What is the deal with these five-day workweeks? Why isn’t Juliet Schor president by now? Four days work for five days pay! Sorry, where was I? Oh, right, sports stadium scams siphoning off public money to rich dudes, same thing as every day, Pinky:
- Cleveland Guardians owner Paul Dolan has officially extended the team’s lease through 2036 as part of a deal to provide $285 million in public funding toward a $435 million renovation of their 28-year-old stadium, two months after the Cleveland city council approved the annual tax subsidies. (Dolan was probably looking for a pen that worked.) Cleveland and Cuyahoga County can extend the lease for another five years by agreeing to pay for another $112.5 million in upgrades; getting your city landlord to pay you to play is truly the wave of the future, or the present, or whatever we’re living in these days.
- Arizona Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo is reportedly in talks to play home games temporarily at Arizona State University’s new arena, which only holds 5,000 people, which, sure, cue up your favorite “that’s more fans than the Coyotes have anyway” jokes. “We would be glad to help the Coyotes by providing a temporary home while their new arena is built just a couple of miles away,” said ASU CFO Morgan Olsen, which is maybe getting the cart a little before the horse given that the current Tempe city council lost interest in providing $200 million toward an arena once Meruelo was revealed to have been failing to pay his city taxes in Glendale, managing to get his team evicted from there. Could the Coyotes’ saga end up with them stuck in a tiny temporary home for years while continuing to repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot over new arena plans? Probably not, but it would definitely be on-brand.
- Greenville Triumph owner Joe Erwin wants a new $38.6 million soccer stadium, and are offering to pay, let’s see, they’ll “donate land they already own in the area” and “plan to bring upwards of a million dollars of equipment over from [their] temporary pitch.” The owner of the USL League One club is selling the stadium as multipurpose, enthusing, “We can play lacrosse on that field, American football on that field, rugby on that field. Heck, we can play ultimate frisbee on the field.” In my experience, USL League One teams can barely play soccer, but it’s nice to have self-confidence.
- Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee says he’d be willing to talk about making a “significant investment” to host a Super Bowl in Nashville, and is “engaged in talks” about public funding for NASCAR, and thinks it would be “awesome” for and MLB team to come to Nashville but says that would take “partnerships.” He didn’t mention spending state sales tax money on Tennessee Titans stadium upgrades this time, but maybe that’d be part of the Super Bowl “investment”? Either way, move over, Glenn Youngkin, there’s a new contender for the crown of Governor Most Eager to Give Public Money to the Local Sports Team and/or Other Corporations.
- Buffalo’s Investigative Post looks at how a Buffalo Bills stadium could be made to help the community it’s built in, and lands on the idea of community benefits agreements, which can “ensure the public receives some return on its investment.” Or, you know, not, as is often the case, especially in New York state.
- The Tampa Bay Times is conducting a reader survey of where the Rays should build a new stadium and who should pay for it, which is going to be unscientific as hell — I just filled it out, in hopes that this would let me see the results so far, but no dice — but that’s modern journalism for you. At least team owner Stu Sternberg will be happy that the local paper is still flogging his new-stadium dreams, rather than moving on to some other news or issues that might also be able to use public money.
Just think how many cities can now boast of having a “NHL-ready” arena.
Only 4 that I know of that don’t currently have a team but have a stadium that meets current NHL standards: Quebec City, Kansas City, Milwaukee, and Houston. Atlanta, Miami, and Hamilton, ON have older stadiums that would work in a pinch until something new was built. Other than that not many other options out there.
All of which have issues if you want to put a team there so no team is going to move to them except as an empty threat.
San Antonio, Orlando and Portland as well
My takes;
Cleveland Guardians – Ha! Have a good time convincing Clevelanders to accept the new Guardians team name!
Arizona Coyotes – Ha! Ha! Delaying the inevitable move and that classic “egg on your face” moment NHL team owners dread!
Greenville Triumph – Um… Don’t really care about soccer unless it involves European teams.
Tennessee sports in general – Ha! Ha! Ha! Pipe dreams galore!
Buffalo Bills – Kathy Hochul is (sadly) hilarious!
Tampa Bay Rays – Well… I’ve laughed more than enough times about their situation… ;-)
Re: the Guardians: Also it’s apparently going to be the “Washington Commanders,” which just confirms that all future sports team names are going to sound like superhero assemblages and/or home security companies.
https://www.npr.org/2022/01/28/1076272763/possible-new-name-washington-football-team-leaked
At this point, why not get a corporate sponsor as a team name just like in Japanese baseball.
