There’s other stadium reporting today, but it’s all non-news: MLS still needs to pick which Minneapolis ownership group, if either, will get picked for an expansion franchise; Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melnyk still wants a new downtown arena to replace his 19-year-old non-downtown one; David Beckham still hasn’t gotten an MLS stadium in Miami. It’s what you write about when you’re a sports journalist and it’s a holiday week: Big “explainers” recapping everything everybody already knew, except in one place.
Or, if you’re me, you take the lull in breaking news to write about bigger questions, like why cities are putting up so much money for stadium and arena cosntruction when often they could buy the team outright for less. That’s a link there, to Vice Sports; go read it now before something important happens and we don’t have time to think about such matters.
A city-owned team sounds like a disaster in every way. We already know how bad local officials are at negotiating stadium leases (among a host of other sports-related things). I’d hate to have the success of my favorite team lie in their hands.
Ben, you read the article, including the link to all the successful existing city-owned minor league teams, right?
The article raises some very interesting questions.
Perhaps the most interesting–if New York and New Jersey jointly decided to make the Jets an operating subsidiary of the Port Authority, would the Jets end up being a better or worse-run team?
Well, maybe if it’s a “lesser of two evils” situation and you have to do one or the other. Otherwise, it’s a solution in search of a problem. You’re still putting the city into the position of favoring one business over another in the battle for discretionary income. Just stop subsidizing stadia and they’ll still be built and they’ll be paid for by those who use them.
Keith: That’s be great, sure, but you’d have to stop subsidizing stadia everywhere at once, or else no-subsidies mayors would still be at the mercy of their yes-subsidies neighbors. (It’s the “socialism on one island” problem. Or, if you prefer, the prisoners’ dilemma problem.) Seizing teams isn’t an ideal solution, but it’s one potential item in cities’ toolbox that they’re not attempting to avail themselves of, even as leverage.
Or to look at it another way: If team owners could use eminent domain to get leverage over cities, they would do it in a second.
GDub: Sorry, trying to project a worse-run team than the Jets made my computer crash.
“…or else no-subsidies mayors would still be at the mercy of their yes-subsidies neighbors”
You’re not really “at the mercy” when it’s a game you don’t have to play. Teams aren’t public necessities. And it’s not like they’d leave large markets anyway.
But, yes, ending subsidies everywhere is the ideal. Coincidentally, that “commerce clause” is a viable way of doing it.
Cool idea, but this wouldn’t necessarily put an end to the corporate welfare. Imagine a future where a city-owned club moved out of its own city into a neighbouring community because the neighbour offered such a great subsidy for a new state-of-the-art stadium.
If I recall correctly, one of the plans Seattle tried to put together when the Pilots were on the verge of moving to Milwaukee was a community-owned non-profit. MLB and the American League seemed less than enthusiastic. I don’t imagine they’ve become any more in favor of approving anything resembling that in the 45 years since.
It is of course very much preferable to paying for their main capital costs. But the leagues actively militate against it.
“A city-owned team sounds like a disaster in every way. We already know how bad local officials are at negotiating stadium leases (among a host of other sports-related things). I’d hate to have the success of my favorite team lie in their hands.”
Yeah the Packers have been a disaster! Very likely a city owned team would be run very similar to them. If you took the team out of the hands of elected officials and had civil servants run it it would be fine. The wastewater system and snow plowing, and so on work acceptably in most major cities.
http://leagueoffans.org/2012/04/06/green-bay-packers-ownership-structure-remains-the-ideal/
“The best town in pro sports is also the smallest: Green Bay, Wisconsin, home of the Packers.
…
“The Green Bay Packers are a publicly-owned non-profit with a unique stock ownership structure. Green Bay’s bylaws state that the Packers are “a community project, intended to promote community welfare.” What a refreshing approach.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/the-green-bay-packers-have-the-best-owners-in-football-10202011.html
The Packers led the NFL in apparel sales last year—the top two selling jerseys in the league were Packers Aaron Rodgers and Clay Matthews—making $27 million just through the pro shop inside Lambeau Field and the site Packers.com. All that swag, and those endless sellouts, made the Packers the 11th-highest-revenue team in the NFL in 2011, with total income of over $280 million, despite the fact that it plays in by far the smallest of the league’s 32 cities. (Ironically, this success means that Green Bay pays into the NFL reserve fund set up to redistribute revenue from larger market teams to smaller market teams.)
