, and giving up 10% of a franchise worth $6 billion according to CNBC ($5.1 billion according to Forbes, the more conventionally used guesstimate) would be a significant cost, especially since the theoretical private equity goons would presumably want a cut of future revenues from the hypothetical future stadium.

This whole “NFL teams can tap private equity money” bit is making the news rounds at the moment — look, here’s Forbes contributer (aka unpaid blogger) Phil Rogers theorizing that it’ll make it easier for the Chicago Bears to raise money for their own $2 billion–plus stadium. But while it does increase the universe of potential investors in NFL teams, it doesn’t change the main calculation: how to get public funding for these buildings, since that wouldn’t have to be paid back out of owners’ pockets.

The public price tag for a Brook Park stadium for the Browns remains $1.2 billion, which the Haslams have previously said would come from “innovative funding mechanisms with local, county, and state officials that would leverage the fiscal impact of the project,” whatever that means. Brook Park doesn’t have any significant money, Cuyahoga County says it’s not interested in paying to help move the Browns out of Cleveland, and there’s been no word lately of Gov. Mike DeWine offering to carry the bulk of the $1.2 billion load — so we’re back at “Haslams want a suburban dome as soon as someone else agrees to pay for it.” They can “announce” that as their first choice if they want, but until someone shows up with a $1.2 billion novelty check, it’s more a wish than an agreement.

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Friday roundup: Special Tampa Bay Rays roof crisis edition

access_time personNeil deMause

Seems like all anybody wants to talk about today is what the Tampa Bay Rays will do now that their stadium roof blew off and also how insensitive it is to be talking about what the Rays will do when millions of people are still without power, so let’s get right to answering your questions and/or offending your sensibilities:

  • Rays management put out a statement yesterday saying “our priority is supporting our community and our staff” and “over the coming days and weeks, we expect to be able to assess the true condition of Tropicana Field,” which is PR for “dunno yet.” Playing without a roof apparently isn’t an option because the stadium doesn’t have a drainage system for when it rains, so it looks like the Rays and the city of St. Petersburg are going to have to look into a rush job of repairing the roof on a stadium that is set to close in three years regardless. Just in case, sportswriters are over are rushing to publish their lists of other places the Rays could play the start of next season, including various minor-league stadiums in Florida, the Oakland Coliseum, the Texas Rangers‘ still-standing old stadium next door to their new one, or, sure, Montreal, maybe its roof will be fixed before Tampa Bay’s is.
  • The Tampa Bay Buccaneers‘ stadium got off without much damage after being flooded during Hurricane Milton, but the first responders using it as a shelter did have to evacuate. All of this should be having people rethink the whole “stadiums can double as emergency shelters” thing, maybe?
  • Chicago Bears CEO Kevin Warren says a Chicago lakefront stadium is still “the focus” but his stadium architects are designing a building that would be “agnostic” with regard to location, which doesn’t really make sense — you have to at least know which direction fans would be arriving from and where the sun would be, for starters — but it’s the kind of thing you do when you’re trying to play off against each other multiple cities that have all shown little interest in throwing money at you.
  • If you’ve been wondering what’s up with Diamond Sports Group’s ongoing bankruptcy and its effect on MLB TV rights, Marc Normandin has a good writeup in Baseball Prospectus. Tl;dr: Two more teams have been dropped by Diamond (the Rays and Detroit Tigers) and the Texas Rangers had their contract expire, meaning it’s likely that MLB is going to end up running TV rights for a bunch of teams in 2025. For now it sounds like the league will be paying teams based on what they were getting from Diamond, but if you want to dream on a future where MLB holds NFL-like control over the whole league’s broadcasts and doles out money evenly and market size no longer matters, I’ve got you covered.
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Tropicana Field roof demolished by angry gods

access_time personNeil deMause

Hurricane Milton raged across Florida yesterday, making landfall just south of Tampa Bay, sparing that metro area the worst of the storm surge. But while it’s hardly the most important thing about a storm whose damage is only just becoming apparent, Milton also did this to the Rays‘ stadium:

If you, like me, weren’t actually aware that the Tropicana Field roof was made of fabric stretched on a steel frame, our new 21st-century climate decided to make it clear to all. Only a couple of panels remain, with shreds of the rest now littering the field below in a scene reminiscent of the final days of the Pontiac Silverdome:

Ironically enough, the dome was set up with cots to be a shelter for first responders during the storm, which thankfully it wasn’t being used for yet at the time.

