The calendar on my screen says it’s September, which means we made it through another summer. (Not technically until the equinox on September 23, I guess, but if Labor Day weekend doesn’t mark the end of summer, I don’t want to be a part of your arbitrary seasonal delineation scheme.) And quite a summer it was, kicking off with Oakland A’s owner John Fisher fighting for (and getting) $600 million in public money for a new stadium in Las Vegas, then proceeding with Kansas City Royals owner John Sherman ramping up talk about a new $2 billion stadium project either in downtown K.C. or in the next county over, the mayor of Oklahoma City saying the Thunder need a new arena because their 22-year-old one “will keep getting older,” the San Antonio Spurs owners exploring a new arena to replace the one that they just had renovated for them a few years back, many anonymous people claiming that the Milwaukee Brewers will move somewhere without $400 million in publicly funded upgrades to their 22-year-old stadium, and of course the great New York City cricket stadium fiasco, which just gets more fiascoey by the day. Plus the Chicago Bears are still shopping themselves around to every possible Chicago suburb, the Arizona Coyotes owners are doing the same with every town in the Phoenix area, and the mayor of San Francisco wants to build a soccer stadium without even knowing for what soccer team for some reason.
There are a bunch of possible reasons why we’re seeing this flurry of new sports subsidy demands: lots of stadiums built in the ’90s getting to a point where team owners aren’t embarrassed to ask for new ones, flush state budgets and the promise of federal infrastructure spending getting owners salivating, a rush particularly in MLB to secure new stadium deals before expansion maybe takes some cities off the potential move threat table. Or, you know, this is just the sort of hellscape we’re doomed to live in after our government decided to give all the money to the rich people and then let them spend it on buying elections. Either way, this site’s work clearly isn’t going to be done for a while yet, so I better get started on some fresh tchotchkes to keep you all interested in helping to support it.
And if you prefer news items to tchotchkes, we got you covered there too:
- Lease extension talks between the state of Maryland and Baltimore Orioles owner John Angelos might still be going nowhere fast, but Gov. Wes Moore (pictured here wearing an Orioles uniform and here doing it again, because that’s how he rolls) says he’s confident of “being able to not just get the lease done, but also making sure that getting the lease done includes all the other lenses that I think are going to be important in this long-term deal.” “Lenses” here apparently means a plan to redevelop the area around Camden Yards, which Moore painted as a win-win for the city and state, and surely not just a giveaway of $300 million in state money plus public land to Angelos so that he can profit from the redevelopment, heaven forfend.
- Los Angeles Angels owner Arte Moreno is still trying to get the city of Anaheim to pay him $5 million for costs associated with “processing the illegal cash sale of Angel Stadium,” as the Voice of OC puts it. That’s pretty ballsy, but keep in mind this is a guy who’s also trying to get out of paying MLB luxury tax by cutting all the players he just traded for in July and hoping someone else signs them, not to mention tried to push through an illegal stadium land purchase to begin with, so ballsy is pretty much par for his course.
- Two New York City council committees have voted to give Madison Square Garden just a five-year extension on its operating permit, half the length of its previous permit and infinitely smaller than the perpetual permit that the owner of the Knicks and Rangers was seeking. While this could raise hopes of seeing the city’s Padlock Unit chain up the arena gates, more likely it’s just the council kicking the can down the road again; especially since, as the New York Times notes in classic Timesian we’re-not-saying-we’re-just-saying style, “the Dolan family has shown itself adept at bending the will of the government to advance its own interests, particularly when the various branches of government are not on the same page.”
- The kerfuffle over the Philadelphia 76ers owners’ terrible “community info sessions” on their new Chinatown arena plans continues, with the first public Zoom meeting held in Mandarin criticized as “garbled” and lacking proper translation; no word yet on how this Tuesday’s meeting in Cantonese went.
- The Charlotte Observer sent questionnaires to city council candidates asking how much the city should be contributing to upgrades on the Carolina Panthers‘ stadium, and if “any answer would be premature” is the kind of response you were hoping for, then you will be very pleased by the efficacy of candidate questionnaires. (To be fair, it is kind of dumb to ask about how much should be spent without taking into consideration things like whether the team owners would pay additional rent, say; to also be fair to the Observer, it really does sound like the candidates mostly used this argument as an excuse to duck the question entirely.)
- Construction has finally begun on Inter Miami‘s cursed new permanent stadium! Or at least “earthwork and site work” has begun, according to a team press release, jeez, Miami Herald, you couldn’t even be bothered to drive over and confirm it? The stadium is now scheduled to open sometime in 2025, but we’ve been hearing similar predictions for, good lord, has it been five years already? At this rate Lionel Messi’s kids are more likely to play at a new Inter Miami stadium than he is.
- If you thought what Congress needed was a Historic Stadium Caucus to work on ways to upgrade older college football stadiums, including possibly with federal infrastructure money, U.S. Rep. Garret Graves has some great news for you.
- The promised housing construction that was supposed to be built as part of the Brooklyn Nets arena is set to miss a May 2025 deadline, and New York state is considering greasing the skids by restoring a tax break that expired last year, because of course it is.
- There might be worse ways to frame a story about how the owners of the San Antonio Missions are trying to get city money for a new minor-league baseball stadium and city officials haven’t been returning their phone calls until the next day than “Missions can’t get to first base on downtown baseball stadium,” but between the what’s the holdup with approving subsidies? and the terrible baseball play on words, it’s hard to imagine one.
