Summer must really be over, because the stadium and arena news cycle is starting to heat up again, albeit heavily weighted toward events in Chicago and Arlington Heights:
- Chicago Bears chair George Halas McCaskey and team president Ted Phillips revealed more about the team’s stadium plans beyond an enigmatic white blob at last night’s public meeting in Arlington Heights. McCaskey said the team owners “will seek no public funding for direct stadium structure construction” but “we will need help,” and said he needs “property tax certainty” (which sounds like he wants property taxes kicked back to the team) and that “it’s not our part to say that property taxes for Arlington Heights residents won’t go up, but that might be for reasons that have nothing to do with this construction” (which definitely sounds like he wants property taxes kicked back to the team). Phillips added that the new stadium would provide a “first-class experience” with tailgating and, um, stuff. Several locals in attendance expressed concern over how much the stadium would cost them, with nearby resident Linda Gaio saying she’d like “some sort of documentation, or maybe there’s some website or something where we could check the progress of these talks and the negotiations and how it’s gonna affect us residents.” Will a catchy ditty suffice?
- The Koch Brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity have also submitted petitions to the Arlington Heights Village Board seeking to stop any future financial incentives for “any business or corporation to operate in the village.” That seems poorly worded — couldn’t the Bears execs argue that the money isn’t to lure the Bears, but is just to improve the village’s infrastructure by paving the roads with dollar bills? — and the village board is almost certain to reject it, at which point Americans for Prosperity would have to go back and get 6,550 signatures (12% of registered voters) to place it on a public ballot, at which point they would then have to get a majority of votes. Not saying they can’t do it, what with their deep pockets, but it’s probably best not to place all your hopes in a deus ex Koch.
- Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot says she has “Plan B, Plan C and others in the works as well if the Bears decide they’re going to abandon the city of Chicago,” but wouldn’t say what any of those might be. Block Club Chicago speculates Lightfoot “could try to bring another team to Chicago or the city could redevelop Soldier Field and the surrounding area for concerts and other uses,” which, good luck with that first one, and good luck with the latter one too, given how few stadium-sized concerts there are. Though if it meant tearing down the spaceship and just leaving the historic part of Soldier Field, maybe it’d be worth it — okay, probably still not given the cost, but it’s still more viable than “convince Roger Goodell that Chicago should have two NFL teams.”
- In non-Chicago news, an Alameda County judge has rejected claims that the Oakland A’s Howard Terminal stadium environmental impact statement was inadequate, which … hang on, didn’t we just talk about this last week? Well anyway, the judge really did it now, I guess, which leaves no remaining hurdles for the project except for where around half of the city’s $1 billion in infrastructure spending would come from, you know, just details.
- The Kansas City Star editorial board, which is on record against giving too much money too fast to Royals owner John Sherman for a downtown stadium even while talking up a downtown stadium, has declared that it’s a good thing that Kansas City Manager Brian Platt has put on hold for now plans to hire a consultant for Royals and Chiefs stadium talks. Because why? Because the teams haven’t said what they want yet, and skeptical taxpayers’ “concerns will harden into outright opposition if they believe deals are being cooked up behind closed doors, without a full public debate.” Advocacy for democratic procedure, or concern trolling, you make the call!
- Arizona Coyotes execs say the team will sell out its entire season at its tiny Arizona State University arena home, and bring in more season-ticket money than they did in Glendale — yes, that’s how artificial scarcity works, by allowing you to raise ticket prices through the roof, but it doesn’t necessarily mean the Coyotes will make more money at ASU’s arena, just that they’ll make more money per fan. Which isn’t terrible in terms of taking lemons and making lemonade, but it’s still not really worthy of an entire ESPN article unless it was a super-slow news day.
