It wouldn’t be a look back at this week without some more Oakland A’s news, but there’s lots of other news as well, including a brand-new subsidy scheme for one of sports’ most long-running arena sagas, so let’s get cracking:
- It’s been, jeez, four years since there was last talk of the Arizona Coyotes owner seeking a new arena in Tempe — so long ago that the Coyotes have been sold twice since then, from Anthony LeBlanc to Andrew Barroway to Alex Meruelo. At the time, Arizona State University had just pulled out of a plan to go in on building a new arena with the help of state sales tax kickbacks, but now there’s a new scheme afoot: Meruelo and the city have been discussing a plan where Tempe would provide public land and $70 million in cash for an arena-based development at the northeast corner of Priest Drive and Rio Salado Parkway, which has now advanced to the request for proposals stage. A team spokesperson told the Phoenix Business Journal that “the Coyotes are highly interested in this development opportunity and will be responding to the City of Tempe’s request for proposal”; the city report on this that the PBJ (great acronym) links to goes to a 404 page, so more research will be needed into exactly what Tempe is offering here, but it’s definitely more than cheesy bread.
- And speaking of the Oakland A’s and the city of Oakland’s plan to find somebody else to pay for the $352 million in roads and overpasses to let fans get to team owner John Fisher’s proposed stadium site, Politico found a potential sucker this week: California Gov. Gavin Newsom, it turns out, quietly approved $279.5 million in last month’s state budget for the Port of Oakland to use for “improvements that facilitate enhanced freight and passenger access and to promote the efficient and safe movement of goods and people,” something A’s president Dave Kaval called “pretty similar to what our project is.” With both the port’s director and Oakland officials indicating that state and federal dollars are how they intend to pay for a large chunk of Fisher’s subsidy ask, this seems a very likely slush fund — it’s kind of weird that it didn’t come up in Tuesday’s council hearing, but maybe nobody on the Oakland council reads Politico.
- And speaking of Fisher, don’t miss this great feature by SF Gate’s Alex Coffey on his legacy as a billionaire family business scion, including being asked by his dad, Gap founder Don Fisher, to manage the family’s investments and replying that “I don’t wanna know anything about the investment business” and “I want to build businesses or build shopping centers or whatever it may be,” then when he finally did end up running it anyway led his family into investing in timber clearcutting, which resulted in massive public protests against Gap and his dad bemoaning how badly they’d “underestimated the kind of public scrutiny we would have with this investment.” Failson stories are the best stories.
- After MLS announced plans to set up its own B league to compete with the USL, the USL has now struck back with plans to break loose from MLS, potentially switching to a European fall-through-spring schedule with promotion and relegation between its two tiers. This is bound to lead to an endless flamewar between pro/rel advocates and MLS defenders, which will be of great interest to soccer fans and nobody else, but more important: Now that there are effectively two competing soccer leagues in the U.S., each with their own massive expansion plans, cities would be absolutely insane to offer any stadium subsidies just to land a pro soccer team, since every municipality of any size is going to get one now regardless. Are you listening, cities? No? SHOULD I TYPE LOUDER?
- Former UNLV basketball player Jackie Robinson is still missing $3 billion for his plan to build a $3 billion arena development in Las Vegas — actually the price tag has now apparently risen to $4 billion, and he says he has “bonds and investors” lined up, which isn’t the same as actually having $4 billion — but he does have a bunch of renderings, including one of what looks to be a basketball team implementing a full-court press under an open skylight with 15 minutes to go in the third quarter. I don’t know of any pro basketball leagues that play 60-minute games, but maybe Robinson plans to start one, which frankly would be one of the less crazy parts of this plan.
- Atlanta is moving forward with plans for a $5 billion redevelopment of an area of parking lots and rail lines near the Falcons‘ stadium, and unlike that project, which received $700 million in public money, this one would only get, uh, $1.9 billion in tax kickbacks. Sports subsidies get all the headlines, especially on this site, but it’s worth the occasional reminder that plenty of other people are getting rich off the public purse as well.
