Happy December! I was up real late last night, so let’s get straight to the remaining news of the week:
- Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak says he’s “not inclined” to call a special session of the state legislature to figure out how to fund an Oakland A’s stadium in Las Vegas, says A’s owner John Fisher is looking for a $1 billion retractable-roofed ballpark, and indicated, “They wanted some public money. In what form, they didn’t really specify.” He also said that he wouldn’t further raise hotel taxes, the revenue source that paid for the Las Vegas Raiders stadium, and “I explained to them that I didn’t want to be a stalking horse. They said they weren’t doing that, and they were serious about this.” That’s what everyone says, even those proposing stalking horses! At least we know now that Fisher wants “some” public money toward a $1 billion Vegas stadium, if he’s serious about building one; admittedly it’s not much, but in 2021 we have to be happy with any morsel of facts we can come by.
- The Arizona Coyotes front office has issued a statement that no matter what Forbes’ Mike Ozanian says, they’re not selling the team to someone who’ll move it to Houston. Either this is going to be hilariously awkward to walk back if the rumor turns out to be true, or Ozanian doesn’t know what he’s talking about again.
- David Gilbert, president and CEO of Destination Cleveland, on the Guardians‘ freshly approved $285-million-or-more stadium renovation subsidy: “Economically, people can talk about whether or not it’s right for public funding to be part of professional sports facilities, but in our country, it is a reality.” I have misplaced my tourism-official-to-English dictionary, but I’m pretty sure that translates as “Yeah yeah, right and wrong, this is just standard business procedure, that’s all America has ever cared about.”
- Now that the St. Louis Rams lawsuit is all over but for the shouting about how the NFL and Rams owner Stan Kroenke will split the $790 million settlement cost, it’s also time for the city and county of St. Louis and the local stadium authority to fight about how they will split the proceeds.
- Buffalo’s Investigative Post is suing the state of New York to force the release of two studies commissioned by the Bills owners that looked into the relative feasibility of building a new stadium or renovating the existing one, and evaluated the economic impact of the Bills’ presence in the state. Please note that this is not the study of stadium renovation costs that Erie County is refusing to release without blacking out almost all of it; rather, these are two other studies that Gov. Kathy Hochul is refusing to release at all, though her administration admits it has copies. The odds on the suit forcing the documents’ release before Hochul puts a new stadium in the 2022 state budget seem slim, but at least maybe it will let us point and laugh after the fact.
- The New York Islanders‘ new arena is causing a traffic nightmare for its neighbors in Elmont, with fans “parking anywhere they want, urinating and cursing,” according to WCBS-TV. Things may improve once a new arena parking garage is complete, but it’s probably best not to hope that a lot more fans will start taking the train instead.
- “Last year, a report out of central Florida showed that only 23.9 percent of NFL senior executives are anything but white men. All of that whiteness has manifested itself, disproportionately, in the stands and in luxury boxes, where white NFL owners get brandished on every telecast as their team’s No. 1 fan. Those owners have endeavored to remake the front-facing part of their customer base in their image, and they are succeeding. Money is their foremost tool to accomplish this task.” That all is some pretty solid structural political analysis, especially from a column titled Drew Magary’s Thursday Afternoon NFL Dick Joke Jamboroo.
Mixing up a plus with a minus and not understanding direct information leaked by an investment banker are two entirely different things, Neil.
Cut Ozanian a break. He has broken as much news as anyone on sports franchise sales, including cases where he’s been proven right after leagues or teams deny his initial reports.
Also, you know as well as anyone that A) Tempe is a longshot, and B) Houston (or Quebec city, for that matter) can only happen if the team is sold to the arena leaseholder. It only makes sense that Merulo would have started the sale process by now. He can always back out if Tempe somehow comes through.
The team very well may get sold and/or move to Houston eventually, but it’s hard to believe that Meurelo would be giving up on his Tempe idea already. Has there even been a municipal meeting about it?
And if and when he does give up and sell them, why would he try to steer them to Houston specifically? If they’re leaving, why would he care?
I believe Elliott Friedman reported that Fertitta has said he’d consider hosting an NHL team as the Rockets’ tenant, but he doesn’t want to buy an NHL team at the prevailing price, which, based on the Penguins sale and Kraken expansion, is north of $700m.
So what owner is going to move them to Houston?
There have been no presentation of the overall viability of the proposal submitted by Meruelo at any public meeting. All activity, so far, has been played out in the media.
