I’m on the road, so actually writing this on Thursday evening. Don’t blame me if there’s breaking news that I’ve missed! Just post a link in comments, we’ll get to it on Monday.
- The Jacksonville city council approved $60 million for a new Jaguars “football performance center” on Tuesday, which team president Mark Lamping called “a key first step for the stadium of the future.” That’s a clear signal that Jags owner Shad Khan will be delivering more asks for public money to come, which we already knew because he’s said before that he will, but Lamping declared, “We know that in order to make sure we have NFL football here in Northeast Florida for generations to come, which is what Shad is committed to, we know we’re going to have to have a stadium solution,” just in case anyone hadn’t gotten the memo.
- The St. Paul city council just approved a $209 million tax increment financing district to kick back future property taxes to developers of land around the Minnesota United soccer stadium. Why, yes, that’s the Minnesota United stadium that got $57 million in tax breaks of its own because it was going to generate so much new development by its very existence, why do you ask?
- The projected Tennessee Smokies stadium cost has gone up from $75 million to $90 million, because reasons. Smokies owner Randy Boyd is still set to be on the hook for only about $10 million of the cost, so that’s $80 million coming from Tennesseans — unless the price goes up again, construction hasn’t even started yet, don’t forget, so there could be additional “more accurate estimates” to come.
- Nobody’s going to Baltimore Orioles games because the Baltimore Orioles are terrible, and that’s costing the state of Maryland on its cut of ticket sales and other stadium revenues. You could say that taxpayers shouldn’t have to be on the hook for the O’s terrible baseball management, which is true, but you could also say that if the Orioles do well, the taxpayers who built them their stadium should get a cut of the boodle, which is also true, and you can’t have both, so please pick one complaint and stick with it, your call.
- New Calgary Flames renderings! Calgary Twitter hates ’em! I don’t have many strong feelings about them, though I am wondering what’s the deal with the woman prostrating herself before a five-year-old out on the sidewalk.
That’s enough for now, have a good weekend!
Setting aside aside that the current Jax city council/leadership are pretty easy marks, the “only child” status of the Jaguars in that city pretty much made signing off on this a given — I’m still a bit amazed that they didn’t do the same on Lot J, but that will feel inconsequential given the declarations (threats?) about a new stadium that the team is making.
I suppose if you’re in Jax, having a perennially bad and dysfunctional team owned by people who are far more adept at running a *wrestling promotion* is a far worse fate than not having a team at all.
So does the public of Jacksonville get to use those facilities too? Not sure how it’s a win for the city to keep the Jags there just to give them more money later for a stadium that averages an NFL schedule & a few extra college games…
On the road to Greensboro in advance of next week’s announcement???
I mean, obviously you couldn’t discuss it if you were…. just sayin…
Greensboro lives!
Sabbatical in Greensboro to write new book. “The ABC’s of publicly financed stadiums: A case study of Greensboro.”
Greensboro A’s
Greensboro Bills
Greensboro Coyotes
Alternative title. “How the Piedmont Triad, US’s 33rd largest combined statistical area (CSA), became a giant in the sports industry.” Subheading: Publicly financed RJ Reynolds Stadium, Volvo Park and Truist Center (formerly the Greensboro Coliseum) became economic engines whose benefits far exceeded and surpassed those of public funding on bridges, fire and emergency services, infrastructure, roads and schools.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piedmont_Triad#Metropolitan_Statistical_Area
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._J._Reynolds_Tobacco_Company
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volvo_Trucks
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mack_Trucks
https://journalnow.com/business/soon-down-to-one-corporate-headquarter-departures-rock-winston-salem/article_021c4492-89ae-5845-bb2a-a8757915e13f.html
http://www.iweblists.com/us/population/CombinedStatisticalAreaPop.html
Hmmm. Boise’s CSA is 70th on this too! Well, no MiLB or USL franchises for you. Be satisfied with that 3rd tier ECHL franchise. M’kay. Hold the phone for one Ore-Ida minute! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ore-Ida Boise’s MSA is 9th on this list https://policom.com/rankings-metropolitan-areas/
However, 182 on list below. Still better than Tampa – St. Petersburg – Clearwater at 187. Maybe if “you (Boise) build it, they will come!” Stuart Sternberg, Rays & MLB https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._metropolitan_areas_by_GDP_per_capita I know, back to my corner!
