Before we get to the news roundup, the big story today: The New York state legislature and Gov. Kathy Hochul came to a “conceptual agreement” on a state budget last night, and it will include $1 billion in state and county money for a new Buffalo Bills stadium.
There aren’t a whole lot of details yet on whether anything was tweaked from Hochul’s original proposal, who was involved in hashing out the agreement, or who will or won’t vote for it. The New York Times — which somehow managed to describe the Bills stadium as one of the budget items with “populist overtones,” despite it providing a record subsidy to billionaires for a project that state residents overwhelmingly oppose — printed state Sen. Julia Salazar’s tweet calling the budget “unacceptable”; Bloomberg News reported that senate finance committee chair Liz Krueger called the Bills money the latest example of “New York state using its economic development money very badly.” Now that leadership has okayed it, though, it presumably doesn’t matter much how anyone in particular actually votes: They can either vote for the overall budget while grousing about some of the items in it, or cast protest votes that they know won’t affect the budget’s passage, but as the deal was struck by the traditional “three men in a room,” there won’t be any messy debating or having to take positions or any of the other things that normally go along with democracy or accountability.
This is very good news for Bills owners Terry and Kim Pegula, obviously, who just scored a brand-new stadium at virtually no cost to themselves (their share should be mostly covered by NFL grants, naming-rights fees, and seat license sales) by doing little more than mumbling vaguely about how they might move the team somewhere and then waiting for the governor to show up with a $1 billion check. It’s arguably good news for Hochul, too, assuming she doesn’t face voter backlash in this June’s primary for giving away public cash to wealthy NFL owners; and also arguably good news for Bills fans afraid the team would leave otherwise, though less good news if they’re Bills fans who are also New York state and Erie County taxpayers. And it’s very bad news for residents of NFL cities nationwide, as the bar has now been raised for expectations of what states will do to keep their football team owners happy, something that the owners of the Tennessee Titans and Washington Commanders and Chicago Bears and Baltimore Ravens and Jacksonville Jaguars and eventually every other team in the league will no doubt be pressing in their own state legislatures in months and years to come.
More on this Monday, no doubt, once the final details of the budget vote become clear. Meanwhile, there’s other news that’s been piling up amid all this Bills stuff, so let’s get to it:
- Kansas City Royals owner John Sherman, asked about prospects for a new stadium in downtown Kansas City, said it “would really round out our central business district” and cited as an example the Atlanta Braves‘ new stadium, which is nowhere near Atlanta’s central business district and has been shown to be a massive money-loser for the county that paid for it. Remember, kids: It’s not important to make sense when you’re a sports team owner or other major public figure, as the media will just print whatever you say regardless! Grow up to use your family’s wealth to found a fossil-fuels company and get rich off it, it’s great!
- Would-be Nashville MLB team owner John Loar says he’s still looking at building a stadium there — not next door to the Titans’ stadium anymore, that didn’t work out, but somewhere else — by creating “a sports and entertainment district” with “a ballpark that would be limited or would require no public financing,” which sure sounds like he’s talking tax increment financing or some other kind of tax kickback scheme, but no time for questions about that, just make a “Loar is confident Nashville will hit a home run” play on words and end the article already.
- The Tempe city council held a closed-doors session yesterday on the Arizona Coyotes owners’ plans for a new arena aided by $200 million in city infrastructure spending plus possibly additional land and tax breaks, and don’t expect there to be any word of how it went, what don’t you understand about “closed-doors session”?
- Despite not landing an MLS expansion franchise, the owners of the USL’s Sacramento Republic FC are still moving ahead with plans for a $100-150 million stadium on the city’s downtown railyards. The team owners already got a pile of city money approved for the stadium (reported as $27 million at the time, $33 million now), so may as well use it so as not to lose it.
- Business promotion leaders in Saskatoon say that Saskatoon needs a new arena to be “competitive in the Canadian landscape”; no more details on how much a new Blades junior-hockey venue would cost or how it would be paid for, but there’s a three-minute video that includes a chartered professional accountant saying there’s “lots of creative ways” that an arena could be financed, including “sales ticket surcharges, bonds, government grants, even rental-car sales taxes” — okay, “bonds” isn’t actually a way of paying for something, just a way of borrowing money to be paid back later, just what are they teaching at Canadian CPA schools these days?
- Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melnyk’s dream of a new arena is “very much alive,” according to SportsNet, despite Melnyk being very much not alive. That’s because “Melnyk’s death last week only enhances the probability of a new arena downtown because of the new range of possibilities regarding ownership and future business partnerships.” No, no explanation of what that means, but SportsNet also cites Ottawa Citizen columnist Kelly Egan as saying it’s appropriate that a new Ottawa arena is being discussed just before Easter, “when thoughts turn to resurrecting the dead,” so uh, guys, I think the NHL may be dabbling in the dark arts, or at least some really suspect theology.
- Tampa Bay Rays president Brian Auld says the team is no longer considering building a stadium on waterfront sites that will soon be underwater thanks to sea-level rise. Noted.
- Oh, right, I promised in my post about the new Cab-Hailing Purse Woman art prints available to FoS subscribers (click here to get dibs on yours!) that I would report back on lawsuits against the Oakland A’s stadium environmental impact report: There are, uh, a bunch of lawsuits against the Oakland A’s stadium environmental impact report, read about one of them here, but seriously there are always EIR lawsuits in California and they almost never go anywhere, can this post be over already? I think it should be, have a good weekend of coming to terms with living in a world where a billion dollars in public spending on a private sports stadium can be approved in ten days with no public debate, and see you back here on Monday.
Often wondered if the Canadian counterpart to “will it play in Peoria?” is “will it show in Saskatoon?”
There are some who imagine Saskatoon as an NHL market.
https://thestarphoenix.com/sports/hockey/nhl/the-big-one-that-got-away-blues-were-bought-the-deal-done-but-then-nhl-intervened
Yes, and “imagine” is the operative word, Reed… it’s a city of about 325,000 people (if you include a bedroom community suburb that is not really part of the city itself).
A little less than half the size of Winnipeg and about a quarter of the size of Calgary or Edmonton.
If the NHL ever does go to Saskatoon, it will be because there are multiple teams without homes and nowhere else willing to host them.
Yeah, I was just pointing that out because it’s one of those “this really happened in the NHL” moments that is generally forgotten.
The Blues have come close to moving a few times, as I recall. Seattle was in the mix at one point and I think maybe Cincinnati tried, but I could be misremembering that.
Those would both have made more sense than Saskatoon.
I don’t pay too much attention to what is printed in azcentral, according to tempe.gov the work-study session on April 7th was canceled and no agenda was available. Either Tempe is getting cold feet about the stupid Coyotes arena or are breaking Arizona law by meeting without posting proper notice.
Just got a report from someone in AZ that the Tempe council met for seven hours yesterday, not clear what next steps are.
The real value of the 46 acres the Coyotes want Tempe to give them could be $500 million, check out the dispute between Arizona AG and ASU over the Omni hotel deal and developments along Tempe Town Lake. Throw in more upgrades the Coyotes will probably want Tempe to throw in like a new bridge and another Lake and we could be up to the magic billion dollar subsidy.
I’d argue Neil that the lawsuits against the A’s Howard Terminal EIR are completely valid in this case, especially from Union Pacific RR and Capitol Corridor (commuter rail). The EIR is flawed to hell; it’s basically “There will be no problem getting 35K fans across an at-grade, busy rail line that runs down the middle of a city street because we said so.” Uh, OK! At the very least, the lawsuits will drain funds from whoever decides to fight them (A’s, City of Oakland), thus adding to the costs of this gargantuan, pie-in-the-sky boondoggle.
The baseline for EIRs is “flawed as hell” — that doesn’t usually make lawsuits against them successful. But we’ll see.
+1 to the comment and the reply.
Living in Seattle I wondered how the Seahawks stadium measures up to the huge dollar amounts being spent on new stadiums.
In 2022 the Seahawks stadium, event center and parking garage came in at $430m, which in 2022 dollars would be $678m.
Stadium costs (and subsidy levels) are going up overall even when accounting for inflation. So while the Seattle stadium deal is still pretty bad, it’s sadly no longer historically bad.
