St. Pete hires consultant with broken website to “open our eyes” on Rays stadium deal

The city of St. Petersburg and Pinellas County have jointly hired a consultant to help them negotiate a stadium deal with the Tampa Bay Rays, something that I praised as a good idea when the plan to do so was first announced in February, because local government officials are usually dumb at this stuff and could use the help. The actual hiring, though, has turned out to be a little weird.

The consultant the city and county settled on is Inner Circle Sports LLC, which has previously negotiated the sale of sports franchises, as well as Seattle’s deal to rebuild its arena (which went well, but not so much because of the negotiator) and Las Vegas’s attempts to lure an MLS team with a new stadium, which is still spinning its wheels. Those are just the resume items mentioned in the Tampa Bay Times’ article; for a full list, let’s check out Inner Circle’s website:

And ignoring the warning and clicking through anyway gets us to:

If I’m hiring somebody to represent my city in high-profile public negotiations, I would maybe start with “can at least keep its website running.” But maybe that’s just me.

Aside from broken SSL certificates, though, what else does Inner Circle bring to the table? The Times provides some excerpts from their contract:

“Consultant shall provide expertise and information on public and private stadium funding tools in an attempt to advance an agreement with the Tampa Bay Rays including direct funding, off-balance sheet or separate issuer/district funding, opportunity zones, new market tax credits, an all types of privatized funding. Further, Consultant shall provide information and expertise on the activities related to the implementation and execution of phases of stadium development.”

So that’s less “help us negotiate” than “come up with places to look for money that aren’t owner Stu Sternberg’s pockets.” Mayor Rick Kriseman added in an appearance on a morning sports talk show:

“You don’t see where both sides come in, they sit down, they break bread, they shake hands, and you have a deal,” he said. “Both sides are trying to do their best to protect their interest. Obviously, As mayor of St. Pete, my job is to put the best deal together for the residents of my city. Likewise, on the other side of the table, the Rays are looking to put the best deal that they can put together for the Rays.”

He added that he hopes bringing on Inner Circle Sports will help get “to a place where it opens their eyes and it opens our eyes. That’s the way typically compromises and resolutions and agreements comes to pass, both sides have to move a little bit.”

So Inner Circle is less supposed to be helping St. Petersburg negotiate than getting both sides to “open their eyes” and “compromise”? Isn’t that not a consultant, but a mediator? And if so, shouldn’t Sternberg be paying Inner Circle’s $80,000 fee, since he’s the one who wants the new stadium?

It’s extremely likely that nothing comes of this before Kriseman’s term ends in January, since the funding gap between what Sternberg wants and what St. Pete wants to spent is somewhere in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and there aren’t any giant sofa cushions hiding that much in loose change. (The Times cites both Kriseman and Tampa Mayor Jane Castor as citing opportunity zones as one place to look, which maybe would be a better idea if Joe Biden weren’t currently looking to repeal at least parts of the program.) It’s definitely a sign that Kriseman wants to Get Something Done, though, which is always a dangerous place for a mayor to be, and a good negotiating position for a sports team owner. Inner Circle has its work cut out for it, as soon as it gets off the phone with IT about that website.