Happy next-to-last Friday of 2021! Whether you’re traveling for the holidays or hunkering down to avoid spreading Omicron, Field of Schemes never sleeps, or at least not when we forgot to do an early weekly news roundup on Thursday so as to avoid having to work on Friday, whoops. But good thing we waited, because newsmakers are following their year-end tradition of making news when nobody is paying attention, so if anyone is reading this, you’re not just killing time until your Zoom holiday call, you’re sticking it to the man.
On with the show:
- New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s administration has finally released that 2019 Buffalo Bills study of new stadium options that she had been refusing to release, doing so on the last night before Christmas Eve, as one does when one wants news to sink without a trace. The study, by consultants CAA Icon, includes price tags for a stadium in Buffalo ($1.99 billion) and in suburban Orchard Park ($1.55 billion), as well as two renovation options for the current stadium ($1.91 billion and $459 million, depending on whether they rebuild the whole thing or just the allegedly-falling-down upper deck), and says of the project’s economic impact … wait, there’s nothing on economic impact. What happened to the promises of $793 million in increased economic activity? Did they leave those pages out? Is this yet another study, not the one Hochul has been withholding? That one was supposed to be co-written by CAA Icon and Populous, and this one just says CAA Icon, though Populous’s name is on the renderings, but anyway everybody’s on vacation now, don’t try to call for answers!
- SportsNet reports that the Toronto Blue Jays owners have decided not to replace whatever SkyDome is called these days (I know, I know, it’s Rogers Centre, but I like to avoid corporate names wherever possible), but rather do a $200-250 million renovation that would include a “redesign of the lower bowl,” no more details available. Nor are there any reports on whether the Jays owners plan to foot that whole bill themselves or seek public money; SportsNet says “details should be wrapped up next month,” so tune back in next month, I guess!
- Washington Football Team owner Daniel Snyder is reportedly looking at stadium sites in Prince William and Loudoun counties, according to state senator Jeremy McPike, who said Snyder could be looking at a stadium with less capacity but with a dome (retractable? he didn’t say) surrounded by development. Sen. McPike also didn’t provide any details about cost or public cost beyond asserting that “the days of taxpayer fully-funded stadiums have fully gone by the wayside” — though not taxpayer mostly-funded stadiums — but nonetheless said the idea was “something to keep our mind open to” because, uh, something about economic development impact, no followup questions, please, it’s Christmas!
- The Advocate’s editorial board says spending $300 million in public money toward a $450 million re-renovation of the New Orleans Saints‘ Superdome is “a bargain in comparison” to losing the team and/or being ruled out for future Super Bowls, which would definitely happen because so sorry, out of room for this editorial, happy holidays!
- Big article in the New York Times last Friday about the Arizona Coyotes situation that didn’t really break any new ground, but it does include Glendale city manager Kevin Phelps saying that he’s come to the conclusion that Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo didn’t just forget to pay his tax bill but rather has a company policy of dealing with disputes by refusing to make payments and daring creditors to sue: “It may be built into the culture and value of the organization that they can wear a creditor down and negotiate a better deal.” Try this at home with your landlords and credit card companies, kids, and see how far it gets you! As always, membership in the 800-pound-gorilla club is the gift that keeps on giving.
One other thing Neil. The City of Oakland released the Howard Terminal Final EIR last Friday. Haven’t really gotten into it due to the holidays (that’s why they release 3000 page documents in December), but Marine Layer has a great write up at Newballpark.
One thing I did notice is the proposed main overcrossing at the railroad has no pedestrian access due to its excessive grade. Trains need a 30 foot clearance and this causes the bridge to be very steep.
Might read some more if the rain keeps up.
Do you mean this writeup? It was still pre-EIR release:
https://newballpark.org/2021/12/16/final-eir-eve/
I believe the City released it the next day:
https://www.oaklandca.gov/news/2021/city-of-oakland-publishes-final-eir-on-waterfront-ballpark-district-at-howard-terminal-2
Thanks — just wanted to be sure there wasn’t a Marine Layer analysis I had missed.
Marine Layer/Newballpark is awesomeness! Imagine deciding
“think I will spend some time covering the A’s new ballpark plans”
and it turns into a multi-decade lifes work?
Nope nope, can’t picture anything like that happening at all…
Thanks Neil, for another excellent
article(?) column(?) that peeks “behind the curtain” and all your excellent work throughout the years (as I love to read the archives) and since I’m on a roll with this very over budget sentence I will close with: Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays
(take your pick)!
P.S. See what I did there? You can’t be offended because you have a choice (I should have been a lawyer…..
Beloved sports franchise = “we’re out of here unless!”
Nobody-gives-a-shit sports franchise = “we’re never leaving!”
Is the Advocate the same Advocate that is a magazine covering LGBTQ+ issues? I didn’t know they were addressing stadium issues now.
No, the New Orleans Advocate changed its name to just The Advocate (to be more regional, I guess), despite the magazine of that name already existing. I don’t know how this worked in terms of trademark and such, but for now we have both theadvocate.com and advocate.com fighting for Advocate dominance.
So the Cleveland Guardians even stole the idea of stealing someone else’s already trademarked name???
I shouldn’t be surprised.
To try to better explain, The Advocate is Baton Rouge’s main newspaper (and has been known as The Advocate since before the magazine existed). The Times-Picayune (New Orleans’ main newspaper) was acquired by The Advocate a couple of years ago. Prior to the acquisition, The Advocate had been running a separate New Orleans edition called The New Orleans Advocate for a few years. Currently, each metro has their own version of the paper with most of the content the same. The New Orleans version is called The Time-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate.
I should correct myself, Baton Rouge’s paper was known as the “Morning Advocate” from 1925 to I believe 1991 when its sister publication the “State-Times” ended (Advocate was the morning paper, State-Times was the afternoon paper). Afterwards, it went by simply “The Advocate”. Don’t know if there was a trademark problem with that or not.
Thanks for the better explanation — The Advocate only hit my radar once the New Orleans edition came out, so I hadn’t realized the Baton Rouge one came first.
Thanks for your work this year Neil.
And Merry Christmas & Happy New Year to all.
Next in the Coyotes’ bag-o-tricks: sell season tickets and skip town. Go ahead, try to get yer money back, bub!
Yes, the Athletic piece linked in Shoalts’ article is quite revealing…
I guess it’s possible that the Meruelo group were the only party interested in owning the team. Nevertheless, the way Katie Strang’s excellent piece reads they seem like they would be the worst possible owners for any sports franchise.