- If you need a reminder of the outsized power of wealthy sports team owners, give a read to this story of how former Arizona attorney general Grant Woods tweeted of the league-worst-record Arizona Diamondbacks that owner Ken Kendrick “needs to sell the team to someone who cares,” only to have Kendrick send an email calling him an “arrogant asshole” and threatening that Woods “should expect a very unfortunate outcome” if they were ever to meet. Kendrick cc’ed Woods’ law firm, which also represents the Diamondbacks, and they immediately fired Woods for “disparaging one of the firm’s most valued clients.” I sincerely hope this leads to an update of Kendrick’s Better Hate an Owner entry at Defector.
- It’s “important that we all agree to end stadium proposals.” Seconded!
The City of Tempe has ‘locked’ the RFP and now requires registering to download the solicitation documents.
https://bids.tempe.gov/bids/BidInfo.aspx?BidID=0ff327a6-506e-4606-b1e7-095d04f8f1cd
But this may be an alternative: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1–iMw4OAHCyThNaJFZnhO8Ukl9GAe9CJQVm2SaatjvE/edit
Thanks. Unlocked here:
https://fieldofschemes.com/documents/tempe-rfp/
Ayyy! I live only one suburb away from Tempe. Let’s hope Coyotes Fever doesn’t spread to our town. And who needs a maintenance yard anyway, it’s not like cities exist to provide things like roads and sewers.
Finally! Someone who understands the modern economy!
So now Oakland has resorted to basically searching for loose change under pillows to help fund this HT boondoggle; LOL! And Kaval really thinks facilitating container ships/trucking in and out of port/railroad operations are similar to building a ballpark surrounded by condos, retail, commercial developments? Long story short: this “slush fund” fantasy isn’t happening! At least not on a $295 million scale (not even close!).
Here is an interesting article
https://lookout.co/santacruz/recreation-sports/story/2021-07-23/can-the-bay-area-market-really-support-two-mlb-teams-its-the-bigger-issue-beyond-an-as-stadium
The Bay Area is not a “smaller market than Phoenix or Miami,” and it’s not even close:
https://mediatracks.com/resources/nielsen-dma-rankings-2021/
You could make a decent case that the A’s should consider moving back to Philadelphia, though, if the Phillies could be forced to put up with it.
Neil,
My head really hurts from the A’s story. Stu Sternberg where are you?
In April or May when they announced the had been talking to Vegas for 2 years I thought they were going to relocate. I have 15 reasons that are still valid why I thought so (The A’s have flirted with relocation since 1979, this story has had a great deal of “radio silence”, one would presume that the A’s would have relationships with Vegas since the Raiders moved and they have a AAA team there, etc, etc)
Now until more pieces of the puzzle come forward, their decision to leave or go will linger out there for a while and then come at once. I expect radio silence on this after Alameda county votes and the Environmental report comes out its just going to cause headaches figuring out what is going on
As long as the MLB teams depends on local TV rights for the bulk of their revenue, he’s not leaving Oakland for anywhere. It’s crazy town banana pants.
The Raiders can move to Vegas and there can be a team in Green Bay because the NFL deals all its TV rights in nationwide. contracts.
MG,
The are 9 million folks in the greater Bay Area (give or take a few), and we’re uber-wealthy with our tech industry and disposable incomes. Two MLB teams can definitely exist in the Bay…but your would need proper placement between the two and ideally in the two largest cities (40 miles apart). But for that to happen you’d need the powers at MLB to get their heads out of their @$$*s, and that’s not happening anytime soon, if ever.. ;(
For the last time, the A’s aren’t going to leave the 6th largest media market in America for San Antonio and you posting about it every day isn’t going to make it happen.
My comment was that I thought they were relocating at one point now I need more info. Its more likely to drag on without any clear answer. What is the controversy?
I’d give the Coyotes whatever they want just for taking Ladd off the Islanders’ hands.
5 things to know as Tempe seeks to develop sports arena and entertainment district
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/tempe/2021/07/23/what-tempe-seeks-sports-entertainment-district-along-salt-river/8066896002/
I got 2 questions about this Coyotes deal:
1) how long does the land remediation take? I know nothing about this
2) are there really that many hockey fans on that side of town that are simply unable to make the drive to Glendale that will flood the new arena?
