With everyone asking me the last few days why people in Detroit aren’t up in arms over the bankrupt city’s proposed $261.5 million Red Wings arena subsidy — typical comment: “Where are the people of Detroit with the torches and pitchforks?!”— I eagerly clicked on a news headline yesterday that read, “Plans for new Red Wings arena in Detroit spark criticism.” Criticism from who, I wondered?
In the same week that Detroit announced its bankruptcy, a state board unanimously approved plans for a new hockey arena for the Red Wings — a decision that has raised a few eyebrows among critics.
The new arena will be funded in part with $284 million in tax dollars.
“You’ve got this city that can’t even afford to keep streetlights on, that’s talking about selling off its art museum, and here they’re talking about giving anywhere between $150 million and $300 million to the Red Wings for a new arena,” said “Field of Schemes” author Neil DeMause.
Oh.
If you want to see for yourself if my eyebrows were actually raised, you can watch my interview segment here. Though I suspect mostly what you’ll learn is that FoxNews.com hasn’t quite figured out this whole conveying-audio-over-the-Internet thing. Also, that I have a really old phone.
They do these interviews using phone lines for audio but Skype for video ?
Sorry Neil, Lauren is more attractive, seems focused on the “future of Detroit” and the need for switching from bread to more circuses, and chuckled at what you were saying (re: shuffling team around or eating more). The position taken by the Fox News reporter must be right, even if she was a pretty flimsy strawman for the “in favor” side.
I’m a property owner in suburban Detroit who had to move out state for work… because you know… I lived in metro detroit.
Any suggestion on how to quickly start a formal petition to the Michigan legislature to at least suggest that there is voter dissatisfaction with giving a man worth $2.4 billion an additional $284 mm when the entire Red Wings organization is currently valued at $315 mm? I’d like to see revenue sharing or an equity stake in the team (surely would be denied by ownership and shot down by a frighten league, nobody wants another Green Bay) as our first offer back to them in what should be a business negotiation, not a gift.
ChefJoe: Yeah, I hung up the phone once the Skype connection was confirmed, then immediately got a call back: “You need to stay on the line, because that’s how we’re getting our audio.” At that point there was like one minute to air, or I would have at least grabbed a headset so it looked slightly less dorky.
Also, I couldn’t tell that Lauren was chuckling, because I didn’t have any return video on the Skype call. I guess Al Gore still hasn’t worked all the bugs out of this Internet thing.
On petitions, maybe some of our regular Detroit readers have some idea what would be most effective? Burning messages into the governor’s lawn with weed killer, perhaps?
He’s a “tough nerd” which we’ve found translates to corporate stooge, I wasn’t even considering engaging him on this issue, I was hoping for some of some legislative miracle where the anti-tax tea party types and the liberals who would rather invest in public assets than billionaire cash grabs hold hands and tell Little Caesar to shove his crazy bread up his pizza hole.
Enlist RoboCop to tell these Detroit politicians they’re headed towards something criminal ?
Abandoning the old arena means prime waterfront real estate for new development, which is very hard to find in that area. http://www.bing.com/maps/?v=2&cp=42.324912~-83.052454&lvl=16&dir=0&sty=h&sp=Point.r1mh5b82bp05_Waterfront%20Property____&q=joe%20louis%20arena
I know you’re kidding around, but I had to go to google news to prove this to myself… You are not the only opponent of this expenditure.
If this thing actually goes forward, it is living, breathing proof that every arena and stadium project will be approved. If Carmel became convinced that spending $2B on a baseball stadium would bring MLB to that tiny, picturesque community, their council would support it.
We are insane. We need a blog called “We Are Insane” just to drive this point home. It’s not just arena projects, sadly enough. Now that soccer appears to have momentum in the US, it appears we’re doubling-down on the crazy.
MikeM: I might lobby for “We Are Too Stupid To Not Completely Ruin Ourselves” but that lacks the elegance of brevity.
“Now that soccer appears to have momentum in the US, it appears we’re doubling-down on the crazy.”
Wait, a willingness to spend $200M on a minor league soccer team is “crazy”? (Sorry, MLS fans – by multiple measures, it’s a minor league.)
fwiw, I didn’t get the impression that the Fox News Babe was trying to stand in for the “in favor” side. Seemed amused by the goofiness of it all.
