Anyhoo, time to come down from the daily Buffalo Bills watch and take some time to decompress from the mad rush to a billion-dollar-plus subsidy in under two weeks, let’s take a look at today’s news for WHAT TH—
I am pleased to announce that over this weekend and on the eve of Opening Day in Baltimore, the Maryland State legislature passed an historic initiative committing $1.2 billion in public funding from the State of Maryland for reinvestment in and reimagination of the Camden Yards Sports Complex. This marks the second-largest public commitment of funding to a Major League Baseball public-private sports partnership, second only to the 2009 construction of the new Yankee Stadium.
That’s an oddly phrased flex, Baltimore Orioles CEO John Angelos — “We got the public to cough up more money than anytime since the Yankees snookered New York out of even more” — but the basics of it are more or less accurate: The Maryland legislature over the weekend approved $600 million in bond capacity for renovations to the Orioles’ stadium, and another $600 million for renovations to the Ravens‘ stadium. They also okayed $400 million for “infrastructure” around the Washington Commanders‘ stadium in Prince George’s County, though according to the Washington Post, “early conversations between the county and the stadium authority” would “curtail” the cash from being used for things like team offices and a training center; and also approved $200 million in minor-league baseball stadium money, because it wouldn’t be fair to leave the Delmarva Shorebirds out of the fun.
What will the Orioles and Ravens owners do with their loot, given that both have stadiums that are well-liked and are 30 and 24 years old, respectively? They don’t know yet, and they don’t have to know: The legislature didn’t approve bonds for anything in particular, it just granted the Maryland Stadium Authority the right to sell $1.8 billion in bonds for stadium thingies, to be repaid by future state proceeds from lottery ticket sales. (Or, if people stop buying lottery tickets between now and 2052, state general funds. Gamble like your state finances depend on it, Marylanders!) It’s a set of stadium slush funds, in other words, that the teams can draw from for whatever they like — any Commanders curtailment by the county excepted — so long as the Maryland Stadium Authority approves. (Spoiler: The Maryland Stadium Authority will approve.)
The Maryland stadium deals share more in common with the Bills deal than just a billion-dollar-plus price tag: In both cases, governors pushed through legislation in a matter of days at the tail end of the legislative session with little public debate. The Bills subsidy has its slush-fundy aspects, too — New York state’s “maintenance” funding can be spent on things like security costs if the Bills owners want. (Spoiler: The Bills owners will want.)
It wasn’t that long ago that people were legitimately asking whether the golden age of stadium subsidies had passed, now that Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke had built a multi-billion-dollar stadium largely with his own money, and the Tampa Bay Rays and Oakland A’s owners were struggling to get public cash for their stadium dreams. Then, in one weekend, upwards of $2 billion in government money went toward paying for goodies for billionaire sports team owners. I think it’s fair to say that we’re only going to see more stadium demands from other team owners in the near future: The ante has been upped, and the only thing that can stop this or even slow it down is if the nation’s legislative officials collectively put their hands on the public purse. (Spoiler: … you know.)
How much of this spike in public money for stadiums, do you think, is driven by the federal infrastructure funding that passed last year? I have to think New York and Maryland wouldn’t have approved these stadium projects without that money.
Congratulations Maryland! You have managed to outstupid New York state (and in record time).
Sometimes it helps me to see how ridiculous things are by changing just one or two words in the sentence/phrase being used.
Imagine Angelos boasting about this being “the second highest price ever paid for a 1978 Chrysler Cordoba”. Or a Vega. A Vega would be even better.
I guess if you are the one selling the snake oil (or better yet, having politicians sell the snake oil for you), the price does seem like an achievement…
If I think to much about it, stuff like this just blows my mind.
Adults made these decisions. Adults with mortgages and cars and stuff. They probably wear suits and have professionally printed business cards too.
When I was a kid, I was under the impression that somebody out there really knew what was going on and had it under control and that someday, if I stayed in school, I could understand what they were doing too or maybe be one of those people.
But now I’m almost 50 and the people running the world are about my age or younger and they’re frequently even more selfish and stupid as children.
Civilization was a mistake.
Would you mind if I printed your comment on a mug? I think I need one.
Alright. Just edit it for typos and stuff.
Gonna need to find a bigger mug, too. Maybe a tankard.
I am correct to assume that my hometown Frederick Keys get to swim in the slush fund pool as well?
Hmm, probably. They’re Draft League now?
Yes, they are.
No money for education in MD but stadiums. Why not?
I no longer have the clipping, but I remember way back when I was researching the very first edition of Field of Schemes, I saw a newspaper article about how the state introduced lotteries to pay for the O’s and Ravens stadiums, then when they wanted to do an education lottery the market was tapped out.
Anyone have access to the Baltimore Sun archives from the late ’80s/early ’90s?
Those archives are easily available on Newspapers.com for those with a Publisher Extra subscription — it’s well worth the money.
You could probably write a book on lotteries.
How are they doing these days now that other forms of gambling are pretty much legal everywhere?
Common Courage Press, our original publisher before University of Nebraska Press picked up Field of Schemes for the second edition, had a great book on gambling that I seem to recall included discussion of lotteries:
https://books.google.com/books/about/Crapped_Out.html?id=QzIgAQAAIAAJ
I would love to see an update, though, to account for questions like the one you’re asking.
Well said, Matthew. In a state (and city) with crushing poverty issues… $2bn freely available for billionaire’s playthings.
I don’t think ‘this’ is what hard working people escaping the various feudal systems in place in much of Europe had in mind when coming to America.
Hey, now. Lots of people were escaping Latin American encomiendas, or in the holds of slave ships. They may have been under fewer illusions what they were headed for.
Perhaps it doesn’t even need to be said, but the politics of education are very complicated and fraught. A lot of racism issues and entrenched interests/grifters and thorny problems that often take a least a generation or more to fix.
Politicians, their donors and even a lot of average voters, just want quick wins. A gazillion dollars toward stadiums will create stadiums and keep/attract teams. They can count on that. It’s easy to measure.
Putting that money into something like education or poverty-reduction or drug rehab or any number of other much more important priorities just comes with a lot of complications and headaches and challenges that they probably won’t get credit for fixing even if they do, because it won’t really bear fruit while they’re in office.
I’m all for dramatically increased public spending on education, health and housing, but if they aren’t willing to do that, just handing the money back to the people in lower taxes or stimulus checks would be better than giving it to Dan Snyder and the Angeloses. (Angeli?)