Green Bay is not “publicly” owned as in the city owns them but that it is a widely held non-profit company, that is, it was owners of stock. The controlling stock is widely held in Green Bay and gets passed along generations to long-established Green Bay families. There is also symbolic stock held by many more people. The city of Green Bay does make things easier for the Packers but that is probably true of any city Green Bay’s size having such a nationally recognized entity.
This is very similar to European soccer teams (German in particular) but it is not the same as ownership by a city (or any government).
I would like to think the city government ownership would help make sports teams better citizens but it may be simpler to make them true clubs rooted in the city (the European/Green Bay sports model).
I liked the Vice article but mixing up the actual ownership structure they are arguing for confuses things.
I tried to spell out the difference between city-owned and community-owned in the Vice piece, but I probably could have been more emphatic. It doesn’t help that tons of sources refer to the Packers as “owned by Green Bay” when they’re not.
I guess I cannot handle modern web design (and modern scattered attention) as I did not even notice you were the one who wrote the Vice piece. My point about Green Bay is probably more relevant to this discussion and apologies being unfair to the article.
I’m not a fan of web design that plays hide-the-byline either. Cauldron/Medium is even worse — it now puts the author at the *bottom* of articles, so you have no way of knowing who’s written it until you’re done.
Does it really matter what we (or even paying fans) think about this notion when there is absolutely no way that leagues will accept it?
Can anyone imagine a scenario in which any sports league’s owners/governors meet and approve an ownership transfer to an entity (city) when doing so will effectively spell the end of one of the pillars of that league’s structure (sticking non-fans with the bill for things fans won’t pay for)?
To the point raised above about the negative aspects of public ownership… I think we as a society need to understand that our elected officials don’t run absolutely every department themselves. Instead, they hire (or just retain in most cases) the civil servants/managers who’ve been doing those jobs for years or decades. Elected officials are supposed to set direction and tone, not micromanage.
So, in the unlikely event you have a publicly owned team that isn’t doing well, you do what you do when garbage collection or snow clearing isn’t being done properly – fire the guy in charge and hire somebody new.
Which is exactly what the private sector does in similar situations. Direct public ownership and direct public management are two entirely different things…
For what it’s worth, non-profits and/or city ownership doesn’t end stadia subsidies. Not only did Green Bay raise taxes for $295 million towards a renovation in 2003, but the trend in the minor leagues is to spend lavishly on new digs.
The minor leagues have the ability to pull a team’s affiliation without actually pulling the franchise. I remember that was an issue with the Toledo Mud Hens demanding money for a new stadium, even though they’re owned by the local government.
Also, FYI, I’ve found one example of a city using a eminent-domain threat to keep a non-sports business from leaving town:
http://www.nytimes.com/1986/06/15/us/in-new-bedford-union-efforts-keep-a-plant-alive.html
Still trying to find anything more recent.
When I was young, I recall Oakland trying to stop the Raiders from moving to LA via eminent domain. Obviously, that failed, but can anyone summarize the merits of that approach?
Click the link, that’s what my Vice article is about.
How would eminent domain work though? The franchises awarded at the pleasure of the league and if a city or state tried it (and succeeded) wouldn’t the league just cancel the franchise? The city would be left with just the trophies and IP rights and not a team (if it’s not the MLS where they would have nothing due to the single-entity structure).
The litigation would take years if not decades, with team not playing the entire time. I think the execution is the biggest problem with this idea.
JM:
The city in question would need to convince the league to accept them as owners. Barring something like a bankruptcy case (which pretty much only seems to happen in the NHL these days…) in which courts have the power to (and do) set aside or modify contracts, it is hard to see how any city could force it’s way into an owner’s club. It would have been really interesting if the City of Glendale (or Newark) had entered the recent bankruptcy cases for their franchises and attempted an eminent domain play. That said, they would likely not have been granted intervener/status unless the outcome of the BK was likely to result in the end (or transfer) of the franchise.
One of the changes I would like to see to all major sports leagues (which operate as monopolies and/or cartels) is for them to be required to set out fixed criteria for entry, and to be forced to grant anyone capable of meeting those criteria as members.
Most of the issues that taxpayers have with modern professional sport have would be resolved the artificial restriction on the number of franchises was eliminated.
“Most of the issues that taxpayers have with modern professional sport have would be resolved the artificial restriction on the number of franchises was eliminated.”
Perhaps, but why attack the “issues” from that side? The business model should be forced to change – there’s no reason why leagues would choose to do it on their own – because politicians can’t do the right thing? There’s nothing wrong with teams requesting subsidies, the problem is that communities give them.