It’s been almost eight months since the Cleveland Cavaliers asked for a $140 million expansion of their arena to add more public space and give it a glass exterior wall, and Cuyahoga County Executive Armond Budish said, “Let me get half of that for you.” Now, Budish thinks he may have found some of the money, asking the local tourism agency to use hotel tax money to pay for the Cavs’ renovations.
Destination Cleveland collects about $15 million a year in hotel taxes, and paying off $70 million in Cavs expenses would cost about $4-5 million a year, so this would clearly be a hefty chunk of change, unless Budish has other revenue sources in mind as well. The Cavs are already getting a cut of the alcohol-and-cigarette-tax extension that county voters approved back in 2014 — Budish recently proposed splitting the proceeds evenly among the Cavs, Indians, and Browns, as nobody bothered to work that out beforehand — and since that amounts to about $170 million in total present value, Cavs owner Dan Gilbert is effectively asking for $70 million on top of the $60 million he just got two years ago for renovations. But really, who can put a price on the enjoyment that local sports fans get from a glass wall?