Jaguars exec: Give us public money for renovated stadium, it’s a bargain compared to a whole new one!

26 comments on “Jaguars exec: Give us public money for renovated stadium, it’s a bargain compared to a whole new one!”

1. “Don’t think for a moment the path to keeping a team in the city is team performance.”

   Think we all already knew that — because if that were the case, the folks up there probably would’ve driven the entire team out into the Atlantic ocean on a fleet of broken down dinghies years ago.

2. So, what he’s saying is no matter what money you give us, the team will still suck.

   1. Yes. It’s just like Let’s Make a Deal, except that the Monte Hall character is just an employee paid to lie to the general public, Carol Merrill is noticeably absent and the prizes behind all three doors are shit.

      1. Door #1 – Jacksonville Jaguars (zonk)

         Door #2 – Miami Marlins (zonk)

         Door #3 – Orlando Magic (zonk)

         1. Exactly!!!

            I might add the perpetually moribund Coyotes to the mix, but to each their own.

3. It’s bad enough that the Jaguars think now is a good time to ask the public to renovate their stadium after the shambolic season they just had. But to ask for it on the owner’s yacht? Unbelievable…

   1. Hey, you give some desperately poor journos a short visit to a place where the elite live and you’ll get endless column inches on the wonders of a new or massively renovated stadium.

      Because if they don’t carry your water for you, you can always refuse to schedule another press conference on the yacht. And threaten to move the team (again), which since they cover the team for the local media… ummm….

      Just another Shad Shakedown.

      And, as Lamping has suggested, no-one should think that with the improvements the team will actually be any better. Or that they won’t be back in ten years for more money.

      Speaking of which, if Shahid Khan is “saving” Jacksonville taxpayers $600m by limiting his demands to a heavily modified stadium, wouldn’t it be only fair to just write him a check for half of the $600m he is saving the taxpayers by not demanding a shiny brand new stadium (yet)?

      I mean, fair is fair….

      Also, can we just call it JacksonBill now? You know this is never going to stop…

4. He said “return on investment. ”
   HAHAHAHAHA!

5. Can you truly put a price on civic pride? That’s the greatest ROI of all.

6. We’ve had 8 moves in the NFL in the last 35 years, compared to 2 in the NBA, 1 in MLB, and 4 in the NHL so its not ridiculous to believe the threat is real. Whether you care if a team leaves or not or if you think its not worth (not just in economic terms but also in terms of having the amenity) paying the price to keep a team in town is a different argument

   1. Eight moves and three major lawsuits related to the moves (Raiders 1 & 2 and Rams 2 – or 3 if you count them moving from Cleveland but almost no-one does).

      Three of those moves were also the Raiders alone, but I guess there’s nothing wrong with counting all three (though on another front, Los Angeles has lost two teams and gained… two… so is that four relocations or a net zero?)

      I agree it’s a different argument whether the threat is real or whether spending keep a team is worth it. I just don’t see where anyone above made an argument that the threat is not real?

      Knowing that the owners will move at the drop of a hat should not be seen as an inducement to spending money on the franchise… offering an NFL owner money to remain in situ is a bit like agreeing to marry someone who promises to stay with you until someone better or richer comes along.

      To look at the cold financials, spending $750m to rent an NFL team 10 times a year for 35 years equates to $2.1m per game (including preseason games and the occasional playoff). This number does not include bond interest or other associated costs (policing or facility upgrades, loss of revenue that might otherwise be generated by a 50-75 acre parcel of municipal land, demolition and site remediation at the end of the stadium’s life etc).

      There is value to having a big league team. The trouble is that the people who make these decisions never have to justify the cost to gain that value, nor even explain what that cost is over the full term of the rental contract.

      1. Because only the people who work at, say, a Westinghouse plant are semi-emotionally attached to the Westinghouse plant. So, if Westinghouse says they’re going to move their plan to Wisconsin or Monterrey, most would just shrug.

