Yes, I took yesterday off from posting here. As a result, we have a lot of catchup to play today, so let’s get rolling:
Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross trimmed his stadium renovation subsidy demands again on Wednesday, this time agreeing to repay $47 million in state financing in the year 2043 — making it an interest-free loan, along the the lines of what he proposed for $120 million in county subsidies earlier this week. Since $47 million 30 years from now is worth about $11 million in present value (trust me on the math), this would drop the total value of the Dolphins’ public funding to about $125 million.
I haven’t seen any polls on the Dolphin situation this week, so it’s too soon to tell whether this latest gambit is likely to make a stadium-weary Florida public (some even more stadium-weary than others) any more likely to approve of the deal to renovate Sun Life Stadium, which they need to do since Ross has agreed to a public vote on the whole shebang. But unless there are some hidden costs that Ross and his legislative colleagues aren’t mentioning, at least his demands are heading in the right direction. See, cities do too have leverage!