Friday roundup: Miami Heat park 26 years overdue, Virginia Commanders stadium plan rises slightly from dead

Sorry to keep you waiting this morning — let’s just blame “the holidays” and leave it at that. Getting straight to the news:

  • The Miami Herald editorial board would like to remind everyone that Miami Heat owner Micky Arison promised to build a waterfront park as part of his arena deal with the city … in 1996. “But there was a loophole,” notes the Herald. “The ballot language didn’t actually specify that the park would be built.” Whoops! Too bad there aren’t such things as legal proofreaders to check over ballot language to be sure that it does what it says it does! Or, you know, newspapers like the Herald to check that people are voting on what team owners have promised they are.
  • Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin has proposed spending $500,000 for a study of how to lure the Washington Commanders to his state with a new stadium, which is a drop in the bucket in stadium spending terms, but as the first sign of life since the Virginia legislature killed a Commanders stadium bill in June, it’s worth watching.
  • Here’s a long article by CNBC about how “since 2000, public funds diverted to helping build professional sports stadiums and arenas have cost taxpayers $4.3 billion” (no source provided, but that is almost certainly a massive undercount) that says “the reason cities end up paying for stadiums begins with the issuance of tax-exempt bonds from state and local governments that the federal government has signed off on for decades,” which isn’t really true at all, so I’d probably recommend not reading it unless you want to risk being confused by spaghetti logic. (There’s also a video piece that I haven’t watched, please report back in comments if it’s any better.)
  • The MSG Sphere in Las Vegas, which is technically not an arena since it will only host concerts and such and not sports, has now reached $2.17 billion in estimated cost, which is mind-boggling. MSG is set to pay the entire cost, at least, but I can’t help but wonder if this had any impact on MSG owner James Dolan’s announced plan to spin off the Sphere and his regional sports networks into a new company — not that I’m saying cable channels have as dubious a future business plan as a $2 billion concert theater, but I’m not not saying it, either.
  • New York Mets owner Steve Cohen wants to seek a state license to build a casino … somewhere. In his parking lot? Across the street next to the proposed new NYC F.C. stadium? Either of those places are owned by the city, and the former is technically parkland so this could get interesting.

Okay, I have lots to do and so do you, only two shopping days before Christmas/the last day of Hanukkah/the first day of Kwanzaa! Happy holidays if you observe any, and see you on Tuesday.

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7 comments on “Friday roundup: Miami Heat park 26 years overdue, Virginia Commanders stadium plan rises slightly from dead

  1. I guess the upshot is that the CNBC article at least shines a little light on the topic…even if it misses the point and confuses things.

    The video isn’t much better, it basically is a retelling of the written word.

    About the heat: yep that checks out. And if I recall, the marlins also made similar unfulfilled promises to the city.

  2. I know someone connected to the MSG Sphere project, I asked them about how they’re going to make all that money back, how will they book that venue when only a handful of artists can sell out a venue that size etc etc. He didn’t seem too concerned, U2 will be a residency and they’re working on other big names.

    The big deal though was that the whole venue is an LED screen and they think they will be able to recoup the costs by charging advertisers huge money for use of the screen during Las Vegas’s biggest events.

    Not sure if that’s gonna work, I wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand though.

      1. Yeah, seems a little crazy to me too. I think from the performance side of things- they’re going to need 3 major residencies, and then try their darndest to steal UFC away from T-Mobile Arena.

        While all this is going on- the Oakview Group seems pretty focused on developing an NBA arena at LV blvd and Blue diamond. All of this leads to a weird AEG vs Live nation vs MSG fight and a market with at least 7 large arenas for sports and concerts.

        1. So we are supposed to believe that MLB will get a subsidized stadium for the A’s? There is no way it will happen unless local politicians enjoy having horse’s heads in their beds.

          1. I watch a couple of Vegas TV station clips on YouTube, and it seems the residents aren’t thrilled with a Raiders like taxpayer gift for the A’s.

          2. Basically zero chance of a raiders style deal for the As. I wouldn’t rule out a local municipality like the City of Las Vegas or Henderson presenting the As an offer, the problem with that is the locations would off strip and mostly terrible.

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