         But move your pro sports team? People lose their minds. Even though most municipalities would be just fine if their team left (the value of being “a big-league city” is ridiculously overrated), the conversation goes like this:

         Someone: “Every study shows you’re not going to get a return on investment, you’re not going to spur investment that wouldn’t otherwise happen, you could better spend that money on things that benefit everybody and most of your citizens will never set foot in said building.”

         What they hear: “Blah blah blah blah blah return on investment blah blah blah benefit everybody blah blah blah.”

         I hope the tide is turning, but I don’t know. Birmingham and Jefferson County are going to pony up a million or more to get 43 second-rate football games that no one will go to on the premise and belief that FS1 saying “Birmingham” will cause people across the country to say to themselves, “You know, I should really take my family to Birmingham for a week’s vacation.”

         I don’t know what’s going to have to happen. Jacksonville deserved an NFL team in the first place like Elvis deserved his black belt.

         But I’d be in favor of (though it’s not a cure-all) all expenditures of public money (even public money they try to tell you isn’t really public money because people from out of town are paying it) be put to a referendum. If it passes, fine. If not, move to Greensboro.

         1. Elvis catching a stray there. Did not see that coming.

         2. If by “they” you mean “sports fans,” though, that’s largely not true. Yes, there are some vocal fans who feel like a win for the owner is a win for the team whose souvenir jerseys they wear. But — and this surprised Joanna and I as much as anyone when we discovered it —there are also a ton who don’t want to pay twice, once at the ticket window and once on tax day. Which is why team owners seldom want to go to referendums, unless they can be assured that they can buy enough ads to swing the vote their way.

7. Here’s a question for you:

   It’s now quite common for team owners to sell PSLs to fund a portion of “their” contribution to a stadium.

   So why don’t municipalities effectively do the same thing?

   Instead of holding public meetings (which are crammed with both pro and anti stadium advocates almost to the exclusion of all others) about whether or not to invest public money in a stadium for the local squad…. why not open a general stadium fund account and ask residents to contribute whatever they can to show how important the team is to them and how much they want a new stadium? At the end of the open donation period (say, 60-90 days), with the municipal government would agree to match each contribution to the fund dollar for dollar.

   If the residents of Jacksonville are willing to pony up $100m in donations to Shahid Khan’s welfare fund voluntarily, I’d be fine with an equivalent amount of general taxpayer funds matching that.

   Wouldn’t this be a better way to determine what the real public interest is in the project than holding meetings that will only draw in both polarized extremes?

   I’m tempted to say team employees and the owners themselves should be excluded, but whatever.

   Of course, we could say that the owner should be willing to match the donated funds dollar for dollar in order to get the municipal gov’t to match as well… it would make it less likely that the owners would seek to funnel their own money into the “public” fund, if they are effectively matching 2 for 1.

   1. Would you apply the same to an art museum? When I was in Cleveland the same people who railed against a 4.5 cent per pack cigarette tax for stadiums were cool with 30 cents per pack for the arts. They never admitted that their argument was simply “my hobby is better than yours” Governments spend tax money for entertainment/amenities all the time. Why do only sports subsidies generate this outrage?

      1. A bunch of that Cleveland money goes to things like arts education, which is more arguably a public amenity than something you have to pay $100 a ticket for.

         But the bigger answer is that lots of people are upset at subsidizing lots of different for-profit businesses, it’s just that sports subsidies are 1) higher profile, because more people pay attention to sports than art museums, and 2) a hell of a lot more than most other subsidies. Even Cleveland only gives about $11 million a year to arts groups, which is way less than it spends on any of its sports teams.

         That said, if anyone wants to read a site all about, say, wasteful film subsidies, I’ll happily create one.

         1. Since the Arts tax passed in 2006 its spent $218 million. Granted that’s less than pent on sports (I was a smoker when I lived there so for me I was spending more on arts in taxes then sports). But either way we’re spending on amenities and entertainment. Which one is a bigger part of the culture of Cleveland arts or sports?

            1. Which is “a bigger part of the culture” is going to vary depending on who you ask, I imagine.

               Again, you also need to take into account not just what Clevelanders are spending in tax money, but what they’re getting in return. If an arts organization provides, say, free or discounted admission for local residents, then that’s a benefit that is not being provided by the sports teams. If they’re charging whatever the market will bear like a sports team, I (and I imagine most subsidy watchers) would agree that both are subsidies in the same way.