I don’t understand what’s in this for Hochul. There doesn’t seem to be any quid-pro-quo; she’s just giving money to a rich guy who wants it, because (I guess) she wants him to have it. Is she going to be president of the Bills when she leaves office?
Hochul’s calculus appears to be “Bills fans will be happy, nobody else will care enough to decide their votes based on it.”
Only politicians can truly put a price on the happiness of billionaires.
My fav conspiracy theory is that Cuomo’s groping allegations were ramped up by Pegula and the Buffalo business community to get Hochul into the governor’s office.
If you can work JFK (jr or sr, take your pick) into controlling that whole thing, you’ll sell millions of t-shirts.
Tempe town council probably figures, what with the figures being tossed around these days, a half-billion is peanuts, nobody will notice. Or as with Hochul, nobody really cares. It’s not real money anymore.
Allan Walsh (Co-Managing Director, Octagon-Hockey. Sports Agent/Lawyer) said this: This is a whole lot of mumbo jumbo gobbledygook to say “we don’t have a deal and don’t like various aspects of the arena proposal”. Reading between the lines, this is a step back.
https://twitter.com/walsha/status/1512508475493924872
I don’t understand why Opponents of these corporate welfare taxpayer money giveaways to BILLIONAIRES, never seem to continually hammer the points home of: the stadium would be in use for maybe 10 days a year…with “special events” possibly a few days more…how the HELL do you justify billions in giveaways for that?!? And, the sports team owners are BILLIONAIRES!!! They can pay for it themselves!!!
Yes… us opponents never say those things.
Wow!! NY state just snaped its fingers and the Bills stadium is about to be done. Says something about the NFL. Ive been following the A’s saga since 96 and know how much longer it will go on. Moral of the story: If you are a multi-billionaire and want a sport team, Go for the NFL first
Correction: Don’t know how much longer it will go on. There might be one or two news items this year but not much beyond that
Stadium costs going up even when accounting for inflation..AND I’d add rising interest rates as well! Sounds like a loosing proposition for a multi-billion dollar venue/development in a piss poor location in a poor @$$ city.
It’s almost like San Jose should build on their water-front for the A’s. We need to get someone on that ASAP!
Cousin, why all of a sudden do ballparks need to be built on a waterfront? Especially if it’s a terrible location in terms of getting folks in/out?
Sadly, if $J wasn’t imprisoned by the Giants territorial rights, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Sincerely, your Primo.
I assume it’s because that’s often where the land is available because it used to be railyards or shipyards. And those areas seem ripe for a tourist-oriented development.
In fairness to Kaval and Fisher, they have essentially moved the Aviators franchise (well, the playing roster anyway) to Oakland over the winter, so it’s only fair that they would try to move the alleged MLB roster to Vegas in return. By the time they are done asset stripping the team, it could be that 9300 seat Cashman field will be perfectly suited to the fan interest in the ball club as well.
Now I see why Mark Cuban said years ago that the NFL will face an implosion. It’s no longer about the game just greedy owners competing for who has the best house
If report is accurate- A’s aren’t moving to Vegas. Sisolak isn’t going to approve of any tax increase before November, nor is he calling a special session. I guess maybe the As could wait until next year to get their Vegas deal, but any large dome stadium would be direct competition to allegiant Stadium, and with the market so over saturated with large venues already, seems less and less likely.
https://nypost.com/2022/04/08/baseball-team-oakland-as-move-to-las-vegas-could-be-blocked/amp/
Al, I would always take whatever comes out of the NY Post with a huge boulder of salt. I would also suggest you read the LV Sun article on this Sisolak development.
In a nutshell; not as bad as it seems. Sisolak is against any further taxes on hotel rooms, which the Sun article states the A’s/MLB have been fully aware of. However, the governor hasn’t rules out other forms of possible public financing. Yes, election year stuff, so wouldn’t expect anything that would negatively affect the great public to happen before November.
Vegas has been, and will continue to be with new arena/concert halls, over saturated with large venues. So don’t see that fact being necessarily a deal breaker for a potential A’s move.
I don’t know how my home city of Boston survives with such ancient stadiums for its NFL, NHL, and NBA teams.