Friday roundup: Titans seek $300m in tax kickbacks to keep stadium “first-class,” Bucs could be next

Happy first Friday roundup of 2022! A couple of days ago I thought maybe we’d have a refreshing lull in new stadium demand news to start the year, but then hell started a-popping to make up for lost time:

  • When the Tennessee Titans moved from Houston in 1997, they became one of the teams to get a state-of-the-art clause requiring their city to spend whatever it takes to keep their new stadium “first-class” relative to other NFL stadiums. (The St. Louis Rams, who moved two years earlier, ended up using their clause to demand a whole new stadium, then when that didn’t happen to break their lease and move to Los Angeles.) Now, a year after dropping hints and some renderings about what kind of upgrades they were looking for, Titans owner Amy Adams Strunk has revealed the price tag: $600 million, half of which would be funded by kicking back future sales taxes from 130 acres of land around the stadium. This would be part of a lease extension for the Titans, which makes one wonder why the state-of-the-art clause in the old lease is even in play, but when you have Nashville Convention and Visitors Corp. CEO Butch Spyridon saying “there’s a sizzle that comes with Nashville because of the entertainment industry” and “you can’t buy that kind of aura,” it may be too much to hope for hard-nosed bargaining.
  • Tampa Bay Buccaneers will not seek a new stadium, county commissioner says” is the headline in today’s Tampa Bay Business Journal, but it leaves out what Hillsborough County commissioner Ken Hagan also said: “They’re going to want to ensure that we’re continuing to make that a world-class facility so you don’t need a new facility.” Bucs owners the Glazer family just got $29 million in renovation money in 2016 (plus $10 million in federal pandemic stimulus money in 2020); no word yet on what the Glazers will be asking for this time around, but given that Hagan is already setting this up as at least it’ll be cheaper than a whole new stadium, expect it to be a lot.
  • New York Gov. Kathy Hochul ended up not discussing Buffalo Bills stadium spending in her State of the State address, but a team spokesperson and Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz both say there should be an announcement soonish.
  • The Voice of San Diego has a long story about San Diego’s Frontier neighborhood, an integrated community with low rents built by the federal government to solve a World War II housing crisis that the city demolished in the 1960s in the name of “urban renewal” and replaced with its sports arena. There was a lot of that going around in Southern California at the time.
  • For those readers who complain that this site focuses too much on sports subsidies when plenty of non-sports construction projects get equally huge taxpayer gifts — there aren’t many, since most readers appreciate that life is short and corporate welfare is long, but I hear from you occasionally — here’s a story about how the state of Texas is giving Samsung $981 million in property tax breaks plus $260 million in infrastructure improvements for a new chip plant in the Austin suburb of Taylor. Good Jobs First has calculated that this will be the largest subsidy deal in Texas history, but Taylor Mayor Brandt Rydell responded, “Whether we would end up on some list and wind up being criticized for the project, that is not something we were concerned about.” Damn naysayers, always saying nay! Anyway, hope Taylor residents are okay with paying property taxes while the giant electronics company down the road doesn’t.
  • And finally, your moment of vaportecture:

https://twitter.com/jvhawkins/status/1478777675586101249

 

Other Recent Posts:

Share this post:

9 comments on “Friday roundup: Titans seek $300m in tax kickbacks to keep stadium “first-class,” Bucs could be next

  1. I just wanted to thank Neil for all the fine work that he does. Unfortunately he has too much to write about. I’d love for there to be nothing for him to write about but then again I’d love to have hair on top of my head and get picked up hitchhiking by an RV filled with super models.
    Also having moved from Alaska to the east coast I’m a little disappointed that the Friday roundup isn’t waiting in my mailbox for me when I get up.

    Keep up the great work!

  2. Glad to see more coverage of the Samsung subsidy! I just wanted to point out that Taylor residents will be happy with this deal because of Chapter 313.

    https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/news/2021/11/16/taylor-isd-chapter-313-samsung-agreement.html

    Texas funds education through property taxes. There’s system that recaptures local tax dollars from property-rich districts and redistributes the funds to property-poor districts. But payments from companies to school districts aren’t included in this financing system! So Taylor ISD will see a revenue boost and other districts will pay for the tax break.

    1. Yeah, it’s fine for Taylor, bad for Texas. Chapter 313 expires at the end of the year, so expect more companies to rush to get in under the gun:

      https://www.texastribune.org/2021/12/09/corporate-tax-incentive-chapter-313-texas-legislature/

  3. Neil, it’s unfair to say “broke their lease” when referring to the Rams in St. Louis.

    The lease was broken by St. Louis. An arbitrator ruled that the Rams proposal for dome modernization fit the terms of the lease, and St. Louis then decided to break the lease instead of paying for the Rams’ proposed renovations.

    1. I would say “broke their lease” is fine shorthand for “arm-twisted St. Louis to let them out of their lease.”

      1. Also, the Rams never demanded or even wanted a new stadium from St. Louis. They wanted a renovated dome.

        1. A renovated dome was Kroenke’s initial ask, but when an arbitrator ruled that St. Louis would have to spend $700m to sufficiently upgrade it, the city started looking at building new:

          https://www.fieldofschemes.com/2013/02/04/4479/arbitrators-rule-for-rams-st-louis-must-cough-up-700m-or-let-team-walk/

          Then he refused to answer the phone to talk about stadium plans, so we’ll never really know if he preferred a renovation or a new stadium (or really preferred to drive up the price tag to where he could break his lease and move to Los Angeles, HINT HINT IT WAS THIS ONE):

          https://www.fieldofschemes.com/2015/01/08/8327/rams-owner-now-refusing-to-pick-up-the-phone-when-st-louis-officials-call/

  4. Yeah, Texas’s Samsung deal was and is godawful. But if you want the worst deal of the year, we think it’s North Carolina’s $846+ million, 39-year subsidy for Apple: https://economicaccountability.org/2021/12/29/north-carolinas-massive-apple-subsidy-recognized-as-worst-economic-development-deal-of-the-year-for-2021-by-the-center-for-economic-accountability/.

    There’s at least a vaguely plausible argument that Samsung could have located that Texas plant elsewhere — doesn’t make it a good idea, but at least it meets the most basic requirement for a subsidy. Meanwhile, North Carolina’s supposed competition for an R&D campus with a heavy focus on artificial intelligence was…Ohio.

    This is now the second year in a row that North Carolina has handed out the most expensive subsidy deal in state history. (And shockingly, neither involved David Tepper, although just give him time.)

Comments are closed.