- The company that owns the Boston Red Sox is buying the company that owns the TV rights to Pittsburgh Pirates games, which Marc Normandin points out means that going forward it’ll be easier for the Red Sox to outspend the Pirates if the Pirates make more TV money. Normandin calls this “just a weird sentence to type”; me, I’m reminded of syndicate ball, which was a fun time.
- What do “Spring training season brought $418M to state’s economy in 2023” and “Beyoncé’s Renaissance Tour has a huge economic impact” have in common? If you guessed “They’re both as big a load of BS as that time people insisted LeBron James leaving the Cavs destroyed Cleveland’s economy,” you’re a winner!
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Hi Neil,
Someone online wrote the reason this is happening is that with cable landscape changing, these teams are looking for more revenue sources.
That doesn’t make any sense, though – are we supposed to think that during all the years cable revenue was secure, team owners were going, “Nah, no need for a new stadium, I have enough money, thanks”?
The Historic Stadium Caucus is interesting. While the list is geographically diverse, at least a 1/3 of the stadiums on that list have had major work done within the last 10 years. So were they added to give cover to the ones needing work? Also since almost all are owned by the university on which the sit (Cotton Bowl, LA Coliseum and the Rose Bowl are the exceptions), why are federal funds needed?
Because the stadiums (and I mean the actual physical building) have lobbyists?
Snark
On the cricket field, I feel like it’s Popeyes’ pal whimpy telling everyone he’ll glad you pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.
On the large cricket field in broward county that’s mentioned in the article, that means that this area has the largest cricket field for spectators and the largest velodrome in the southeast. That’s quite a claim to fame, isn’t it?
And finally on the interMIAMI stadium, it looks much as it did after the golf course closed, though there are some trucks moving about. I suppose they’re figuring out their environmental mitigation plan? I mean this is a superfund site because there was an incinerator on the land for many years and it has to be cleaned (or otherwise mitigated) before construction can *actually* begin
And about your comment about Messi’s kids, I saw that Messi’s 10 year old son joined interMIAMIs training program. In theory, he could be playing professionally in 6 years … so him playing at the new stadium seems much more likely.
Cheapest ticket for Messi’s upcoming game with LAFC? According to the radio this morning $800.
Avg ticket for Miami’s games scheduled while Messi is playing for Argentina? $150.
Still too much for MLS, Messi or no.
But like Lalas’ plan for Beckham at LAG (and no, I’m not suggesting that is an apt comparison from a skill perspective), it was an awful lot of money… but they probably turned a profit on it in the long run (if not immediately).
It’s a strange world.
And we are a long way from the days of Diaz Arce, Preki, and Carlos Valderrama.
Funny. I enjoy high level soccer. Will watch the premiere league, bundesliga, and the like. But I simply could not watch the MLS.
Messi, though, is appointment tv, and I’ve watched all of his matches. Just to see him.
The two times he played off the bench, I didn’t watch the start of the game, but followed online to see when he entered and watched from that point.
When he goes off to play for Argentina, it’s expected he’ll miss three games. I don’t care enough about the team and won’t watch those at all.
I have some friends who are of a similar mindset, and we’ve discussed how HE is worth watching.
So he’s great and probably making the league revenue. But it may not be sustainable. We’ll see.
BTW, I live in south Florida, and some friends and I thought about going to a game, but at $200+ it’s still out of our price range because it’s still the MLS, and there is a risk he won’t play. But it may still happen one day.
That’s interesting Davey, thanks.
I don’t have to make that choice as I don’t live there, and the likelihood that he will be playing anywhere near me is close to zero.
MLS has made big strides in quality of play over it’s near 30 years. I really don’t want to sound like I am dissing the league, because it is better than it has ever been. At the same time, I think we have to be honest about the level of play.
The nature of the salary cap and the way resources are (pretty much by design) allotted to different areas of the squads also makes it hard for the level of play to be raised across the board. The only side I can remember to ever spend DP money on defenders or holding midfielders is Toronto… and that didn’t work out so well.
I guess it’s not really that different from Chinaglia leaving Roma to join Pele at the Cosmos and the endless shipments of great players that followed (Alberto, Beckenbauer etc). Their exploits against relatively weak defensive opposition no doubt fueled interest in their league. And, with a few differences, Beckham, Messi, Kaka et al coming to MLS for their twilight playing years has done the same.
The designated player rules have certainly brought notoriety and money to the league (and cost a lot). I’m just not convinced the league wouldn’t have been in a better position long term if it had just raised the salary cap and allowed clubs to spend it as they wish. Certainly from a competition point it would have been better off. But financially?
Only MLS itself knows how close to collapse it was when that decision was made.
Good assessment of the league and where it stands.
One thing that I think/hope is positive and may bode well is the addition of young, local talent.
Cremaschi is 18 and played for a competitive soccer program nearby before he was called up.
And Allen is 19 and likewise played on a local youth team.
I think there may be another player as well.
If they (or anyone like them) develop into elite players, then the MLS might be in good shape.
And to be clear, I’m not dunking on the MLS either. I just think the level of play isn’t where it could be and it’s sometimes hard to watch.
The Miami team was downright terrible until Messi joined. I tried watching them, and it wasn’t fun IMHO.
Another Eurosnob. Just what American soccer needs.
I’d rather watch high school soccer than any of those leagues owned by oil barons where the final table is pretty much set in advance.
Watch the personal attacks, please.
And I’ve watched both a lot of US high school soccer and a fair amount of MLS. High school is preferable.