Keith: I believe average per game attendance for MLS is actually greater than NBA (at least it was a season or two back, haven’t checked for the most recent NBA season). Shorter season and fewer games, but MLS teams draw okay. The TV ratings are absolute garbage for MLS, but soccer generally does okay. I believe both the last Euro and World Cup ESPN/ABC surpassed ratings projections they gave to ad buyers. And there is a reason NBCSN bid heavily for the EPL.
MLS venues are marginally larger and have significantly lower ticket prices than the NBA, so they’d be in big trouble if they weren’t out-drawing them.
TV ratings for soccer being played outside the US seem to be improving. The price Comcast/NBC had to pay was also related to increased competition in the xSN world.
Keith: Of the top seven draws in MLS, four (Seattle, Portland, KC and Montreal) are actually averaging over 100% capacity (attendance averages from EPSN, and capacity from wikipedia). I stopped at seven not because there is an appreciable drop off at number 8, but because I am lazy and thought seven was a good place to stop.
Of the other three Vancouver is at 95% and Houston at 89%. I didn’t do LA because even wikipedia seemed to have two different numbers for capacity (27,000 and 30,000). That’s the Galaxy, not Chivas. Chivas are terrible.
Anyway, it’s not that soccer is filling up 25,000 seat stadiums 3/4 but that they are operating at capacity in many markets. Moreover, I don’t think it’s the case that soccer fans are soccer fans because it’s cheaper. In fact, by definiton, four clubs are under-charging for their tickets. Sure there are probably families that spend on soccer because it’s less than the NBA or the NHL, but I have no idea how to separate out the percentage of demand that’s a function of being cheaper as opposed to cheaper just being something that’s also nice about being a Sounders fan, but you’d pay more should they jack up prices.
Anyway, I’m not trying to get in a ruthless debate about the minutiae of attendance. You said that MLS was minor league on “multiple measures.” And outside of the pitiful TV ratings (and accordingly the cost for TV rights), MLS actually measures up okay.
Disclosure: yes, I am a soccer fan. But I’m not an MLS fan. I find it borderline watchable. Still, I am generally surprised at how much live attendance/support there continues to be for it.
I actually just got back from the Red Bulls game, one that we attended (like almost every Red Bulls game we go to) thanks to two-thirds-off tickets via my son’s soccer league. The Red Bulls likely look okay in terms of tickets sold, but my sense is that there are a ton of no-shows or discounted tickets – they’re sort of like the Nets when they were in New Jersey.
MLS is ahead of, say, the WNBA or arena football in terms of popularity, but still isn’t up to the NBA or NHL. That’s not meant as a criticism — they’ve come a long way from where they were a few years ago. But they’re kind of one-and-a-halfth tier.
None of which has anything to do with the question of Detroit building a stadium for an MLS team owned by the guy who bought the Silverdome and is watching it crumble. That would be undeniably double-crazy.
Never let it be said that Detroit is behind the times. The new fashion is to have soccer stadia and here we are:
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20130724/NEWS/130729936/silverdome-owners-pitch-plan-for-mls-stadium-mall-condos-on-jail-site
As to the new hockey arena, Neil, and the several hundred million smackers of public money, at least the proponents haven’t used “synergy” as a justification. At least not yet.
I’ve seen a few comments about how the new arena will spur development (although in this case mostly Illitch-owned development). Well, Ford Field was supposed to do that, Comerica Edifice was supposed to do that, hosting the Super Bowl was supposed to do that. For some reason, the media’s curiosity has not been piqued to the point of checking to see if any of those projects actually developed much and why we can expect it from this idea?
And the Silverdome owner would be happy to accept a modest fee for selling it back to the City and letting the MLS team use the Silverdome site as a practice field ?
And now that you mention the WNBA, I have to ask: How close is that league to folding? If that league were to announce today that is was closing up shop immediately, as of COB today, would more than 20,000 people nationwide even notice? I kind of doubt they would. Heck, if they decided to give refunds for the rest of the season, probably more than half of those 20,000 would be relieved.
The WNBA has a small, diehard fan base. It also serves two purposes for the NBA: It’s a way to market to women (and to people who can’t afford NBA ticket prices), and it fills dates in the summer when there are no men’s games. I don’t expect to see it go anywhere anytime soon, though teams will likely keep getting shuffled around.
With a TEAM salary cap of $900k the WNBA is a relatively cheap marketing ploy. Tons of tickets to give away as charitable contributions and a way to market “family wage” basketball and help fill out arena box suite schedules.
“You said that MLS was minor league on “multiple measures.””
I was thinking of TV, quality of play compared to other leagues in the world and attendance compared to those “major league” soccer countries.