There’s been no response yet from the Rays or the city of St. Petersburg (the stadium’s owner) about how bad the damage is or how long it will take to repair. The internet is already joking about the Rays relocating elsewhere for the start of next season or just playing with no roof (okay, the latter was me). Updates once they become available, which may be delayed slightly by a crane falling on the Tampa Bay Times’ office building.

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Tropicana hotel demolished to make way for Vegas A’s vaporstadium

access_time personNeil deMause

The Tropicana Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip was blowed up real good last night, to clear the land for an eventual Las Vegas A’s stadium along with other redevelopment by the site’s owner, the Bally’s Corporation:

And speaking of that planned A’s stadium, how’s the financing for that going?

In July, the Athletic’s’ executives said the stadium would be financed in three parts. Nevada taxpayers would pay about $350 million, debt financing would contribute another $300 million, and Fisher would pay the remaining $850 million.

That’s true as far as it goes, but A’s board member Sandy Dean’s testimony at the time was incredibly nonspecific about where Fisher’s $850 million would come from, beyond saying that A’s owner John Fisher was in “good shape” raising money and that “it would be a positive to have outside investors” — a positive for Fisher, sure, though it’s still unclear what Fisher would have left over to offer to investors after paying off $300 million in loans plus whatever ROI his family will want for their cut of the stadium costs. The team still hasn’t submitted a detailed financial plan to the Vegas stadium authority and may not until December; stadium authority chair Steve Hill, who moonlights as an unregistered A’s lobbyist, said yesterday that after something between “an audit and a look” at the Fisher family’s finances, “it is clear that the Fishers have the ability to provide the financing for the stadium, period,” which isn’t the same thing as saying that the Fishers can pay for the stadium and earn their money back, which would seem to be the point of the whole exercise.

Until Fisher presents an “irrevocable” financing plan, Nevada won’t release its $380 million in stadium funding approved last summer — along with an additional $180 million in property tax breaks and $100 million in ticket tax exemptions — so right now the whole thing still remains on hold. Except for the site being cleared, but Bally’s is free to use that for something other than a stadium if Fisher’s financing falls through. In the meantime, enjoy the sardonic laughter of the Bay Area’s KGO-TV news anchors as their reporter notes, “If the A’s can get it together, they hope to start playing in Las Vegas in 2028.”

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Ex-Salt Lake mayor drops referendum bid against Jazz arena sales-tax hike

access_time personNeil deMause

If you were getting all excited about former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson saying he planned to stage a public referendum on the city’s plans to sell $900 million worth of Utah Jazz arena renovation bonds and pay for them with a sales tax hike — for new readers, yes, this is the kind of thing people can get excited about here, don’t say you weren’t warned — you can stand down, as Anderson said late Friday that he’s not actually gonna do that:

We know many are disappointed that the issue of a new sales tax was never put to public vote. We share in that frustration. However, efforts to pursue a referendum will distract time, effort, energy, and resources from the important work of addressing essential issues facing our city, and undermine the opportunities for working together with SEG on matters of mutual passion and concern. Also, there is no certainty about the prospect of meeting the requirements for the sales tax increase to appear on the ballot for a vote. Therefore, to achieve a cooperative alliance that allows us to work together from this day forward for the benefit of the entire community, we will not pursue a referendum.

That’s a lot of words (and a lot of nosism) that comes down to two things: 1) I’d rather work with Jazz owner Ryan Smith than agin’ him, and 2) that whole referendum thing might not have worked anyway. Door #1 sounds more like a cover story for #2 than the other way around, and FoS commenter Ian noted last week that the referendum felt dodgy from the start: Utah referenda can’t be used to overturn legislative decisions that passed by a two-thirds supermajority in both the state house and senate, and the sales tax hike for the arena easily cleared that threshold. So it looks as if Anderson may have been talking before his ass had had a chance to talk to its lawyers, and now that he’s heard back he’s decided to pivot to “Can’t we all just get along?”

