Happy U.S. election day, when Americans will be waiting up to learn the fate of a bunch of stadium and arena proposals! And the direction of an entire nation, but this site doesn’t have time for that, so on with tonight’s sports venue scorecard:
- Miami voters will decide on Referendum 1, which would allow the city of Miami to waive competitive bidding and give David Beckham the right to negotiate a 99-year lease on the city-owned Melreese golf course, for the purpose of building a stadium there for his Inter Miami MLS club. Polls close at 7 pm Eastern; this being Florida, however, there’s always a good chance no one will know the results until December.
- In San Diego, voters will be faced with two competing ballot initiatives: Measure E, which would have the city lease 253 acres of land on the Chargers‘ former stadium and practice sites to developers of the proposed Soccer City, which would include a soccer stadium and other stuff; and Measure G, which would have the city sell the land to San Diego State University for a new campus, including a new college football stadium. Polls show Measure G winning and Measure E trailing; if both measures get a majority, whichever gets more votes will win; if neither measure wins, it’ll be left up to the mayor to determine what to do with the site. The San Diego Union-Tribune editorial board has declared that neither measure is worth voting for, while letter writers to the paper — yes, there are still people who express their opinions by writing letters to newspapers, in 2018! — are all over the place in how to best game the system. San Diego polls close at 8 pm Pacific, so expect to wait up for this one.
- Inglewood will elect a mayor today, and with incumbent James Butts in favor of a new Los Angeles Clippers arena and challenger Marc Little opposed, the outcome will be important for the city’s sports future. Polls close at 8 pm Pacific here as well, but a mayoral race is high-profile enough that we could see earlier projections.
- Contrary to what I implied on Friday, Columbus voters will not be deciding on a 7% ticket tax that would apply to all large sports and entertainment venues — but maybe not Ohio State University football, nobody’s actually sure — and use the proceeds to fund arts programs and the Blue Jackets arena, because while a vote is indeed coming up, it’s a council vote, not a public referendum. A completely unscientific poll of Columbus Business Journal readers shows massive opposition to the measure, but even if that were a valid measure, the city council can still do whatever it wants, because representative democracy, yay!
The Aztecs ( San Diego State) are one of those schools that when the new TV contract ends, have a chance to become a member of a Power Five Conference ( Central Florida is another), but the only way they join the PAC or Big XII is if they have the facilities to do so. I suspect this is a big selling point to voters.
In almost-related news, Scottsdale Arizona voters will decide on a measure to prevent the city council from unilaterally choosing to spend $68 million or so on an entertainment center on desert preserve land. Said land was bought by the taxpayers, but Council wants to take some of it, along with the reserve fund (aka Taxpayers’ Money) and give it to developers because that’s how representative democracy works. Council members, some of them anyway, are adamant that they know best because they’ve closely studied the issue and have taken a shitload of campaign dough from developers. (That last part is actually not publicly acknowledged by Council.)
And Arizona politicians have such a long history of tremendously successful taxpayer subsidized sporting (and other) developments…
You get a shopping mall! and You get a shopping mall! and You get a ballpark! and You get ballpark! and….
Could this be a signal that the Coyotes are one step closer for their elusive new arena?
https://www.thefourthperiod.com/pagnotta/ownership-change-coming-in-arizona
It doesn’t sound like the sale has anything to do with an arena deal. Or are you just suggesting that a new owner might not find the earth as salted as Barroway?
As both the NHL and Mr. Barroway have stated they are losing money and cannot stay in Glendale, would you expect any new ownership staying in Glendale? I certainly do not.
Whomever the ownership group is made up of, a new arena is essential to profitability because AEG is unlikely to give this or any group a better arena deal than what they already have.
There have been arena rumblings on two possible locations: near the intersection of the 101/202 highways or possibly the Mesa Riverview complex, where the Chicago Cubs play their spring training games.
It’s not a new arena they are looking for, it’s a new subsidy. They need to find another town, in the same neighborhood, that hasn’t learned anything from Glendale. They just might pull it off.
Maybe they can sell the team to the Purple Man.
They get to play, essentially for free, in an arena that taxpayers built for them (and have routinely paid them to play in in the past)…
Yet they need a better deal?
What do they have in mind, “build us another new arena, assign all revenues to us and also pay us $40m annually to play in it”?
Dream on.
BTW, the NHL said less than a decade ago that the losses were “nothing like” former owner Moyes reported (at approx $40m annually). Turns out they were lying.
The league had to buy the team back out of bankruptcy court and then lost about $75m operating them over the next two seasons.
What’s really crazy is Glendale paid $50 million over 2 seasons to the NHL when the Coyotes were league owned.
The Columbus Bluejackets tax is a done deal, the Nationwide Mayor is waiting for negotiations with Tennessee businessman Haslam to close on deal before taking a chance on sabotaging keeping Crew in town.
RE: Clippers….
So, insanely rich jackass pays $2bn for a franchise that even optimistic valuations claimed was worth $650m, now needs taxpayer funding for his own arena.
We really are doomed as a species, aren’t we?