Told ya! And now an abbreviated (though extended by one day) look at the week’s other news:
- Los Angeles Angels owner Arte Moreno has responded to a judge granting a 60-day stay to his discounted purchase of stadium land thanks to the deal being caught up in a corruption and bribery scandal involving the city being run by an unelected cabal by decreeing that the city must approve the sale by June 14, or else … well, Moreno, or really Moreno’s lawyer, didn’t specify what would happen if the deal is delayed beyond that date, but you don’t want to find out what it’ll be, you hear? The Los Angeles Times speculates that the Anaheim city council could move forward with the sale despite the stay on its agreement with the state over selling the land without meeting state affordable housing laws, which would almost certainly lead the state to sue, which isn’t going to get the sale resolved by June 14, but maybe Moreno wants that for some reason? Anyway, here, thanks to reader Moose, are some photos of Mayor Harry Sidhu throwing Easter eggs from the private helicopter he’s accused of illegally registering in Arizona to save money, I know that’s what you really want.
- Speaking of bribery scandals, the Cleveland city council is considering a resolution to demand that the electric utility FirstEnergy have its name removed from the Browns stadium after it was accused of bribing a state official. Browns officials replied that FirstEnergy is “committed to upholding a culture of integrity and accountability” going forward and also the council resolution is non-binding, which is another way of saying “Sorry, we own the naming rights to this publicly owned and paid-for stadium because that’s just how these things are done, we get to decide whose name goes on it, what part of that didn’t you understand?”
- Tennessee Titans CEO Burke Nihill says it would cost $1.8 billion to renovate the team’s current stadium because it’s in such “disrepair,” citing … well, he didn’t actually cite any study or report or anything, but just trust him, okay? Better to just build a new stadium that would cost — oh, look, Nihill says the price tag is now $2.2 billion, while the team’s share remains at $700 million, meaning the city and state would have to come up with $1.5 billion? That totally makes sense, after all, the old place is 23 years old, it’s pretty much a given that all buildings that old get torn down, right, isn’t that just how engineering works?
- And speaking of inflation, the Kansas City Current women’s soccer team’s stadium price tag has gone up from $70 million to $117 million, and the team’s owners are asking state taxpayers to cover $6 million of it through tax breaks. Councilmember Eric Bunch says this is fine because it would be “using state tax dollars indirectly to support a project that’s going to benefit Kansas Citians,” which seems to be a novel use of “indirectly” and also “benefit,” though I guess the team owners are technically Kansas Citians in addition to being hedge fund goons, so it would benefit two Kansas Citians, anyway.
- And speaking of stadiums having the shelf life of mayflies, Palm Beach County is spending $111 million to renovate the spring training home of the Miami Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals; Cards VP Mike Whittle, asked if the 25-year-old Jupiter stadium’s facilities are outdated, replied, “They are. They are,” which should be good enough for you.
- And speaking of naming rights (which we were doing a few bullet points ago, do try to keep up), the Chicago Fire owners are in hot water for allegedly trying to sell the naming rights to the Soldier Field field when they don’t actually own them, which should make for a fun lawsuit.
- A Kentucky sports business professor says if the Cincinnati Bengals keep winning, they’ll be able to demand more publicly funded stadium upgrades, which doesn’t really make more sense, but maybe he really means “if the Bengals start losing again, no one will write their elected representatives to demand that the team owners be offered whatever they want in order to keep the team in town, which does check out.
- Some guy wants to build a USL soccer stadium in downtown Milwaukee, which would cost an unknown amount of money and require an unknown amount of public subsidies. But look, here’s a rendering of it! True, there are no fireworks or people pointing at the sky, but you can imagine those things, no?
- This is already more bullet points than I meant to write, let me leave you with pictures of the possum that has made its home in the Oakland Coliseum press box. Honestly, given what the A’s owners left of a team for local sportswriters to watch on the field this year with their player fire sale, this maybe should be considered a feature and not a bug.
Whats the word on potential renovations to the vacant baseball stadium in Metairie, La? Reports this week is that Jefferson Parrish seek to turn it into a football/soccer stadium as the USL has expressed interest in expanding to New Orleans. Will state funds be used to remodel the venue or private cash?
As someone who’s lived in Milwaukee pretty much his whole life, I can tell you that a professional soccer team isn’t exactly something this city has been clamoring for. Or even discussing, as far as I’m aware. Between the Bucks, Brewers, and Packers, plus an AHL hockey team and MASL soccer club, and Marquette and the UW colleges, and I think even a minor-league baseball team or two, we’re not exactly starved for sports.
But sure, let’s put a new “entertainment center” in a few empty blocks downtown that is so hemmed in on all sides that there’s zero room for any growth. Or parking? You can’t expand west or south because of the largest freeway exchange in the state. The office building just east is wrapping up spending tons of money converting into the new headquarters for Milwaukee Tool. For about a half a block north there are maybe a few office buildings you could buy out.
People have been talking about doing something with that empty parcel of land downtown for ages. Someone proposes something, it gets reported on and people get all giddy about it, and then it silently goes away. We’ll see if this is any different. I doubt it.
In every comment section on every article/tweet/etc about the Coyotes debacle, somebody says Milwaukee needs an NHL team.
I don’t think the other owners agree and I’ve not heard of any ownership group looking to put one there.
Milwaukee would be the smallest market by far to have both NBA and NHL.
And the Chicago Hockey Team has always worked hard to keep that from happening.
Yeah, according to the data I’ve seen, the Milwaukee market is only about as big as Raleigh-Durham, even smaller than Pittsburgh.
Titans need that money to remove wires from Nissan stadium, so flyovers are more exciting
https://www.newschannel5.com/news/newschannel-5-investigates/titans-flyover-now-subject-of-a-pending-investigation-faa-says?_amp=true
I guess we should expect the new Chicago Bears stadium to cost at least $2.2 Billion. They are using the same team as the Titans, Manica and CAA ICON. The Chicago Bears negotiations will begin this fall.
https://www.dailyherald.com/news/20220519/arlington-heights-mayor-first-review-of-bears-arlington-plans-right-now-scheduled-for-this-fall?cid=search