Friday roundup: A’s stadium plan gets a win, Maryland’s “pro-stupid” ticket kickbacks, and, oh yeah, the death of democracy

Some of you, if you read here back in April about New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s commitment of $1 billion in public money to a new Buffalo Bills stadium and about how New Yorkers of all stripes were overwhelmingly opposed to it, may have wondered if handing over tax money to billionaires would come back to haunt Hochul at election time. Well, the Democratic gubernatorial primary was this week, and: Not so much, as Hochul won in a landslide over challengers Jumaane Williams and Tom Suozzi, who both criticized the stadium deal, if mostly after the fact.

This is one of the big questions about stadium deals: If voters generally don’t like them, why do they keep electing politicians who do? I explored this in my latest article this week for Global Sport Matters, and the answer is money is more powerful than people, mostly:

So why are politicians so quick to kowtow to team owners’ requests, even against the wishes of their own constituents? [Villanova University sociology professor Rick] Eckstein says he thinks they probably fear the loss of campaign funding more than the loss of votes, especially when, with enough campaign funding, you can just run ad campaigns to win those voters back…

The unrelenting pressure on legislators is only heightened by the sports media, which can make a stadium deal seem more important than shown by objective data, whether economic impact figures or polling numbers. “There’s this complete misconception of how popular sports is,” Eckstein says. Nearly half of Americans don’t consider themselves sports fans, he notes — but those who do are more likely to be male and have high incomes. “It’s important to people who happen to have more money, more power, more resources,” he says.

Those damn elected officials, always chasing the next buck! Good thing our system of democracy has checks and balances so that other branches of government can counter those with deep pockets who want to run roughshod over public opinion — er, never mind.

On that sobering note, here’s the rest of the week’s news:

  • The San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission voted 23-2 last night to remove Howard Terminal’s designation as a port facility, which opens the door for Oakland A’s owner John Fisher to use it for a stadium-centered development project. This is being called a huge — sorry, HUGE — win for Fisher, and it is in that without it he would have had to give up on his Howard Terminal stadium plans. But it’s also not entirely unexpected, and anyway the commission didn’t actually approve his stadium plans, just approved allowing him to apply for a permit for them, plus he still needs final approval from the city council and for someone to find $360 million under sofa cushions to pay for the rest of the traffic upgrades Fisher wants. Easy-peasy!
  • Hey, remember when the state of Maryland gave the Baltimore Orioles owners (whoever that turns out to be) $4.5 million from the state’s share of Paul McCartney tickets for no good reason? Then you will perhaps enjoy the news that the Maryland Stadium Authority has now given the Baltimore Ravens owner $150,000 from an Arsenal-Everton soccer friendly match for no good reason. Maryland Treasurer Dereck Davis says he’s “seriously considering” asking for legislation that would prohibit the authority from doing this stuff, adding, “There’s a difference between being pro-business and being pro-stupid. And I’m not pro-stupid.”
  • Tennessee already approved state sales tax kickbacks for a new Chattanooga Lookouts stadium, and now it’s time for the Lookouts owners to drop their other planning shoe: the announcement of an $89-94 million stadium that would get $79.4 million in tax money, including both those sales taxes and also a tax-increment financing district to kick back property taxes from the area around the stadium as well. The Lookouts would pay rent starting at $1 million a year plus cover maintenance costs, which team co-owner Jason Freier called “extraordinarily high for a minor league team” and which Mister Math says would still only be a small fraction of his stadium costs, so quit doth protesting too much, hmm?
  • Could the Chicago Bears owners build a minor-league baseball stadium to host “four to six teams of undrafted college players” (read: unpaid player-interns) next to their new Arlington Heights football stadium? Do they really even have the money to build the football stadium? Nobody’s saying, but that won’t stop the Chicago Tribune from speculating wildly, that’s just what journalism is now.
  • A developer in San Antonio is looking to buy land for building a baseball stadium, which would be paid for by … nobody actually knows, nor does anyone know whether this would be for a potential MLB team or for the minor-league Missions, the article just ends there, this is also just what journalism is now. See what Rick Eckstein means?

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16 comments on “Friday roundup: A’s stadium plan gets a win, Maryland’s “pro-stupid” ticket kickbacks, and, oh yeah, the death of democracy

  1. Re A’s and Fisher: will be a LOT more than $360 million needed when the dust settles. Stay tuned..

    1. Don’t ever change Antonio2020… according to you, only the real shiny places in the Bay deserve any development.

  2. I love how the “team” somehow proved their boondoggle wouldn’t affect port operations when you had the longshoremen right there saying “Yes it will, we use Howard Terminal every day”. But by all means, strangle port traffic for a stupid stadium that will operate 90 times a year. Talk about stepping over dollars to pick up pennies.

    1. Maybe we could use a few $billion of that free infrastructure money the government’s been spraying around, and build a new port. Then we would have both a port and a baseball stadium!

      Unless Las Vegas comes along to steal our port away.

      1. That’s why the public money is so desperately needed Dave… otherwise those container ships will just dock in Henderson or Summerlin instead.

        People just don’t understand how business (or geography) works.

  3. Smells to me like San Antonio is going to make a play for the A’s.

    And the port!