I still cannot fathom why a non-NFL team would move to Vegas. Your revenue is directly tied to your media market and Vegas media market is 40th while the SF Bay market is 6th. Even if the stadium is 100% publicly paid the owner will lose a fortune on the TV deal.
Las Vegas, for the longest time, was taboo due to gambling. Then, once someone finally bit and put a team there, everyone decided to move because of the gambling.
The tv money can be offset by the sponsorship opportunities. Plus the various casinos buying premium seating for VIP guests/players will certainly help.
The knights having such out of the box success on and off the ice certainly makes a team like the athletics interested in the market.
Magary is dumb and an enemy of math.
“Money is their foremost tool to accomplish this task. According to the last Census, the average yearly income for white Americans is $100,005. For black Americans, $67,593. The median ticket price for an NFL game, right now, is $386, which means that fans who have more disposable income—white fans—are much more likely to populate the stands. And this is true even though, percentage-wise, the NFL has more avid black fans than they do in ANY other demographic.”
200MM people in us are white (which either includes or does not include hispanic, but it does not matter). 0.33*200MM = 66MM. Black (including or not including hispanic, but again does not matter) is 42MM. 0.44*42MM = 18.48MM. Hispanic as a group (which can be black or white or not or some combination) is 60.5MM. 0.38*60.5MM = 22.99MM.
Ignoring others, an NFL stadium full of avid fans would be 61% white, 21% hispanic, and 17.2% black.
And nowhere near 17.2% of fans in the stands at NFL games are Black, thanks to the ticket pricing and income disparities described by Magary.
It is much more complicated than that, but my point was that Margay is using dishonest numbers to make a point that does not exist, which makes anything else he writes suspect.
He also does some sleight of hand to compare a median and to a mean. I would question that $386 median price. This is a clear attempt to take advantage of ignorance of math. That is a bad practice and you of all people should not be supporting it.
If the money is where he is claiming, then the NFL’s best response would be to increase outreach to rich white fans to get them in the premium seats spending $25 for a small beer and a pretzel to maximize game day revenue anyway.
They should also be looking for “others” as support there is low because NFL revenue is not just ticket sales. TV numbers and merch matter too. They can only sell so many tickets, but t-shirts, jerseys, coolers, christmas decorations, etc can be sold in unlimited supply to fans everywhere.
I get your point, but it’s wrong. Pointing out that most people in the U.S. are white does not contradict the idea that fewer non-white people go to NFL games than would if prices were lower.
If you want to argue that NFL owners aren’t racist, they’re just trying to maximize profits by marketing to the people with the most gold doubloons overflowing their pockets, that’s a different thing, and starts to get into individual vs. structural racism. But Magary’s math is fine.
The Cobb County Braves have entered the thread lol
More people would have diamonds, Ferraris, and nose jobs if they were cheaper. So what?
The data presented is not relevant to the argument being made. What is relevant? Actual data. Perhaps NFL demographic profiles of fans and populations of areas around stadiums.
And lower prices are no guarantee of fans in the stands anyway. 49 of however many NBA and NHL teams there are can be seen at home for less than $20. A number of teams have tickets for less than $10. Why are black people, who you think are poor, not attending these games? Because they do not want to go, which is coincidentally the same reason white people and asian people and hispanic people and women and everyone else is not in the stands.
The NFL has high prices to maximize revenue for the few games it has. People accept this and spend $100+ a seat to watch idiots make themselves dumber by running into each other. Trying to make this about race is really dumb and requires a dishonest argument.
I see scant evidence to support the theory that ticket pricing and “income disparity” (nice of our lefty media to effectively stereotype Black people as broke…) are the reasons Black people underindex on NFL game attendance. Especially if you’ve ever looked at the racial makeup in floor seats at a big boxing match or an NBA game.
Ah yes, the lefty media, the most viewed and read of which are *checks notes* Fox News and even further right wing outlets.
“Especially if you’ve ever looked at the racial makeup in floor seats at a big boxing match or an NBA game”
And, pray tell, what would that be…Ben ?
Maybe that different sports appeal to different fans for a variety of different reasons? I would have thought it simply inarguable that the NHL fanbase is composed of a larger percentage of white people than the NBA fanbase. I’ve never thought of the NHL as specifically encouraging black fans, but it never occurred to me the reason they were not more attracted to the sport is high ticket prices. https://morningconsult.com/2020/09/10/sports-fan-base-demographic-data/
I don’t see how the whiteness of the fanbase is at all caused by the whiteness of the ownership or that the whiteness of the executives is “manifested” in the stands. Maybe Magary doesn’t know what “manifested” means.
