Milwaukee Brewers owner Mark Attanasio’s demand for $360 million in stadium renovation money has been mostly stalled since March thanks to a stalemate between Wisconsin’s Democratic governor and Republican assembly speaker over whether to give the team owner cash now or tax breaks later, but there are some signs of movement. Starting with:
A spokesperson for Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley confirmed Monday his office is seeking more flexibility in how the county can use money generated by a recently enacted sales tax increase. That change would then free up other dollars the county could put toward extensive renovations at American Family Field.
“Flexibility” here means that county officials want to be able to take the proceeds from a 0.4% sales tax hike, which is supposed to be used to avoid cuts to the county parks and transit budgets, and instead use it to pay down pension debt. That would then allow the county to take the money it was planning to put toward pensions and use it on Brewers stadium renovations — though Crowley’s communications director, Brandon Weathersby, said, “We aren’t proactively trying to find a local contribution” for a stadium, just proactively asking for a way to find more money for, oh, something. Wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise!
The Rube Goldberging would actually go beyond funneling sales tax money cover stadium costs, according to a report from WisPolitics, which said Crowley is also seeking to do things like have the state take over patrolling highways in Milwaukee County from the county sheriff’s department.
Weathersby said that his boss was prompted to make this move at the request of Democratic leadership in the state legislature, which makes this report all the more interesting:
The Milwaukee Brewers spent more on lobbying in the first half of the year than any other organization in Wisconsin, an investigation by The Badger Project has found.
The ballclub reported spending $575,000 from January through June, according to state lobbying records.
It still seems very likely that Attanasio will get his pile of public cash from somewhere: Even if the county board sticks to its guns about not spending its own money, and even if assembly speaker Robin Vos keeps shooting down any ideas put forward by Democrats (his chief of staff called Crowley’s proposals “preposterous”), top state leaders in both parties agree that they want to throw money at the Brewers, they just can’t decide which money or who’ll get to take the credit for it. (Or, you know, blame.) And the state has a massive budget surplus, which, no, isn’t an especially good reason to peel off a few hundred-million-dollar bills and hand them to the local billionaire so he can buy new field chillers, but state officials tend to feel flusher when they have a surplus than a deficit, even if every dollar you spend in either good or bad times is a dollar you can’t spend on something else.
Oh, and did I forget to mention that the county sales-tax shuffle is part of a bill that state Rep. Rob Brooks (a Republican) plans to introduce in coming weeks that would provide an additional $5 million a year toward Brewers renovations, on top of the $23 million a year that Vos wants to spend. WisPolitics calls this a $698 million, but that’s if you add up all the payments over time and count them as present-day dollars, which isn’t accurate — $28 million a year would actually pay for about $430 million in upfront costs. In exchange for just a 13-year lease extension, that would amount to $33 million in public outlay for every additional year of Brewers lease, which would be the second-highest per-year cost in sports history. For now, anyway; records are made to be broken, sports subsidy records doubly so, it appears.
Here’s a novel concept. Tell the Brewers to stuff it. Then let’s see if they move. Not bloody likely.
That would require politicians to have a backbone and/or a brain. What MLB teams are currently asking for stadium money? A’s, Brewers, DBacks, Orioles, Rays, Royals? They can’t all move.
They can’t all move- sure. What’s also true is the MLB has a lot of teams in pretty undesirable markets with bleak future growth projections.
Doesn’t that describe every sports league in the US outside of the NFL, MLS, and NWSL?
The NHL’s American franchises are positioned pretty well. The only places experiencing weak growth are St Louis, Pittsburgh, but they’re well established clubs. They picked Columbus for expansion instead of other Ohio cities and that looks good enough long term. All the other teams are in healthy growing areas.
NBA certainly has some markets with no business having a team but that league is more reliant on its national tv deals, and a star can flourish in a small market (see Lebron in Cleveland, Giannis in MKE). Once they expand to Seattle and Vegas- there’s not very many desirable markets for teams to relocate. The Spurs have staked their claim on Austin, memphis would block Nashville. I guess there’s always the threat of Vancouver of Mexico City?
The NBA did Vancouver already
Lack of growth isn’t necessarily “bleak.”
Pittsburgh is smaller than it was in the 1950s. It’s not bleak.
Bleak better describes the rapidly growing, out-of-control sprawling cities of the sunbelt. There’s no there there. Taxes are low and the quality of public services reflect that. They will be unlivable in a generation or two. But they keep voting for more of it.
While Sunbelt sprawl isn’t everyone’s cup of tea- that’s where the people are going. It’s probably not smart growth, and the long term implications aren’t good, but sports owners aren’t thinking 30-50 years down the line.
It may not be 30-50 years if the Colorado River runs dry and cities have to start blocking new development. But sports owners probably aren’t even thinking 10-20 years down the line, either.
As always, great links Neil! Milwaukee has a lower tax (starting Jan. 1, 2024) than
Austin. 07.9% vs 0.825%! Of course we don’t have a state income tax. Does Wisconsin have one? (Alexa is in one of her “moods”). But we do have Satan’s brother in law as governor, so the Lord giveth and taketh away…..
I wonder where he’d gone… good to hear the associate prince of darkness landed on his feet… err, hooves… err…
Also, “yes”, it seems so.
https://www.revenue.wi.gov/Pages/OnlineServices/webased.aspx