Milwaukee Brewers owner Mark Attanasio was asked yesterday about Wisconin Gov. Tony Evers’ plan to give him $290 million in stadium renovation money in exchange for a 13-year lease extension, and responded with lines straight out of the stadium playbook:
“I think the fans deserve a facility like this and I think one of the reasons they come out is the ballpark experience,” Attanasio said Monday before the Brewers’ home opener with the New York Mets. “So we really just want to continue to maintain that. And look, I want the team to be here forever. So, we want this to be forever a special place.” …
“Other stadiums of similar vintage, they’re talking about needing brand-new ballparks, and here we just want to continue to maintain this,” Attanasio said.
The first bit first: “Look, I want the team to be here forever” is a classic idle move threat, not to mention a direct riff on the Monty Python army protection racket sketch. The Brewers don’t currently have any other cities bidding for their services, and while it wouldn’t be hard to find another market Milwaukee’s size, that’s not the same as finding one willing to build you a stadium with a retractable roof like the Brewers have now. On top of which, it takes a lot of damn gall to say “I want the team to be here forever” while offering to sign only a 13-year lease extension that would put you in great shape to demand even more renovation money — or a brand-new ballpark — as we get closer to 2043.
When it comes to gall, though, let’s check in on that statement that “Other stadiums of similar vintage, they’re talking about needing brand-new ballparks.” The Brewers’ stadium opened in 2001; here is the list of other MLB stadiums that opened between 1999 and 2003:
- T-Mobile Park, Seattle, 1999: Team not seeking replacement or renovations.
- Comerica Park, Detroit, 2000: Team not seeking replacement or renovations.
- Minute Maid Park, Houston, 2000: Team not seeking replacement or renovations.
- Oracle Park, San Francisco, 2000: Team not seeking replacement or renovations.
- PNC Park, Pittsburgh, 2001: Team not seeking replacement or renovations.
- Great American Ball Park, 2003: Team not seeking replacement or renovations.
Uh-huh. The stadium of the most recent vintage where team owners are even considering demanding a new one is the Arizona Diamondbacks‘ Chase Field, which opened in 1998; the Cleveland Guardians (Progressive Field, 1994) and Baltimore Orioles (Camden Yards, 1992) are both getting or seeking money for upgrades comparable to what Attanasio wants. “All the other kids are doing it” is never a good argument for demanding stadium subsidies, but in this case, none of the other kids with similarly aged stadiums are doing it, making Attanasio’s statement an outright lie.
(Attanasio also took time out to complain about how little money he’s spending on player salaries compared to the rest of the league, calling it “just the reality,” which was either an epic self-own or a sign of gall reserves the size of Lake Michigan.)
Little details like facts aren’t the point at this stage in the stadium game, though: It’s more about creating momentum and a sense that something has gotta be done, at which point you’re just haggling over how much needs to be done and who’ll pay for it. Given that he already has Democratic and Republican state officials debating whether to fund stadium renovations in cash now or wait to pay them down later, and now he has Attanasio has to be pretty happy about how his Overton window is going.
Not that it changes the overall point of the article, but I guess you could say Atlanta (1996/1997) is one example that counts against you.
Yeah, I almost added a note about the Braves and Rangers getting new stadiums in the last few years when their old ones were of a similar age to the Brewers’. But what Attanasio was said that stadiums built around the same time as his are currently being marked for death, and that’s simply not true.
Maybe he meant they were all hosting Steven Seagal film festivals. I feel like that is worse than being prepared for demolition.
To be fair, the Mariners did just finish a bunch of renovation work over the past season and has some more planned. I think $55 million total.
The Mariners owners paid for those, though.
As Mr. deMause knows, the Seattle Mariners went through a relatively harmonious lease extension/stadium improvement process in 2018. Key differences from this new Milwaukee situation:
1. The M’s signed a 25 year lease extension (plus some options for 6 more years).
2. The M’s made it clear they wanted to be in the stadium for “100 years.”
3. The stadium authority emphasized that the M’s weren’t going anywhere.
The only real debate was what the fair amount of contribution from the public should be for ongoing capital improvements over the next 25 years (the M’s have responsibility for maintenance and operations costs). Reasonable minds could differ. The public funding source (the motel-hotel tax) wasn’t going away, so the question was how much of those eventual tax receipts should be directed to the stadium in the future. Once again, reasonable minds could differ.
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Do they want to build a giant 747 replica on top of the stadium with an interior restaurant/viewing plaza so fans could see all the way to Greensboro?
I’m in!
I remember reading in the late 2000’s in the USA Today Baseball Weekly (the newspaper equivalent then of what good, deep internet coverage would become now-I miss that paper) that soon the 10 year period would be up and Mariners owner Nintendo would stop limiting payroll by $10 million dollars. This yearly deduction frustrated Mariners fans no end. Seems Ninetendo added $100 million dollars worth of stadium improvements to the stadium plan and gosh darn it they were going to get those $$$ back FIRST every year (10% of it anyway) until that $100 million was returned to their shareholders!
Odd,I thought, that it was a straight 10% every year.
No need to worry about present/future value?
Fans could see it (better yet sportswriters) in the yearly SEC filings (Nintendo was a public company then, don’t know about today).
Fans used to loose their minds like raging bulls seeing a red SEC report every time the local media waved it in their faces and they did: every year for 10 years!
Remember, 20 odd tears ago you could hire a HOF worthy player for $10 million.
Payrolls were a lot lower then.
Hope I’m remembering the details properly. I’ve had insomnia for 5 days and
my brain is a bit muddled. Been a while, not used to it.
Thanks for reading, that’s it for me. I’ve need to eat my shortbread cookies now
(my favorite-the USA Girl Scouts used to sell good ones!) and lay down.
I guess things are different in Japanese accounting?
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