            2. Neil – Its more of a case that we’re paying for both having 3 major league sports teams in town and we are paying for arts organizations. Neither one of which is a necessity per se. They are both amenities that people enjoy having in town. When I say what’s a bigger part of the culture, I mean what do most people enjoy having around more? Do you think more people (and I use Cleveland as an example because that’s where I lived) care about? The Browns or the art museum? I don’t think its a big leap to say people are more engaged with the Browns are playing the Steelers then when a Van Gogh exhibit comes to town. When there was a renewal of the sin tax to pay for ongoing maintenance of the venues there were people in the arts community that were saying that’s a regressive tax because it targeted the poor, etc. When the arts tax was on the ballot about a year later literally the same people were saying how important it was that we pass it. So why is taxing smokers for one regressive and taxing smokers 6x as much for the other essential? They are basically saying “everyone should fund my hobby not yours because my hobby is better than yours”

            3. If it’s about what’s most popular, the biggest government subsidies should go to Beyonce records.

            4. I mean part of the reason for the arenas (in the midsized cities anyway) is to lure national acts. When I was at a conference in Louisville in 2005 and the YUM Center was being proposed the local bankers were telling me they were losing out on concerts because they didn’t have a good venue for them. Now we will never be able to measure how much money people from Louisville spent at concerts in Indianapolis or Cincinnati that otherwise would have been spent in Louisville if that performer did a show there. So in a way the government is subsidizing Beyonce.

      2. It depends, Aqib. Is the arts museum going to generate $100m-$125m in new revenue for it’s owner (IE: more than enough to allow the owner to float a mortgage and build it himself like essentially every other business owner has to do)?

         Your argument is equating “all sports” subsidies with “all” arts subsidies. They are not the same.

         I am far more willing to pay a tax that allows school children to visit a museum with actual art in it (or a library with 100,000 books) than I would be to pay a tax that funds a private library owned by a billionaire that is either not open to the general public or charges $300 admission (which I would argue is close to the same as being not open to the general public).

         Similarly, I am more willing to pay a tax to fund actual public sports facilities (be they rec centres, modest minor league stadia or even public golf courses – though those are far more common than needed in many areas) that ordinary people can use than I am to fund exclusive private clubs for people who can afford professional sports tickets these days.

         If you were asking me to pay a tax to fund the construction and operation of a private NY art gallery owned by Jeffrey Loria, I would be equally opposed as I was to funding his Miami boondoggle.

         Suggesting “I pay taxes for art galleries and libraries and I don’t use them” is equivalent to “You should pay for the shiny new sports stadium I want and am able to buy tickets to visit” is not accurate. There is no equivalence there. There could be, if owners were willing to allow taxpayers free admission to their publicly funded buildings.

         1. Not exactly John. My argument is that we pay taxes for all kinds of amenities whether we use them or not. They aren’t essential services (like police, fire, water, etc.) but they contribute to the quality of life in the area. So if I am paying say $200 a year in assorted taxes to have 3 major league sports teams in my city. In my judgement its worth it for both marketing the city, drawing tourists, and making the city a more fun place to be. I voted for levies for the park system that I literally never used in 13 years because I saw once again it was good for the area to have that amenity. So while I agree that you’re never going to be able to prove the argument on a spreadsheet, there is still a case for having a team vs not having a team

8. As I’ve said before, the city of Jacksonville is definitely in a no-win situation with the Jaguars. Either they don’t pay up and lose the team to another market, or they do pay up in endless perpetuity -going into gigantic debt over mere sports and entertainment- and get bullied and harassed by the Khans and the NFL con artists in the process.

   All the while the terrible product on the field itself, the Jaguars, doesn’t do anything to justify the wheeling and dealing to begin with. I’d classify this as a lose-lose-we think we’re winning but it’s still a loss situation.

   1. This might actually be a good situation for the city to try seizing the team by eminent domain. If anything is a blighted property, it’s the Jaguars.

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