Friday roundup: The rich get richer, subsidies for me and not for thee, and other American truisms

This has been a week, so we’re going to get straight to the news. If you want to check out what I’ve been doing in my spare time, though (other than this website), you might want to play my text adventure game Improv: Origins, which just placed 4th (out of 18) in an interactive fiction competition. It has superheroes, socioeconomic commentary, and oh so many rubber bands…

Anyway, stadium news is what you came for, stadium news is what you get:

• The Denver Broncos‘ sale to Walmart heir Rob Walton for $4.65 billion is expected to be approved by the NFL next week, in what would be a record price for a U.S. sports franchise. The Las Vegas Raiders are selling a minority stake in their team for a price that would value the whole team at $6.5 billion. While it shouldn’t escape notice that Walton is thought to be looking to get public money for a new stadium and Raiders owner Mark Davis already did, it’s also worth noting that pretty much every NFL team is soaring in value thanks largely to massive national TV contracts — so while “these dudes are filthy rich, they don’t need our money” is legit, “these dudes are getting filthy rich by building stadiums on the taxpayers’ dime” is only partly true, since it’s just one factor increasing the filth.
• Americans for Prosperity is calling on Arlington Heights to pass an ordinance barring it from provide “corporate welfare” to the Chicago Bears, which is ironic to say the least given that Americans for Prosperity is a mouthpiece for the Koch brothers (well, the alive one, anyway), who have collected more than half a billion dollars in corporate welfare themselves. Though maybe it’ll pass, and one shouldn’t look strange bedfellows in the mouth, but nobody ever said one shouldn’t point out their hypocrisy.
• This article claims that the $279.5 million in California state money that the Oakland A’s owners want for their Howard Terminal infrastructure funding is definitely going to be used for that, which Mayor Libby Schaaf already claimed last year, but I for one will wait till I see the receipts. Anyway, still lots more public money that needs to be found under sofa cushions before the project can be a reality.
• Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff says MLB’s new minor-league stadium requitements could cause San Antonio to lose the Missions if it doesn’t upgrade their ballpark, and it’s not worth renovations that could cost $5-10 million when you could build a whole new one for $75-150 million. I’ve read it three times, that what he said, you try to make sense of it.
• The Baltimore Orioles‘ Camden Yards changed sports architecture (arguably for the better) and sports stadium funding (inarguably for the worse). That’s nothing new — it’s a large chunk of Chapter 1 of Field of Schemes — but if you want to read a whole lot more words to that effect, some of which are “But here we get to the crux: Camden Yards is not categorically salvific,” The Ringer has got you covered.
• “Rays president offers new stadium details” promises the St. Pete Catalyst headline, which the article reveals to be: “It is inappropriate for me to get into some of the confidential details of those discussions.” They really don’t make details the way they used to.