Friday roundup: Ravens lease extension would be priciest ever, Royals could be right behind

Four full-length posts in three work days already this week, and still there’s more news that got left out! Guess 2023 isn’t going to lack for sports subsidy shenanigans after an eventful 2022, even if the U.S. House spends the entire year trying to figure out how to swear its members in.

While we all wait for noon to tune back in to C-SPAN, some bullet points to keep us occupied:

  • Did I neglect to mention in yesterday’s report on the Baltimore Ravens lease extension that at 15 years in exchange for $600 million in renovation money, the $40 million a year cost makes it the most expensive sports team lease extension in history, blowing past the New Orleans Saints‘ $30 million a year and the Indiana Pacers‘ $24 million a year? To make up for that, you can hear (and watch a slightly blurry) me expound on it at length to WNST’s Nestor Aparicio. (In other Ravens news, my request to the Maryland Stadium Authority for an actual copy of the team’s new lease was met with a reply of “Thank you for contacting the Maryland Stadium Authority. This email acknowledges receipt of your public information act request,” so it may be a while before we get to see that.)
  • The Kansas City Star editorial board, after stumping for a new downtown stadium for the Royals, now warns “there is much we don’t know about the plan.” You mean who would pay for the possibly $1-billion-plus in construction costs that Royals owner John Sherman doesn’t want to cover? Yes, that, but mostly the team needs to vow to stay put for 30 years or else “voters will rightly reject any tax for the ballpark.” That would be, as you know if you didn’t skip past the bullet point just above and can do simple math, one of the priciest lease per-year lease extensions in sports history, but the Star editors are apparently all about defining success downwards.
  • Louisville City F.C. got a bunch of money from the city for a new soccer stadium in 2017, with promises that new development around the stadium would generate enough new property taxes to make it a win-win. You can probably guess how this is going, but in case you’re a rose-colored-glasses wearer who somehow stumbled onto this site, here’s a WDRB article with lots of photos of the stadium surrounded by nothing but empty lots, plus team co-owner Tim Mulloy talking vaguely about how “we’re sitting on a couple of opportunities right now that we’re very excited about.”
  • City leaders in Augusta, Georgia want to build a new arena for concerts (and, I guess, a minor-league hockey or basketball team if the city ever gets one again) and pay for it with a 0.5% sales tax hike, which Mayor Pro-Tem Brandon Garrett says is a great idea because it “takes much of the burden off of property tax owners and puts the burden on sales tax.” That’ll be great news for the 53% of Augusta households that are homeowners, and somewhat less good news for the 100% of Augusta households that pay sales tax; guess Garrett hasn’t learned about tax regressivity during his formative time as a billboard sales manager.

 

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