The Nashville metro council may be hiring a consultant to read its lease with the Tennessee Titans to see how much the public would actually be on the hook for in upgrades — something Center Square reporter Jon Styf already took and and determined that the city is just required to provide any refurbushments that “comparable” facilities of the same age have received — but it won’t be investigating Mayor John Cooper’s claims that spending $1.2 billion in public money would pay for itself because, enh, why spend money to save money?
“I am guessing the council doesn’t have an appetite for spending $25M on its own professionals, or $5 million or $1 million or half a million,” committee chair Bob Mendes said in the group’s planning meeting. “So we’re, necessarily, going to have to rely on information from others on that. I assume we’re going to hear about that. When we’re going to get presented with an actual deal, there’s going to be a list of income streams and a look forward on what it generates over time. Sources and uses.
“We will, almost certainly, have to rely on information from people hired other than from the council.”
That’s not quite “we’re going to take the mayor at his word” — the council is almost certainly going to hear from say, economist J.C. Bradbury, whether they like it or not — but it is a little concerning that the council’s stadium committee apparently has decided not to hire someone to analyze the economic impact of a $1.2 billion spending project without having even bothered to price what it would cost. When the entire argument for a billion-dollar-plus public price tag is “don’t worry, it’ll pay for itself in new taxes,” one would think it would be important to see if the stadium would actually result in significant new taxes, but I guess this is why they pay city councilmembers the big bucks.
The committee has hearings on the stadium plan set for July 28, August 18, and August 31, starting at 4:30 pm; I’ll post webstream links here when and if I get them. Mendes told Styf (who seems to be the only reporter doing actual reporting on this deal) that Cooper could announce a final proposal in August or September, and that there will be a website “with all the information on a new stadium deal before the council votes on that deal.” Because that surely won’t just end up being an empty marketing slideshow, that never happens.
Wrong response to a comment but gotta think that the A’s are playing the wrong card.
Front Office Sports
@FOS
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13h
The Oakland A’s lone All-Star, Paul Blackburn, was booked to fly commercial to the MLB All-Star Game.
When the Houston Astros heard about it, they offered to fly him in their charter plane with their All-Stars
I understand that this can be a “balsac” item but if this isn’t Major League, I don’t know what is.
Couldn’t SF given him a ride or is Houston cheating like they usually do.
As a 1st amendment proponent (Let’s go team score a goal/run/touchdown/hoop). It amazes me that people really do not understand that concept since sunlight shines lights on things.
Progressive is staking their advertising on the fact that many people aren’t sports fans.
This is a statement of fact….
Johnny
The A’s last series was in Houston, so it was easiest for Blackburn to hitch a ride on the Astros’ plane if Fisher was too cheap to book him a flight.
Isn’t that tampering?
If I were an Oakland A who had to bring my toilet paper to my place of work, wouldn’t a nice charter/private jet be worth some coin…?
Another vacuum I’m not too happy about…
Had an interesting conversation at my watering hole tonight.
2 people i was drinking with stated they think baseball players with the Juan Soto leak are paid too much.
When I said prices aren’t going down if salaries go down 50%, the response was a scratch of the shin.
It’s like how to build a billion dollar stadium with tax payers money…. Spend a million $ so that we win the public opinion when we cheap out…