    1. Maybe San Antonio will just trade for Frankie Montas. True, he wouldn’t have any other professional ballplayers behind him, but he should be used to that by now.

  4. Neil,
    the BCDC is a big deal in the sense its news. I have been following the A’s drive for a new ballpark since 1996 when we were all using yahoo instead of google. Typically there is no more than 2-3 news items that comes out per year on this story. It goes on radio silence for long periods of time.

    July 5 also is a potential story where they take up a non-binding “public insight” referendum that could delay the decision on the project past Schaaf’s term

    1. In 1996 I was using the phone number of the reference lady at the public library. It’s scary the stuff she knew…

    2. “typically there are no more than 2-3 news items that come out per year on this story”.

      I think you used a hyphen where you may have meant to use a “0”, Matthew? There are dozens of news stories on the A’s stadium plans/non plans/complaints etc every year. There are more than 2 or 3 a MONTH on this site alone.

      I keep an archive of news articles about the A’s and their stadium efforts that is anything but comprehensive, yet just the ones I’ve archived number well in excess of 100 since the early 2000s (running the gamut from coliseum mods to Cisco Field to Laney college to HT etc)… and believe me, I’ve skipped lots of articles I find nothing new or interesting in.

      The A’s, Selig, MLB and at least three owners have tried to keep this front and centre in the news for three decades.

      The only differences now is that Fisher has hired a sleazeball mouthpiece to tweet every day about how great other cities are, and has adopted a poison pill plan for the team itself.

      I can’t wait for the Ramon Laureano promotion which is surely coming this summer:

      “Come get your Laureano Jerseys while they/he last”

      They can’t announce Laureano night too far in advance or fans will demand the jersey of his new team rather than the A’s one.

  5. The Bears would be much better off, if money’s a problem (and likely is), to sell or lease Arlington Park Race Course to a racing operator.

    During the Bears’ threat to move to Arlington many years ago, the plan was to build a new stadium where the practice track is now. They still could, while collecting revenue, from what was one of America’s premier race tracks and can be again, three or fours days a week from April thru September.

    A racino at Arlington, part of a gaming bill passed in Springfield in 2019, was intended to be a revenue generator for the Build Illinois plan as well as give the state’s racing industry a needed lift.

    Churchill Downs (Arlington’s final owner), after years of collecting recapture money from the state to boost their purse sizes and whining incessantly about the need for gambling machines at the track, first refused to build a casino when the opportunity was provided, and then closed the track altogether, opting instead to purchase a majority stake in Rivers Casino only 12 miles from Arlington.

    The State of Illinois may be more willing to provide funds to the Bears if it means a new Arlington racino generating cash for the state and bolstering the racing industry while sticking it to Churchill all at the same time. The town of Arlington Heights would likely give its full support as well.

    1. Illinois state government dispensing corporate welfare to an NFL club? The Land of Lincoln is a state whose politicians are historically corrupt, a state whose legislature takes years to put together a state budget.
      Horse racing at Arlington Park is finished — Churchill Downs Inc. did not apply for racing dates in 2022 and has indicated the land will be sold for non-racing purposes.

      1. Plenty of states that are historically, and currently, corrupt – Florida, Texas, Louisiana, etc. Difference is that Illinois actually prosecutes their corrupt politicians, whereas Florida, for example, elects their crooks to higher office.

        Regarding Arlington, the town of Arlington Heights passed legislation that prevented Churchill from enforcing a restrictive covenant of “no future racing” as a condition of sale of the track.

        1. Horse racing has been in decline for many years. The fact that Churchill Downs Inc. did not seek 2022 racing dates for Arlington Park should have provided you a clue. Instead you say the Bears should pawn off Arlington Park on a horse racing operator. Such logic screams “we miss the good old days” and that is an excuse for bad business practices.

          1. Hardly.

            Look at the handles at tracks like Santa Anita, Gulfstream, the NYRA tracks (Aqueduct/Belmont/Saratoga) Oaklawn, several Kentucky tracks including Churchill, and many others, and you’ll realize that your position is terribly uninformed.

            Churchill ran Arlington down, in much the same way they did Calder and Hollywood. They nearly ruined Hoosier Park as well. Churchill coasted on the reputations and history of those tracks without any thought given their long-term viability. Horse racing does well when the product is executed well. Same as any other product.

            What Arlington could not tolerate is that the gravy train of easy state purse money was ending and that Arlington, just like Hawthorne and Fairmount, would be required to dedicate a share of racino profits towards the track’s own purses.

            Churchill purchased a minority stake in Rivers Casino many years ago. They only bought the majority stake while the General Assembly was ironing out the details of the 2019 gaming bill, knowing full well (though no one else did) that they never had any intention of putting gambling in at Arlington. The track is only 12 miles away from Rivers, and with its close proximity to O’Hare, is Illinois’ highest revenue maker among casinos. They closed Arlington because they didn’t want the competition and they tried to keep anyone else from operating it as well.

            As it is, Churchill is still sitting on three-quarters of a million dollars in recapture money due Illinois horsemen from the end of the 2021 meet.

            The problem isn’t racing. The problem is Churchill Downs.

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