They’re both caused by the same collection of historical and economic forces that ensures that high-income families are disproportionately white. But “rich people are disproportionately white” is not really much of a hot take, I’d imagine.
Some of the owners might be a bit racist, but they’ve shown over and over that all they really care about is maximizing their margins and their franchise values.
The NFL owners in particular don’t seem to care all that much about filling their stadiums. They care about TV money and their corporate ticket sales.
What *is* worth asking is whether or not the increasing inaccessibility of live games will eventually reduce fans’ interest in watching on TV. And, if so, will that impact be disproportionately seen among people of color.
That doesn’t seem to be the case so far. If the NFL and NBA were losing Black fans or the interest of Black kids, it would’ve been on a talk radio show like Sports Chat… or Sportzilla and the Jabber Jocks!
The whole purpose for the parking garage being constructed as part of the Belmont Development is for the hotel and yet to be constructed upscale shopping center both to be built next door to the garage.
Non-season ticket holders for Islander games and for all other events must park in the “Emerald” parking lot which is behind the racetrack and a one mile walk to the arena (although there are shuttle buses). Whatever parking there is close to the arena is reserved for luxury suite holders and the Islander season ticket holders.
Similar to Newark, as a result, people prefer to park on the streets near the arena at no charge.
The Elmont town officials and Nassau County should not be surprised that this was the result.
At the Nassau Coliseum, there was amble parking around the arena and no street parking.
Clearly, there will have to be accommodations made or the parking garage will have to be expanded (with the Islanders ownership bearing the cost) as they are in part for the expansion of the LIRR stop at Belmont to a full time station instead of a railroad spur to the racetrack.
Stay tuned.
I would suggest that those towns figure out a way to make money off those parking spots. The arena is built. The train system isn’t going to get fixed soon. As a wise man once said about the rain. “Complaining about it isn’t going to help.”
I’m actually in favor of stadiums/arenas not offering much parking near the arena. It just takes up a lot of space that could be used for something better and it encourages people to drive, which isn’t climate-friendly.
But that only works if the transit option works. And it sure as hell isn’t going to work if there is free parking nearby, even if it annoys the neighbors.
The Islanders informed me that the garage is for season ticket holders, and yes, non-season ticket holders need to park a mile away/take a shuttle.
I’ve taken the train coming from the East the last two games, and it’s been a good experience. From the time you arrive at Queens Village LIRR to your arrival at Belmont Park Arena is 15 minutes.
Looks like the Islanders have about 12,000 season ticket holders, out of 18,500 capacity?
Do concertgoers all have to park at the shuttle site, then?
My guess is the garage will be available to all for concerts. Right now people can park in the south lot (for more money) but in a year the south lot will be a mall so for Islanders games non-season ticket holders will only have the one mile away lot.
Why even bother with a retractable roof in Las Vegas that (if you’re lucky) will be open 10-15 days a year?
I agree they don’t need one, Steve, but I mean… someone else is paying, so why not have a gold leaf retractable roof with holographic display projectors built right in (even if they haven’t been invented yet).
Would love to have an NHL team here in Houston (esp with the Aeros namesake) and win the Stanely Cup so we can become the only hockey city to have won all 4 major North American hockey cup titles.
Here are the other 3 we’ve won:
AVCO Cup – World Hockey Association (with Gordie Howe!)
Turner Cup – International Hockey League
Calder Cup – American Hockey League
Not sure how to define “major” – does The Kelly Cup count – but those would be the four “majorest.”
I think I define “major” trophy because we won those 3. Selective criteria!
But genuinely I think the ECHL is a step below the leagues listed.
I don’t pretend to know what exactly is going on in the NHL, but the Arizona Coyotes have obviously been one of the most intentionally mismanaged organizations in league history. The league doesn’t even try to hide their mistakes in Arizona. It’s like they’re trying so hard to avoid the inevitable; the Coyotes are moving to some other market, whether that be Houston or anywhere else. Long story short, the NHL has never and will never work in Arizona, and the sooner they cut their losses there, the better.
Ideally you would think of markets like Portland, Salt Lake City, Milwaukee, or Hartford to put an NHL team in, and Houston will always contend, but in the state the NHL is in now I find everything about the Coyotes comical at best.
The fans and media there – at least the ones I’ve encountered – have an entitled attitude like “everyone else is jealous that they don’t get to live in an oven and we’re such a huge city that the NHL has no choice but to let us have a team.”
