The Los Angeles city council approved plans for a $250 million stadium for Los Angeles F.C. on the former L.A. Sports Arena site on Friday, and … that’s it. The documents approved by the council are just about rezoning the land to allow for a soccer stadium, with nothing about the tax incentives that LAFC’s owners had previously hinted at (and still hint at on their website). So unless there’s some other shoe yet to drop, it appears that this is like how stadium deals would work in a world without subsidies: A bunch of rich guys decide they want a team, decide on a place to build a stadium, ask for permission, and then start spending their own money.
There are also some renderings, which look about like a soccer stadium, and which if history is any guide won’t look much like the final stadium design anyway. The biggest controversy at the moment appears to be about whether the stadium will be open for the start of the 2018 season, or whether they’ll have to play a few games in one of the city’s other stadiums before moving into their own place. If that were all we had to worry about for every sports team, I could shut this site down.
“As California goes, so goes the nation.” We can hope this is a trend.
This has been the way things have been, more or less, in California for some time. See also the NFL in LA.
Somehow the rest of the nation hasn’t got the memo but we can always hope.
Doesn’t this mean California then subsidizes through the federal tax code the misplaced priorities of other states?
For stadiums that use tax-exempt bonds, yes.
That can’t be LA in the rendering. Traffic is moving on the freeway and you can actually see downtown.