Thanks to everyone for helping us make it through another week! (I’m assuming here that it’s you readers who someone make time progress; I don’t actually know that much about science.)
Here’s what’s been happening that we haven’t talked about yet:
- A New York state assemblymember has introduced a bill to allow New York Mets owner Steve Cohen to build a casino in his stadium’s parking lot, which requires demapping it as parkland since that’s how it’s currently zoned. The THE CITY article reports that “the city would have to find at least 20 acres of replacement parkland or significantly improve other existing greenspace — paid for by the private developer”; but the actual bill says the city has to spend “an amount equal to or greater than the fair market value of the parklands being discontinued,” and it just needs to include 20 acres of “open space” on the current parking lots (possibly on the casino roof), to be paid for by Sir Not-Specified-in-This-Legislation. Local residents are excited, but probably not in the way Cohen was hoping!
- Los Angeles Angels owner Arte Moreno is set to meet with new Anaheim mayor Ashleigh Aitken, presumably to reopen talks about giving him development rights to the city-owned parking lots around his stadium. Maybe this time he’ll be willing to pay the full $500 million value of the property, instead of the $150 million the old mayor agreed to before being forced out of office by a scandal alleging he approved the Angels deal in exchange for campaign contributions? One can hope, or at least pretend to!
- Regina, Saskatchewan, may not be able to pick a tourism slogan that doesn’t sound wrong, but they have committed to building $490 million worth of new projects, including a new arena to host its junior hockey league team, the Regina Pats. Though not committed to paying for them, as “council is not making a commitment to spend all the money on all the projects,” said a council official. If anyone has $490 million sitting around, please contact Barry Lacey, executive director of financial strategy and sustainability, at this phone number.
- The Denver Broncos have done one of those push polls for season ticketholders to ask them which cool new things they want as part of their cool new stadium that would cost a rumored $2 billion. What’s more important, a roof or lots of restaurant chains? Would you prefer sports gambling or axe throwing? “There is something about a survey that makes the possibility of a Broncos’ new stadium a little more real,” says KUSA-TV, which is exactly the point of such a survey, but you can’t really expect a TV station to notice and remark on that when they can’t even copyedit headlines that read “Survey strikes cord to how Broncos new ownership wants fans’ input.”
- It’s rare that economist J.C. Bradbury gets upstaged in terms of quotes about why public funding of stadiums is a bad deal, but it’s hard to beat a Cleveland city councilmember who is quoted as saying about a new Browns stadium, “I’ve heard all the lines of (crap) about how we’re going to turn this around and turn that around. We’re going to benefit all these minority jobs and dah-dah-dah-dah. What a crock of (bleep).”
- Isn’t that rather a lot of drinks that the couple in the left corner of this Kansas City Current stadium bar rendering are drinking? It seems like rather a lot to me, though maybe they started off by ordering a pitcher of lemon water and two soup bowls to drink it out of, then decided to switch to (squints) orange juice?
- The amazing thing about Buffalo-area middle schoolers designing a new Bills stadium in Minecraft shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has seen middle schoolers with Minecraft, it’s that their design looks less ridiculous than the official one.
Who are the KC Current Neil? Lower division soccer? That bar rendering is a lot nicer than anything we have here at the Quakes cheaply constructed PayPal Park ;(
NWSL. There’s a link to previous coverage just below the social share icons.
In a video game (Horizon Zero Dawn) where machines wipe out humans in 2066 by consuming them for fuel, robot dinosaurs, and an AI that terraforms earth in the year 3000 to bring back life, the most unrealistic part is the Broncos current stadium was never replaced with a new one and exists in game as a ruin.
Yeah, that’s not realistic at all. I mean the stadium part. The rest sounds like a strikingly rational solution to both stadium funding scams and climate change.
I am betting that Moreno offers LESS than the $150m plus envelopes filled with ‘campaign’ cash this time around.
After all, who has suffered more from all this than Arte? Oh yes, the guy who took the bribe/money… but still, I mean, we have to remain focused on what is really important here…and that is that a billionaire gains control of a public asset for far less than fair market value – if not free.
If we can’t make that happen, I mean what is an America (or Canada, it seems) even for?
Everytime a new generation comes along they will use/view entertainment in different ways, especially with how quickly technology is advancing. This is a never ending 25ish year spin cycle and they’ll be doing it again and again and again.
Is this in reference to the lemon water?
Just thinking about how every 25 years were going to be asked to pay for a giant building that only a small percentage can utilize.
Oh, sure. But that doesn’t have much to do with technology — even if there were no advances in wifi or high-definition screens or what have you, team owners would still be arguing for new buildings on the basis of “the cupholders need replacing.”
VERY lazy reporting, extreme hyperbole, and bad editing on headlines is the bain of our existence currently.
It’s sad that reporting has sunk to this level.
Whatever happened to journalism and using the 5 Ws to tell your story?
Well, there used to be a person for each W but now there’s only one and a part-tkme copy editor who also has to run the printing press…..
Well, you knew Steve Cohen would get pushed off the sports owner front page somehow…
https://www.cbssports.com/nhl/news/nhl-suspends-coyotes-minority-owner-andrew-barroway-indefinitely-after-felony-strangulation-charge/
And wouldn’t it be just like the Coyotes to do it?
More great moments in proofreading:
“Barroway is now under a court order that prohibits him from having any contact with his wife, except when it comes to matters involving their children and consuming alcohol, per the report.”
Oops.
Ground was officially broken for the new Indy Fuel arena, but per usual, the “ground” actually being broken was purely ceremonial.
https://www.wthr.com/article/news/local/indy-fuel-breaks-ground-on-new-fishers-event-center-home/531-9bd86986-689d-423b-b65b-e9b70c5061b9
“Isn’t that rather a lot of drinks that the couple in the left corner of this Kansas City Current stadium bar rendering are drinking?”
I think that explains the lightheaded blitzed little can’t stop grinning look on the lady’s face in a I-Don’t-Know-Where-Am sort of way.
What’s funny about that Cleveland Councilman (and for the most part I respect his work) is that one year after he won re-election. At the end of the Council term he “resigned” so that he could start collecting his pension and then began his new term so he could collect both his regular salar and his pension. So him talking about taxpayer money is kind of ironic.