Before we even get to the bullet points, we need to start with this: Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt announced yesterday in his State of the City speech that he wants to build a new arena for the Thunder to replace their current one, which just turned 22 years old and is receiving a $100 million upgrade begun in 2011. The present building is “simply not what it used to be,” according to Holt, and “will keep getting older,” which, yep, that’s how time works. “Seats get old, scoreboards get old, elevators break,” said Holt. Everything breaks, dunnit?
To help pay for a new arena, Holt wants to extend the 1% sales tax surcharge that paid for the old one and which is currently set to expire in 2028. Holt described this as “no tax increase will be necessary,” which is true if you mean that Oklahoma City residents won’t have to pay any more in taxes than they do now, but not true if you mean whether they’d have to pay more than they would if the Thunder were forced to continue to play in their aging more-than-two-decade-old arena instead of an aging new one.
The tax extension would at least require a public vote, as the original one did. Still, J.C. Bradbury has a point:
I think it's generally good public policy to at least finish the $100 million renovation in progress before you start talking about replacing the venue. https://t.co/yvQtCESJTf https://t.co/x8v3aaZZQP pic.twitter.com/EAQtyzavuz
— J.C. Bradbury (@jc_bradbury) July 20, 2023
Nothing wrong with getting a new arena every year, so long as you’re not the one paying for it. And now, on to the week in bullet points:
- Nashville officially approved $760 million in public bonds to help pay for a new Titans stadium, which Mayor John Cooper called “getting a $2.1 billion domed stadium paid for entirely by the team, tourism, the state and users of the East Bank campus,” and J.C. had something to say about that as well.
- Jacksonville is considering hiring a former Jaguars executive and current NFL consultant to lead its negotiations with the Jaguars over a $1 billion stadium renovation subsidy. “Takes one to know one” or “fox guarding the hen house,” you make the call!
- That temporary cricket stadium that New York Mayor Eric Adams wants to build in a public park in the Bronx would displace a bunch of public cricket pitches, and local cricket clubs and players are not happy at all.
- Washington Commanders owner-for-now Daniel Snyder is being fined $60 million by the NFL for sexually harassing a former employee and hiding revenues he should have been sharing with his fellow owners, probably not in that order. The NFL also approved Snyder’s sale of the Commanders to Josh Harris for $6.05 billion, so if you want to think of this as a 1% “being a horrible human being” tax on the part of the league, I’m not going to stop you.
- People are still somehow talking about a Los Angeles Dodgers gondola that would cost $300-500 million to build and offer free rides to games and make money by ?. If you go to a Dodgers game, you can visit a mock gondola in the parking lot and receive what one Dodgers fan (and gondola fan) called “a wowing experience,” and who can put a price on that?
- No, hosting a Taylor Swift concert is not a major boon to the local economy, click through for Pat Garofalo’s explanation why.
- And hosting the MLB All-Star Game is not a major boon to local restaurants, click through for Seattle restaurateurs’ explanation why.
- There’s been some remarkable examples of bad sports journalism this year, but it’s going to be hard to top Tulsa World’s “ChatGPT ranks Big 12 stadiums.” Expect a lot more of this in the future, since chatbots are way cheaper than journalists, even if they can get dumber over time. At least this is a joke, maybe? In the future, will we even know what a joke is, or will we have to ask chatbots to tell us? Sorry, everyone, that got dark there at the end, go throw your computer out the window and enjoy your weekend without looking at any screens, at least reality is still real, probably, for now.
Here’s a Friday roundup item about the potential for “a trop” demolition and a little about the As
https://www.reviewjournal.com/sports/athletics/tropicana-demolition-plan-on-hold-as-as-finalize-ballpark-plan-2875091/
*interesting how Ballys comes up in both parts of the story
Can you explain why Snyder’s fine was announced on the same day as the sale went through? That can’t be a coincidence, but I can’t quite understand it. Was it just that he was waiting for the $6bn check to clear (I suspect it doesn’t happen like that, but maybe it does) before agreeing to pay what he knows he owed?
He seems to have capitulated on everything all at once after showing every intention of fighting this to his dying breath. And he’s shown for 25 years that reality is no impediment to his obstinance. So this is a surprising U turn.
But now that he’s not an owner, why would he agree to pay their fines for stuff he said he didn’t do (narrator: he almost did do what they said he did and a whole lot more).
That makes me think that they cut a deal. That Snyder actually got something out of this. Perhaps he really owes way more than $60m and the league agreed to let that go just to get this over with.
A friend of mine sold his business for a decent sum. In that case, yeah it was basically just waiting for the check to clear.
It showed up in his account and he’s like “hey how about that?”
Visited Seattle for the first time (as a civilian) back in April (don’t count my “drunk sailor” years at Bremerton in the late 80’s). Beautiful city! Restaurants in the Pikes Public Market area were packed, with waits of at least one hour; no All Star game needed.
The irony(?) of the OKC Thunder is that they will always be worth more to another owner in a different market.
They don’t add much to the NBA pot, their principal owner isn’t that wealthy by league standards. Their ownership group is a who’s who of Oklahoma corporate leaders. In many ways the team’s existence is due to local leaders wanting a team and tasking Bennett & Co on getting one.
Employers in cities like OKC have a tough time retaining talent, it’s just not a desirable place to live. In the oil and gas industry top employees want to get to Dallas or Houston. They’ll stomach a few years in OKC, Tulsa or the Permian Basin if it means a better quality of life later in a major Texas city. The Thunder exist because OKC leadership want a team to show employers it’s a real major city.
At some point, maybe a recession hits Big Oil, or Dust Bowl 2.0 or NBA team valuations reach something crazy, the OKC Thunder ownership group will entertain offers by an out of state owner with clear intentions to move the team elsewhere.
If the OKC business owners want an NBA team then they should subsidize it.
They’d rather drive into a concrete wall at 90mph than pay for an arena and their Courtside seats.
I don’t think that’s a rational cost/benefit analysis.
What a twist of irony. Say a new arena is failed to be built and the Thunder return to Seattle to be the Sonics .
Lol. Doesn’t every team rumoured to be even slightly portable now have to go to Vegas????
No, every NBA team now plays in Las Vegas.
It’s more likely that the Sonics will return as an expansion team, along with one in Vegas, before the Thunder are ready to move.
Running Express busses from Dodger Stadium to existing LA Metro stations sure isn’t sexy, but it’s probably far more efficient than a point to point gondola line. Unless they were floating gondolas with sining gondoliers.