- The Salt Lake Bees are threatening to move without a new or renovated stadium, and the Eugene Emeralds are threatening to move without a new stadium, and the San Antonio Missions are threatening to move without a new stadium. The likely unionization of baseball’s minor leagues may put a crimp in MLB’s attempts to use the minors’ downsizing to pressure players into being more desperate to play for any wage, including for free — or may not, depending on whether MLB players are ever willing to stage a sympathy strike on behalf of minor leaguers in order to help them get a contract — but it’s still going gangbusters in terms of shaking loose public stadium money.
First, minor leaguers. Any cost increases for minor league teams will just be extracted from the City’s where they reside. Who owns minor league teams? Because the one near me is >50% funded by the City govt.
I love the “once we move the team we can use the stadium for concerts & stuff!”. So the fact that a sports team played 8 games a year, mostly on Sundays, all in the fall (concert season is when???), interrupts having concerts there already? These plans work to further extract more money from the locals only for the plans to fall apart after everyone forgets such empty promises.
So you’re saying that there are subsidies that minor league owners could be demanding but aren’t, but will start to once they have to pay higher salaries to players? I’m pretty sure that’s not how corporate grifting works.
So many people still believe that businesses set prices by figuring out their costs first and then adding a fixed percentage.
That’s not how it works.
The owners have pushed this lie for years that labor is driving up prices. Labor isn’t driving up prices. Ownership is driving up prices. Labor just wants its fair cut.
A piece from Rep. Athena Salman, a Democrat, representing Tempe’s Legislative District 26.
Arizona Coyotes gave Glendale a raw deal. And Tempe wants to repeat it?
https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/2022/09/09/arizona-coyotes-entertainment-district-raw-deal-tempe/8017122001/
I probably missed it, but do we know *why* Koch is coming out so strongly against the Bears stadium? It feels like Jimmy Dolan fighting the NYJ stadium tooth and nail, rich guy pretends to stand for small guy to win battle against other rich guy, but I’m not sure of the motivation here.
The Kochs (both the living one and the dead one) have a long libertarian streak of opposing government spending on pretty much anything. Except tax breaks for them, obviously, that’s a different story:
https://americansfortaxfairness.org/issue/koch-brothers-1-billion-tax-cut/
Yeah, I was going to say… shouldn’t there be an exemption in their petition for subsidies or incentives for Koch or Koch affiliated businesses?
I mean four legs good two legs bad is a shameful generalization and also could lead to a loss of subsidies for two legged annimals sometimes being ok if adopted by the right people- err, rooting quadrupeds…
Is this like all those good liberals on Martha’s Vineyard that are in favor of illegal aliens coming into America at the rate of 300,000 a month? But when 50 agree to be bused to their island, they immediately round them up, put them on a bus and tell them to get the f*** off their island? Meanwhile communities in Texas are being bankrupted by the kind hearts of people in Massachusetts.
https://anncoulter.com/2022/09/22/show-us-the-way-rich-liberals/
No, it’s different in that none of what Ann Coulter writes there actually happened:
https://vineyardgazette.com/news/2022/09/15/vineyard-community-rallies-relief-efforts-assist-stranded-migrants
Just think how much the Maple Leafs, Rangers, Canadiens, Blackhawks and Bruins could charge if they moved to 5,000 seat arenas…
It’s the next big (or, you know, not so big) thing!!!
The Arizona Coyotes are bragging about selling out their 5000 seat arena for the season. Even the A’s could sell out for the season with 5000 seats, (maybe a stretch, but you get the point). If Arizona manages to pull this off, I can see other teams asking to build 10,000 seat arenas instead of 17,000. MLB asking for 25,000, (Rays and A’s new homes), instead of 35,000 to 45,000. The only exception would be in large areas that get large concerts. Then again, this smaller means significant ticket price increases may infect concerts as well.
If they could make more money that way, they would have figured that out a long time ago.
Major mistake up top: Virginia McCaskey is chair of the Chicago Bears — George Halas has been dead for almost 40 years.
Different George — this one is Virginia’s son:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_McCaskey
(Virginia is principal owner, but not chair.)
She is 99 and not in great health, I’m afraid. It’s not likely that she’ll see them leave Soldier Field.