Sometimes I like to picture the offices of sports league commissioners, and alongside what I assume are the usual office accoutrements (a money printing press, the mounted heads of city officials and labor lawyers defeated in battle), I figure there must be a hefty thesaurus. Why? For times when it’s the job of a commissioner to express just enough enthusiasm for a stadium project to keep local boosters on the hook, but not so much that you’re actually committing to anything. Like, here’s MLS commissioner Don Garber, talking to the Associated Press last week about a new stadium for Minnesota United:
“We’ve now become intrigued by a possibility of having a stadium be in St. Paul,” Garber said.
Intrigued. You have to figure Garber thought, “‘Excited’? No, that’s way too positive. ‘Interested’? Too blah. Wait, ‘intrigued’! That has the perfect blend of ‘I’m not promising anything, but keep talking.’ Yeah, that’ll do nicely, and won’t hamstring me if I decide after all that the team should play in Minneapolis or Sacramento or Kuala Lumpur.”
Garber also said of David Beckham’s proposed Miami MLS stadium, “We believe Miami will be a great MLS market and we look forward to bringing the whole project across the finish line.” Which is pretty much a long-winded way of saying “intrigued,” but it’s bad form to repeat yourself, so cut the man some slack.
None of this actually means anything in terms of where either the Minnesota or Miami teams will end up playing, in case you were wondering. For that, await some real news involving actual money.
Does every 2-bit sport get to come along and extort public stadium cash from cities? I know the pols are dumb enough or greased enough to let us NFLer’s belly up to the trough, but soccer? What’s next, lacrosse? Badminton? Jacks? Sheesh.
That said, I can’t blame MLS for going after those slug politicians up in Minny. Even after they found out about my shady business dealings back home I still conned those tools out of a 9 figure haul, so I guess a few scraps for MLS won’t kill anyone, haha. Based on my experience, they should be easy pickin’s.
Hi Neil. I don’t know why, but I find myself drawn to stadium renderings, and here’s the newest from Orlando http://www.orlandosentinel.com/sports/orlando-city-lions/os-orlando-city-stadium-0731-20150730-story.html
Have you found any loopholes in Orlando City’s declaration to 100% privately 1) buy the land, 2) build & operate the stadium, & 3) pay taxes. It appears too good to be true but the cynic in me can’t believe it. Can you delve a little deeper into the Orlando City plans for us laypeople, or conversely, give the team some credit if its legit?
I’m curious about it as well. I’ll put it on the research list.
Hey Piggy, there are reports of 8 franchise owners who have secured over $20 billion in public funding for their professional tiddlywinks venues.
Economists have stated that the National Tiddlywinks League or Major League Tiddlywinks will create over $8.39 trillion worth of stimuli for the host cities over the life of the venues.
My esteemed partner, Mr. McGuire deserves this handout. I personally think he’s being to nice to the little people who pay taxes by not making them pay for 70% or more the stadium. When I declare Target Field “obsolete” in 2020… err.
I mean 2030, I’ll be asking that the public pay at least 90%.