Sorry, getting a late start today, let’s get straight to the news without delay:
- The city of Sacramento is facing having to make cuts to city services in order to pay off its Kings arena debt, and since I’ve previously argued that it’s silly to act like public sports subsidies are a particular problem during economic crises, maybe now is a good time for a reminder that spending public money on stuff that doesn’t benefit the public is always bad if you want to have money left over for stuff you actually need! Sacramento officials acted like the arena payments were free money because they were supposed to come from hotel taxes and parking meter fees; that was never true, but it’s thrown into starker relief now that those taxes and fees aren’t coming in and the city will have to dip into the general fund — you know, the general fund that only isn’t getting those taxes and fees in the first place because the city carved out those revenues and handed them to the Kings. Is firing police and librarians to pay for a sports arena worse than never getting to hire them in the first place? So many ethical dilemmas in this pandemic!
- Not running short of money, meanwhile: The NFL, which just approved increasing its G-4 loan for the new Los Angeles Rams and Chargers stadium from $400 million to $900 million. plus given the teams’ owners a longer time in which to pay it back, which they can do with club-seat and ticket-sales money they normally would have had to share with the league. Maybe the NFL could loan some money to Sacramento on these terms? Or at least not complain too loudly about how they’ll go broke if they aren’t allowed to play games this fall.
- The Henderson, Nevada city council approved moving ahead with city subsidies for construction of a minor-league hockey arena for an affiliate of the Vegas Golden Knights, and the motion included yet another number for how much public will be involved: $42 million, or half of the $84 million total construction cost. Henderson had previously approved $60 million in bonds, with $30 million of it to go to arena construction, or maybe it was $25 million from the bond plus $17 million from other city funds, and then there was that economic impact report that seemed to involve just overturning a big box of random numbers and dumping them on the floor. What we do know is that the team will pay $150,000 a year rent on the arena, which will somehow produce a 106% annual return on investment because we’re in a national crisis, okay, there’s no time for math!
- Speaking of math, you know what would be a good way to help with the economic impact of a pandemic that’s expected to stretch into 2021 or 2022? Spending a whole lot of government money now to hold the Commonwealth Games in Hamilton in 2026! Definitely nothing wrong with that logic.
- Here’s an article, and another article, and another article, and another article, and another article about how a Bronx events company is planning to hold a drive-in food and music festival in Yankee Stadium’s “largest parking lot” this summer, notwithstanding that Yankee Stadium doesn’t actually have any open-air parking lots. (It has parking garages, but an indoor drive-in sounds logistically difficult, and possibly epidemiologically unwise.) Nobody at Time Out, CNN, USA Today, WCBS, or Gothamist seems to have asked MASC Hospitality Group where they’re actually planning to hold this thing, but journalism is all about one outlet reprinting the press release and then everybody else quoting the first outlet, right? Pretty sure Edward R. Murrow said that.
- This is all too depressing, what’s a good way to lighten the mood and also get some good SEO going? Sex dolls! There, mission accomplished — Monday’s something called a “holiday” whatever that means anymore, see you all Tuesday!
Great qu ote from the sex dolls article. “…reviewing the case, league officials accepted FC Seoul’s claim that it did not know the mannequins were sex toys, but said it “could have easily recognised their use using common sense and experience”.
Your Bundesliga Virus reporter checking in!
Ok, 2.BL Dynamo Dresden has officially been in quarantine and were going to have to cancel 2 games. Now they have another player (and another staff member) test positive just as they were about to be let out of quarantine. In a sure sign that the strict protocols are already loosening they are going to be allowed to practice tomorrow anyway! The recent positives will undergo individual quarantine.
I am sure no one cares about the 3.BL but it has been the most dramatic, chaotic, and dis-unified of all. Kaiserslautern (who was in the top league very recently) had some positive tests as well but part of the loosening protocol means that they need to test positive twice because of the very real issue of false positives (false negatives too but nobody seems concerned about that right now). Anyway, their positives retested as negatives so they are good to go. The 3.BL will resume May 31st (maybe–who knows people keep fighting about it) and have to play two games a week til mid July. Some 3.BL clubs only have one person on medical staff so one of the teams was not allowed full practice because their doctor thought testing everyone was too much work (I assume that is sorted now but it was an interesting story last week).
The original Bundesliga protocol was very detailed about who could be at games and noted only 210 people would be in and around stadia during games (less for 2.BL). I saw that BBC reported “around 300” so I wonder if that is just lazy reporting or the protocol is officially loosening already. The US press has been rightly impressed with a lot of the details the Bundesliga did get right but I got wonder about the ways in which each “copy” of the situation will get one or more fewer details right.
Bundesliga finally has gotten cut-outs printed so there will be substantial amounts of cardboard fans at the games this weekend.
(If you want a great MLS story you need to Google “Tinus van Teunenbroek”).
Here’s another article about how Arlington residents may have to shoulder a larger burden for stadium debt than initially expected due to COVID-19:
https://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/arlington/article242704071.html
Actually the same burden but with less revenue available to cover it, but yeah, I get your point.
Another situation with the public having the same large burden but less revenue to pay for it (paywalled):
https://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/news/2020/05/21/funds-for-minneapolis-sports-facilities.html