For those of you who actually spend your Thanksgiving Fridays reading Field of Schemes, here’s a special bonus: If Rob Neyer’s Facebook page can be believed (and it’s never lied to me before), University of Nebraska Press is having a 50% off sale through the end of the year. That means that by entering the discount code 6HLW22 you can get Field of Schemes the book for just $11.48, or lots of other great sports (and non-sports) books for yourself, your family and friends, or that special city councilmember in your life. Buy now and buy often!
And if you just want the usual free weekly content, there’s plenty of that as well:
- Nashville held its first of four public hearings on the Tennessee Titans‘ proposed $2.1 billion stadium deal on Monday, with the Tennessean reporting that speakers were about evenly split on whether they were opposed or in favor. (Advocates on both sides called for residents to come out and testify, so it was hardly an unscientific poll.) Also, according to WZTV-TV, Metro Nashville councilmember Courtney Johnston said the team owners still haven’t revealed how much it would cost for the city to maintain the current stadium to the terms of its lease instead of building new, but “it’s time to move forward” and “I’m not going to waste any more energy trying to find out what are we obligated to because we can’t afford it.” Just to be clear: Yes, she’s saying Nashville can’t afford renovation expenses that could be around $350 million, so instead must spend $1.2 billion for a new stadium. And no, cannabis isn’t legal yet in Tennessee, that can’t be the explanation.
- In related news, let’s enjoy this guy taking to the smoking ruins of Twitter to attack sports economist J.C. Bradbury for critiquing the Titans deal without revealing his “sources of funding” and “the masters you serve that hate all Stadium deals.” Then let’s enjoy that said guy doesn’t mention that his school sports funding nonprofit gets money from the Titans. It’s not irony, it’s the other one.
- With Pawtucket running short of local tax money to pay for its proposed USL soccer stadium as construction costs rise, local elected officials have come up with a new idea: use federal COVID relief money instead. Dylan Zelazo, the city’s chief of director of administration, told the Pawtucket city council on Tuesday that using American Rescue Plan Act and Community Development Block Grant funds to pay for $10 million in new public costs would allow stadium taxes to instead be used for the money from the stadium taxes can go directly into the city’s general fund to be spent on “relief for taxpayers [or] other city services,” which, uh, couldn’t the federal money have been used for that otherwise? Or been used to pay for other things that the city then wouldn’t have to spend local tax dollars on, which it could then use for tax cuts or city services? Anyway, expect lots more cities to take their federal windfall dollars and pour them into private sports projects so long as the feds don’t pay too close attention to how they spend it, and it sure seems like the feds aren’t keeping too close a watch.
- Kansas City Chiefs president Mark Donovan says the team hasn’t yet decided how the Royals moving to a new downtown stadium would affect his team’s stadium plans for when their lease expires in 2031, but did say he’ll be “starting work [on stadium plans] in ‘24, if not before,” so there’s something to look forward to.
- Pat Garofalo has collected a set of dumb headlines about how much the World Cup helps the economies of host cities and the economic evidence that those headlines are dumb so we don’t have to, thanks, Pat!
- St. Louis area government bodies have agreed on how to split the $790 million from Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke and the NFL for skipping town with the Rams without going through the required league relocation process: The city will get $250 million, the county will get $169 million, the local sports authority will get $70 million, and the convention board will get $30 million. No, you are correct, that’s not $790 million, but it’s what’s left after $275 million in attorney’s fees, file this under “a lot better than nothing.”
- The former Meadowlands Arena, driven out of business by arena glut in the New York-New Jersey area, has apparently found a second life as a film production studio. That’s encouraging that it can be reused without anyone demanding more public subsidies — or would be if New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy didn’t just provide a huge pile of new tax kickbacks for film production, sigh. Did New Jersey Sports & Exposition Authority president Vincent Prieto argue that it’s worth it because the film production “really helps the economy with the local businesses” around an arena literally named for being built in the middle of a swamp? Do you even have to ask?
Twitter has become a cesspool of sorts. And to paraphrase an analyst – it’s kind of fun to watch $44 billion get burned before our eyes.
And to the covid money being used for “whatever” that’s definitely on brand. Florida filled it’s budget shortfalls with it.
It is, although since Musk’s bid drove the price up dramatically and he already owned a significant share before ‘musing’ about buying the soon to be bankrupt/defunct “business”, I would say he’s probably only on the hook for a few billion himself (most of the money was borrowed, and of the cash he put in somewhere around $1.5bn would have been capital gains realized on his own attempted stock pump).
I will certainly join in with everyone who celebrates the death of Twitter (and, hopefully, Facebook too) one day, but it’s likely going to be banks and private equity who get burned most on the latest Elon Ego Explosion. And not Musk himself.
After all, him losing a few billion is like most of the rest of us losing a few thousand (or less, considering that might impact our lives and his loss certainly won’t change his significantly).
“Federal windfall dollars,” yeah. Our government in Washington is a gigantic slush fund machine that poops out dollars for every conceivable idiocy. And some that haven’t yet been conceived. Keep imagining folks, Uncle Sugar is waiting to hear from you!
I mean, no, not really that. Some things are very hard to find money for, mostly if you’re someone without a fleet of lobbyists on retainer.
Well, STL got a little over $500m in exchange for building a, what, $250-300m domed stadium (that they still have, although notwithstanding the soon to be reborn/again XFL, don’t have a particular sporting use for…)
I’d say it’s a win, even if the amount they received after fees is roughly equivalent to the NPV of the original cost of the stadium.
I’m sure there were upgrade costs over the years, but they still have a multipurpose arena at a net cost of fairly close to zero.
Anyone want to start a “Rob Walton is going to move the Broncos to St. Louis” (or Arkansas) rumour???
No, me either…
Bradbury is in the pay of masters who hate all stadium subsidies? Damn, Neil, I didn’t know you were so powerful.
It’s helped a lot since I got the space laser.