Although the idea has rolled around in my head (how does anyone alive not know about the 5th largest basketball arena on the planet! https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-largest-basketball-arenas-in-the-world.html ), cred where cred is due, for putting fingers to keyboard, B.J. Eversole’s comments on August 25, 2021!
https://www.fieldofschemes.com/2021/08/24/17814/where-could-the-coyotes-move-where-couldnt-the-coyotes-move/#comments
You know us Club of 32 guys are scrapin’ the bottom of the public stadium cash barrel when we’re trying to buy up aldermen in bottom-50 markets like Buffalo and Jacksonville, so we can try to squeeze some dough out of citizens who probably don’t have any. With the perennially perfect threat of Los Angeles now just a memory, we are reduced to putting lipstick and hooker boots on bumfart towns we are “seriously looking at relocating to” that no one cares about, including us!
Sigh, I miss the old gravy train days, when all you needed was a storyboard pic of your L.A. stadium dream, and voila, the local pols would up and get in line to exchange payola and build you a palace on their constituent’s dime.
Piggy!!!
We’ve missed you so. And let me just say we dupes feel your pain as an owner. The little people just don’t understand the kind of problems come along with being a billionaire. It’s not our fault, of course, we just lack the skills and ability to understand these concepts. It’d be like teaching a hamster nuclear physics.
Yes, giving LA to Stan may be the biggest mistake the league office has ever made. How you gonna scare small markets now?
London? Toronto? Not a chance that will move the US revenue and marketing needles. Ditto Mexico or Japan.
Nope, I’m afraid it’s XFL/USFL caliber cities from here on out.
Either that or bury the hatchet and try expanding back to San Diego, Oakland and St. Louis. Good luck on all counts there.
If Toronto built a stadium, they could have a team. Probably the Bills.
Like the Jays and the Raptors, they could be Canada’s team. That’s a potential TV market of more than 30m people. Of course, a lot of those people already watch the NFL, but it would offer more upside than Jacksonville or Buffalo.
Not clear Ontario or Toronto would spend on it, though. The Bills games at SkyDome weren’t super well-received.
There’s a feeling that the NFL coming to Toronto would kill the CFL Argos and that would kill the CFL. Nobody wants that.
The two fan bases (CFL/NFL) do intersect, but it’s not a large crossover group. As Argo fans (perhaps all 9400 of them) liked to say at the time, “I can buy a full season of Argo games for the cost of 2 Bills tickets”. So not that much crossover.
As to Ontario “helping out” with another billion dollar stadium…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_government_debt
I think the issue is more that if the NFL sucked all the TV and media oxygen away from the CFL, it could really struggle. Hard to say.
But the NFL does not give a s*it about the kind of people who have to think about how much the tickets cost.
They just need luxury boxes and a place to put the TV cameras. Look at the Chargers. Abandoned actual fans for a mostly empty, but fancier, stadium.
The premise is that there are a lot of rich people in TO who would buy PSLs and boxes at the new stadium because it’s the thing to do.
But it seems far less likely that the Pegulas could bilk Ontario out of a billion dollars than New York.
Councilwoman Clark has a new blog on specific reasons behind cancelling the arena lease:
Glendale’s decision is strictly business
https://joyceclarkunfiltered.com/glendales-decision-is-strictly-business/
Of course it is. It’s been a bad deal for the city for a long time.
I can’t see why anyone thinks this is just a “negotiating ploy.” I’ve yet to see anyone explain a deal that could work for both sides. It’s just a hopeless situation.