So it’s come to this… real sports leagues are appropriating AAFL team names now….
Not sure the NHLPA will be OK with Coyotes moving to smaller arena. They get snippy when teams are not serious about maximizing revenue.
I can’t imagine that this would have been released publicly without the NHL’s consent… but I’m sure you are right that they aren’t all that thrilled. I guess their actual view of it will depend quite a bit on what the definition of “temporary” is.
If they stay in the Phoenix metro they can still shake down one local city or another for money for a few years (three? five?).
During the bankruptcy proceedings of 08/09, the NHL guaranteed the franchise qualification for full revenue sharing regardless whether they met the ticket and suite sales thresholds or not. I would expect something similar while they are in a 5,000 seat arena. If not, Mr. Meruelo is looking at $50m+ in annual losses rather than the $30m ish the franchise has become famous for.
MB said the NHLPA would object, not the NHL. I’d be surprised if something like this is subject to collective bargaining, though.
Really good discussion on this topic on Elliotte Friedman’s 32 Thoughts podcast.
The actual capacity once they make it NHL level (training and locker rooms, etc) may be closer to 3,200.
The PA is not at all happy about this. They probably can’t block it, but it’s one more thing that’s stirring up the players right now. They’ll have no leadership soon so the owners may find they’ve pushed them too far and reignited some real opposition among a union that has been pretty passive over the last decade.
This probably an attempt to renegotiate with Glendale, but they are standing firm. It’s personal this time.
They could make them like the Expos. Doomed to wander North America for a while.
So he did, thanks Neil.
re: the PA, even if it “player amenities” and/or minimum capacities were subject to the league’s CBA, this particular move would pretty clearly be covered under force majeure.
It’s not like the Coyotes have elected to end their lease and move to a college facility. The lease was terminated by their landlord (for perfectly sound reasons, but that hardly matters for the purpose of this discussion).
Teams are allowed some leeway on ‘temporary’ locations if their primary arena is not available.
Here is the link to the NHL Players’ Association Collective Bargaining agreement:
https://www.nhlpa.com/the-pa/cba
How many seats for the normally sell though, if they’re running 6-7k empty seats a game, the revenue change might not be all that different so from the players share or revenue perspective it’s a wash.
Just because you may typically see 6-7K empty seats does not mean the seats haven’t been purchased and revenue received. As a former season ticket holder, I would only go to about half the games typically avoiding week night games.
Regarding the Coyotes, one would think there are some minimum seating rules in the NHL to avoid this kind of nonsense. Bettman is too in love with his sunbelt growth plan to admit this owner needs to go and the team moved.
The CBA had minimum standards for player amenities but I guess they never thought they’d need to compel the owners to have a reasonable number of seats.
Neil,
The Nashville news about the governor commenting on the possibility on MLB is big news. Expression of interest in MLB from Non-Mlb cities publicly is rare. In the past 10 years and going forward for the next couple years baseball has publicly expressed interest in expansion (Manfred did for a few years prior to 2018) and 2 teams seeking new parks. The last comments for politicians I have heard are Mayor Goodman of Vegas (We’ve been talking for 2 years), Vancouver mayor wrote a letter, Wheeler of Portland said a blurb or two and the mayor of Nashville (we are more interested in MLS) in the past 10 years. Why is this important. If you remember when the Expos were up for sale, Mayor Williams was out there every other day in the press talking up Washington as a relocation spot.
The Governor of Tennessee comments aren’t much of anything but if Tennessee pols keeps banging the drum on getting a team you will know where the conversation truly began. I personally think a team there will be second fiddle to the Preds and Titans and the honky tonks on broadway
PS last I heard the city had some financial difficulty so no general fund money
Fundamental axiom of governing, most pithily stated by Thomas Sowell: there are no solutions, there are only trade-offs.
A side note regarding the Coyotes and ASU. More happenings this morning with regards to ASU football’s misdeeds. Hopefully there’ll be a major shake up in that program with AD Ray Anderson departing. (Though as a Sun Devil alum I’ve been hoping that for a long time.) It’s a bad situation for the program right now. It’ll be interesting to see what, if any impact that has on the Coyotes playing there.
Re: The Tampa Time Rays Survey – I filled out the survey just for funsies and after I submitted it, there was a clickable link to fill out and submit another of the same survey. Sternberg may have his staff filling out surveys all day picking all the selections favorable to his wallet.
Ah, democracy… I’d be shocked if Rays staff aren’t stuffing the proverbial ballot boxes on this one.