We’re in a bit of a Christmas week news lull, so let’s take the opportunity to check in on the latest developments with plans for a new Kansas City Royals stadium:
- Jackson County legislator Jalen Anderson has come out against extending the county’s sales tax surcharge that is being used to fund renovations to the Royals’ current stadium to help pay for a new downtown stadium, but only because he doesn’t want a stadium built downtown: “If we were keeping the stadiums where they are? Yes,” said Anderson, who is an at-large legislator but lives in suburban Blue Springs. “If we’re not, no.” Anderson also raised fiscal issues facing the county, though, including the cost of a new jail and new administration building, so it’s not entirely clear if he’s just opposed to the location or to building a whole new stadium that could come with a billion-dollar public price tag when there’s a perfectly good old one.
- Earl Santee, founder and chair of K.C.-based stadium architects Populous, says his company has helped Royals owner John Sherman scope out 14 different potential locations, but emphasizes that they would want some kind of skyline backdrop, because, hey, have you seen this signed bat the former Houston Astros owner gave me, sorry, what was the question? “When you go through the process its tough, it’s hard,” added Santee. “You have to make tough decisions, but every city we’ve done it in have never regretted it. In fact they’ve embraced all the new ballparks across America.” (This is maybe not entirely true.)
As tea leaves go, these are pretty meager, but then, we’re still in the staking-out-positions stage of any Royals stadium push, where the team’s consultants are out and about telling any reporters who’ll listen about how great a new building would be, while everyone else jockeys to haggle over the price. Sherman has a pretty heavy lift ahead of him to find $2 billion in money for a stadium and surrounding development without putting in more than a few hundred million himself, so it’s likely to be a long process of figuring how to piece together subsidies from different levels of government to get to that number. Until then, it’s going to be more fireworks renderings and counting on his captive audience in the sports press, two constants that he can count on. In fact, here’s another one from that KSN news report about Santee:
Okay, sure, that’s actually the Jacksonville Jaguars‘ stadium, which Populous designed in the early 1990s when it was still called HOK and which the Jaguars owner is now trying to say needs $600 million in renovations, but still, that’s a whole lot of fireworks, don’t you think? And did we mention all of Santee’s bats? This is truly what is required for informed public discourse.
Why not go beyond sports and look at wasteful spending in other areas as well?
Because there are only so many hours in the day.
I do try to mention other notable subsidy deals from time to time:
https://www.fieldofschemes.com/category/misc/non-sports-subsidies/
For more in-depth coverage of non-sports subsidies, I’d recommend Good Jobs First’s site:
https://goodjobsfirst.org/
Not just fireworks, but flags. Plenty of fans holding up / waving flags. (Never really seen that at a baseball game in the US). Looks kind of like fans at a soccer match.
Jacksonville has (apparently) holographic mid rise office towers.
Need I say more?
Yeah, Greensboro, put up or shut up.
Neil, on an unrelated note (sort of), Kirk Herbstreit, Al Michael’s announcing partner on Amazon Prime Thursday night football, reported tonight during the 4th quarter of the Cowboys at Titans game that “ALL OF THE residents of Nashville DESPERATELY want the Titans to have a new state of the art facility.” I’ve had a few Buds (ok, 9 Buds-but it’s football! On Thursday!) so I’m paraphrasing but I think it’s pretty close. WTF!!?? I’ve been watching the NFL on the tevee for 50+ years and I’ve never heard a network announcer (ok, it’s Amazon Prime, but still, technically a “network”) say such a stupid, unscientific, home boosterish thing! Did he walk around Nashville yesterday polling all million whatever Nashville residents on their preferences? Did Amy Strunk slip him a Benjamin? Have you seen something like this before Neil? I’ve never liked Mr. K.H. but tonight he turned himself into a “I’m for sale/stupid/hot for Amy” joke! I’ve been scarred for life!
That is absolutely standard for sports announcers to shill for their bosses — I don’t think I’ve ever heard a stadium or arena deal mentioned on a TV broadcast in anything but glowing terms. And given that the Yankees once fired Hall of Fame announcer Red Barber for talking about how bad attendance was at a home game, I’m sure they all have a 3×5 card pinned to their monitors reading “Talk up whatever the owners want, they’re paying your salary.”
Oh, ok. I don’t remember ever hearing it said before but then I don’t watch many events and I pay even less attention to the announcers. I’m more surprised I didn’t hear Al and Kirk pushing Prime Day…..