“are there really that many hockey fans on that side of town that are simply unable to make the drive to Glendale that will flood the new arena?”
The Coyotes pretend that their ‘fan base’ is on the east side. Their problem is not the location of the fan base or the arena. The problem has always been that the Coyotes don’t have a fan base. Even in the glorious fields of Tempe, this will be true.
So, so true – the arena’s location has always been a red herring.
On this hockey board I am on I keep hearing Arizona people saying if the arena was near Scottsdale where their fan base is they wouldn’t be having these problems. I wondered why the TV ratings were so bad if that was the case
I dunno know. Looks like the Phoenix metro area might be giving Las Vegas a run for its money when it comes to economic and other benefits (despite LV having more stadia). MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, USL, WNBA (only missing MLS).
Wild Horse Pass Stadium, Chandler
Camelback Ranch, Glendale
Gila River Arena, Glendale
State Farm Stadium, Glendale
Goodyear Ballpark, Goodyear
Hohokam Stadium, Mesa
Sloan Park, Mesa
Peoria Sports Complex, Peoria
American Family Fields of Phoenix
Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Phoenix
Chase Field, Phoenix
Footprint Center, Phoenix
Brazell Field at GCU Ballpark, Phoenix
GCU Arena, Phoenix
GCU Stadium, Phoenix
Phoenix Municipal Stadium, Phoenix
Salt River Fields at Talking Stick, Scottsdale
Scottsdale Stadium, Scottsdale
Surprise Stadium, Surprise
Desert Financial Arena, Tempe
Sun Devil Stadium, Tempe
Tempe Diablo Stadium, Tempe
NotMyAvondale
NotMyBuckeye
NotMyChandler
NotMyGilbert
NotMyGlendale
NotMyGoodyear
NotMyMesa
NotMyPeoria
NotMyScottsdale
NotMySurprise
NotMyTempe
Oh, never mind. NotMyTuscon!
Tucson was about a 1/3 of the population of Phoenix when I lived there in the early 1970’s (Veterans Memorial Coliseum for Suns. Tempe when U of A was there). Going to Phoenix, was like going to Arizona’s version of LA back then. Can’t even imagine what it’s like now (yes I can. LA takes an hour and 1/2, driving by car, to get from one end to another. Santa Clarita – San Clemente. At midnight. With no accidents).
To this day, still spell Tucson wrong. Dyslexia? At least still spell Davis-Monthan correctly.
Alex Coffey’s piece in SFGate was truly inspiring. She does great work (I didn’t know she had written for/about the Mariners either).
Maybe we shouldn’t wonder why John Fisher appears to be reclusive. If we had his personality, maybe we’d want to hide too.
Free million dollar idea to anyone willing to do the work: A Failson index.
The media smeared the Raiders all over the news blaming them for the problems with the coliseum and making them the bad guys. Now, the A’s did get overlooked even when the Raiders were in L.A. and did take a lot and then had to deal with Mount Davis/ Raiders and coliseum debt but now they are a corporate greedy company that not only has tried to leave many times but seem to want to force Oakland let them move by asking for hundreds of millions just from the city and then build a stadium in on the Port of Oakland that think it will cost billions to build..it will stores and places to go and apartments too.
The Raiders NEVER caused the problems the A’s have. The Raiders and Warriors left the Coliseum to the A’s and after years of complaining about sharing the stadium with the Raiders, Mount Davis and the lack of fairness in negotiating with the city/ county- they decide they don’t want the site…Wow!!!!
You can say nasty things about the Coliseum if you want but the fact is nobody tried to build a “new” stadium on that site and the A’s refuse. Mainly because they want a place for their districts. They only care about money and MLB wants that too otherwise they would try to get the A’s to build at the Coliseum site.
The Coliseum was RENOVATED for the Raiders it wasn’t a new stadium so if the A’s built one it may be a good place to have a stadium. The Coliseum has room to build areas for fans outside has public transportation and trains..and its easy to find and get to…and is close to the freeway.