The Jazz/Utah Hockey Club (man, is that going to get old to type by the end of this season) arena deal still isn’t finalized, mind you, since Smith and the city still need to agree next year sometime to a lease extension on the renovated arena and the planned surrounding development. With city and state legislators both overwhelmingly in favor of the deal — even if Utahns as a whole are not — it doesn’t seem real likely that this will be a major roadblock, but stranger things have happened, occasionally. If you’re a local (or ex-mayor) with hopes of changing this sales tax subsidy, you know which clouds to yell at.

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Friday roundup: Houston readies stadium upgrade cash, Oakland Coliseum buyers seek new payment plan

access_time personNeil deMause

Thanks for your patience while I’ve been traveling this week (and watching Mets playoff games at 3 am), though honestly it’s been a pretty slow news week as well. Not completely dead, though, so let’s get to the weekly roundup:

  • The Houston city council is refinancing its bonds for the Astros and Texans stadiums and Rockets arena, which will let it spend an additional $150 million on renovations. The Houston Chronicle says the money is expected to be allocated as part of lease negotiations — the Texans’ is up in 2031, the Rockets’ is up in 2033, and the Astros’ not until 2050 — but also that the bond money is expected to “be split between the three venues evenly,” so maybe the city plans to set aside $50 million for each team, then see what it can get in lease extensions for that? The Houston Business Journal also reports that the Astros and Rockets leases require “renovations to maintain the first-class status of the venues” — the Astros can terminate their lease in 2035 if the additional spending isn’t made, though there’s no estimate provided of how much maintaining “first-class status” is expected to cost. Friends don’t let friends sign state-of-the-art clauses, let’s just leave it at that.
  • The city of Oakland has rearranged the payment schedule for the African American Sports and Entertainment Group to supply $105 million for the city’s half of the Oakland Coliseum, and the Oakland police union wants answers, calling the change in timetable “strange and weird.” Apparently the new payment schedule also still needs to be approved by the city council before it’s final, so I’m going to go ahead and say that the whole thing is strange, though “weird” will have to wait until we have further information.
  • Destruction from Hurricane Helene is expected to cut into hotel tax revenues earmarked for paying off the Tampa Bay Rays‘ new $1.3 billion stadium, though it’s too soon to predict by how much. Sports economist Geoffrey Propheter notes that if bond buyers balk at purchasing bonds because the tax revenues don’t seem sufficient, Pinellas County could have to allocate more public money to reassure them and keep interest rates from soaring, this should be fun.
  • If the prospective owners who want to get an expansion franchise in Portland, Oregon are successful, and if they then are able to build a stadium where they want, it could have the side benefit of shoring up the approach ramps to a neighboring bridge so they don’t collapse in an earthquake. Neither the earthquake nor the expansion team appears imminent, but this is still news, apparently, so consider yourself informed.

If there’s anything else up, it can get discussed in the comments, or else wait till Monday when I’m back on a normal schedule. See you then!

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Salt Lake again okays spending $900m on Jazz arena, still punts on lease details

access_time personNeil deMause

The Salt Lake City council finally got around last night to authorizing the $900 million in city bonds that were first approved back in July for renovations to the Utah Jazz arena, plus building out a wider entertainment district around it. The bonds will be paid off via a 0.5% citywide sales tax hike, though what happens if sales tax revenues fall short still isn’t clear.

In fact, a whole lot still isn’t clear about the details of the arena plan, even three months after it was first announced. In particular, Ryan Smith, the owner of the Jazz (and whatever the Utah Hockey Club ends up being called once it gets around to picking a name), still hasn’t worked out a lease deal for the arena and surrounding land, which you really would have wanted to work out before cutting a $900 million check. That’s not going to be resolved until sometime in 2025, so really yesterday’s approval wasn’t any more final than July’s was, though it’s certainly another step toward finalizing the deal.

I’m writing all this from a weird time zone, so going mostly off a very poorly written KSL-TV article, but there are at least some signs of opposition to the deal, including former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson saying he plans to subject the arena plan to a public referendum, sometime in the future, maybe. Earlier reporting indicated that the project is popular because it brings together both the business community that wants downtown “revitalization” spending and arts groups that want the Utah Symphony’s Abravanel Hall preserved, but also that Utahns as a whole oppose the tax hike by a 54-38% margin, so maybe not actually popular? Utah journalists have until sometime next year to get their act together and actually report on what’s being negotiated and what people think about it, I’m not holding my breath but we can always hope!

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