That’s not true. The league has left Atlanta, twice, and Atlanta is bigger than Phoenix. It will leave Arizona if it has to. Gary Bettman himself said in an interview that they don’t want a team to move until and unless they can’t find an owner and an arena to keep it where it is. That is what happened in Atlanta, so I don’t see any reason to not believe that is the owners’ current approach. They have an owner who wants to keep them in Arizona and a vague plan for an arena.
It’s not at all clear that “it will never work” in Arizona. The other owners – or at least a majority of them – seem to believe that it’s worth trying to let them get an arena in a more favorable location. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t have bought the team out of bankruptcy and all that a decade ago. The owners greedy and not people I’d generally want to associate with, but I trust that they’ve done enough market research to have good reason to hope that a better location and a better on-ice product would turn things around. It is, at least, possible that’s true.
More importantly, there are no obviously better options.
The two biggest cities in North America without an NHL team are Mexico City and Houston.
Mexico City would be tough for lots of reasons, so they’re looking at Houston, but there’s no owner ready to make a deal there. At least not yet. If there were, Houston would already have a team. And yet, as far as I can recall, there has never been a serious bid from Houston for an expansion team nor were they in the mix during any of the relocations in the 90s. At least, not from what I can recall.
The places you mention – SLC and Milwaukee – are fairly small markets. So even a relatively more popular team there would probably not have as much upside as Arizona or Houston. But if they have an owner and a building, they could try. I suspect the Wirtz’ would try to keep a team out of Milwaukee, but maybe not.
Portland is a possibility. But again. Who would own it? Where would they play? Do the Blazers want a co-tenant and if so, what terms would they offer. If those problems were easy to solve, Portland probably would have a team by now. But they don’t, so clearly it’s not that easy.
Hartford is a non-starter. Not only is it the 48th ranked metro area by population, it’s wedged between two markets that already have big fan bases so the TV market is limited.
Quebec and Kansas City have arenas already, so those are possibilities, but the owner of the KC building does not seem to be interested.
Quebec would have no trouble filling the building every night and the Nordiques 2.0 could be a great institution for that area, but Quebec is a pretty small city. It’s not clear there is enough corporate interest to offer the kinds of sponsorships and so forth.
From the owners’ and ESPN’s perspective, it makes more sense to try to put teams in new markets where they can create new fans. Most of the people in Quebec and eastern Canada who will ever watch hockey on TV are probably already watching it.
And, the other teams don’t want to move a team from the west to the east because of the schedule/travel balance.
On the other hand, there may be some advertisers and media companies that want another team to provide more French language content and more visibility to French-speakers in Canada. That’s a unique feature of Quebec that I have not seen mentioned in any of these discussions. Of course, that’s another reason why the Molsons, who own the Habs, might try to block it.
Again, I don’t pretend to know what is going on with the Coyotes’ situation. It’s being mishandled no matter how you view it; whether from a fan’s perspective or from a corporate perspective.
If they are committed to staying in Arizona, then stop messing around and get a new arena built for the team instead of dangling carrots over Arizona sports fans for another 10 years or so.
I throw out those locations not because I myself am supportive of them. Realistically, many of those locations won’t work because of how the NHL and their economic model functions now.
Ultimately, I don’t care what happens to the Coyotes because professional sports as it is today is far too driven by corporate greed and whatever the “powers that be” want, never about what fans want. It’s their own grave that they wish to dig.
Getting an arena built is not simply a question of will, even if it’s privately funded, which they rarely are.
The Coyotes situation is they don’t have any good options – or maybe even bad ones – for where to go while they work on getting the new place built.
Other teams that were struggling to survive in suboptimal arenas at least had a place to play and make some money while working on the new one.
Hey Neil, looks like you have supporter.
Stadium subsidies are just corporate welfare for sports moguls
https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/stadium-subsidies-are-just-corporate-welfare-for-sports-moguls
Late breaking (bad) news again.
NEWS: Coyotes may be locked out of Gila River Arena by City of Glendale for unpaid arena charges and delinquent tax bills
https://theathletic.com/news/coyotes-could-be-locked-out-of-home-arena-by-city-of-glendale-for-unpaid-arena-charges-delinquent-tax-bills/ArAVPFTj0LId/
Coyotes blame ‘human error,’ vow to pay all bills to avoid arena lockout
https://www.sportsnet.ca/nhl/article/coyotes-blame-human-error-vow-pay-bills-avoid-arena-lockout/