We made it another week further into the future! Sure, it’s a future that looks too much like the recent past — bad pandemic planning and stadium deals with increasingly more well-disguised subsidies — and we’re all still here discussing the same scams that I really thought were going to be a momentary fad 25 years ago. But the zombie apocalypse hasn’t arrived yet, so that’s something! Also the Star Trek: Lower Decks season finale was really excellent. Gotta stop and smell the flowers before refocusing on the underlying horror of society!
And with that, back to laughing to keep from crying:
- Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan has put a price tag on the development subsidies he’s asking for on building a bunch of buildings in his stadium’s parking lot: $167.8 million in construction costs, infrastructure, and tax breaks on a hotel, plus a $65 million loan that will be paid back at ?? time and at ??? interest. Or, as the Florida Times-Union helpfully headlines it, “$152 million in incentives.” The Times-Union also reports that “the city would own the entertainment district, which would keep the property off the city’s tax rolls” and that Khan’s “estimated $7.8 billion net worth earned him the 66th spot on Forbes’ list of richest Americans”; it doesn’t say when the city council is expected to vote on this plan, or whether there will be public hearings or just lots of private discussions, as councils like to do these days whenever possible.
- Some development is finally being built around the Hartford Yard Goats stadium, only several years later than it was promised, but mostly this article is entertaining for the bit where the developer thinks that people will be relocating out of New York and Boston because of the pandemic but also relocating to Hartford because the pandemic will be over soon.
- F.C. Barcelona‘s vice-president claims that the club’s $957 million stadium renovation project will more than pay for itself, by adding 6,000 seats and 70 corporate boxes and enabling the sale of $50 million a year (!) in naming rights, totaling $150 million a year in new revenue against only $50 million a year in debt payments. This seems dubious to me, even if there wasn’t reason to think pretty much everything coming out of the current team management is pretty dubious; but Goldman Sachs, which is lending the money for the project, seems sold, so if Barça really has figured out how to make a billion dollars in stadium costs pencil out, that would be big news. Any Barcelona fan-owners reading this who can share details from the team’s prospectus or whatever they’re sending out?
- The Los Angeles Times’ Bill Shaikin wrote a whole article called “Did Anaheim get a fair price for the Angel Stadium property?” that relies on a single source to answer the question, and that source is former Oakland A’s owner Lew Wolff, who has been acting as a consultant to Los Angeles Angels owner Arte Moreno on this deal. Don’t bother reading it, as you can almost certainly guess what he says — in fact, let’s see who in the comments can come closest to guessing Wolff’s exact words without reading them! Winner gets the people’s ovation and fame forever, and maybe an extra magnet.
- Virginia is approving multiple sports betting permits, maybe with an eye to helping lure the Washington Football Team to the state; meanwhile, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said yesterday, “We don’t want to lose the team out of the state and we’re going to fight hard to make sure that we keep them here.” It really is so much easier to get a good bidding war going when you have multiple jurisdictions in your metro area; James Madison really should have thought of that before pursuing that whole “not in any state” thing.
- The Phoenix Suns‘ $168 million in publicly funded arena renovations won’t just include new furniture and a big-ass kitchen, but also 15,000 new seats, each with their own cupholders, because if there’s one thing Americans want from their tax dollars, it’s cupholders.
- Three of six mayoral candidates in Saskatoon say their city needs a new arena, and one mayoral candidate in Regina says his city needs a new arena, because blah blah economic impact something something.
- Sure, I savaged the NFL’s coronavirus response this week, but it’s worth noting that European soccer is doing a pretty lousy job lately as well.
- A guy with a podcast claims that “a source” told him that the city of Tampa will soon announce “a massive state of the art stadium that will have a retractable roof” for the Tampa Bay Rays and the New York Yankees‘ spring training, and wants you to tune in to his podcast for details. You should neither do that nor even click the above links, needless to say, but if there’s anything to this rumor once his podcast drops, I promise you’ll be the first to know.
I read the article and it seems more likely that it would be the Bucs instead of the Rays getting a retractable dome. If the article is correct and indeed it is the Bucs, I can only imagine how livid the Rays will be and the odds of them leaving town when the lease ends has greatly increased.
Click on the link for “Tampa Bay Rays and New York Yankees” above — the podcast dude claims that’s who it’s for. Only don’t click on it, or even think about it yet, it’s just an unsourced rumor to lure in listeners.
I followed the link for an article through Uni-Watch this morning and couldn’t possibly imagine a stadium that just got a ton of upgrades would be replaced in two years by a retractable roof stadium in a city that’s not giving into the Rays…but then I clicked here and was reminded sometimes, with the right people making the moves, it can exactly happen just that way.
Hopefully not though. Someone on a fan site made the case for the new stadium because, “The Bucs deserve it!” but offered little to nothing else in support of that statement. I suppose they’ve forgotten all the years of missing the playoffs and general relevance.
I can’t find the article but I remember when Khan bought the Four Seasons he said it was because, “he couldnt get a room, and hotels don’t make money.”
As long as cupholders on seats is part of a deal, I’m all in on subsidies for bigillionares in Phoenix.
Gotta have somewhere to put my $25 beer while wolfing down my $15 nachos.
Alright I’ll guess:
“This is a great team that the people of Los Angeles (well, ok Anaheim -ed) have (ok, even though they don’t own it of course -ed). It would be a shame if they were to lose this tremendous asset.
Arte loves Anaheim. Arte does not want to leave. Arte will do everything he can to keep the team here. But he may not be able to do that without ‘help\'”.
Was I close?
I’ll try for a fridge magnet, they save one from cleaning the fridge door.
“Development in Anaheim has struggled for some years, and an investment of this level can bring needed renewal of interest by providing both living and entertainment options that could make the region a choice relocation destination for young Southern Californians. Also, Disneyland just sucks, there, I said it, Walt was creepy and I hate all his cartoons except when I’m stoned out of my mind.”
Something like that…
Both good guesses, but neither all that close to what Wolff actually said. Anyone else want to give it a go?
“If anything the Angels paid too much for the land when you take into account all of the surplus money this team generates and after all you can’t put a number on smiling children, homeruns, and 400 seats.
Getting warmer!
There is just no logic in the world that this isn’t a fair deal for everybody involved.
LA Times
Pretty sure I made “without reading them” a condition of the contest.
Okay, I’m declaring Mark S the winner, as he got closest to the correct answer, which was, more or less: “The city agreed to let the Angels stay until 2038 so nobody else would pay much for the land and anyway Southern California land isn’t really all that valuable and Arte Moreno is spending billions of dollars on his own money on this and just quit whining already!”
Mark S, if you send me your mailing address, I’ll send you a magnet! (Nobody else try to pretend you’re Mark S, I have IP magicks I can use to tell if you’re lying.)