The tchotchkes are in the mail! Repeat: The tchotchkes are in the mail! If you don’t get yours by the end of next week, please drop me a line and I’ll look into it.
And speaking of next week, I’m going to be traveling then, so expect to get your news updates somewhat irregularly and possibly at odd hours. In the meantime, here’s a pile of rounded-up news to slake your thirst for stadium and arena knowledge:
- The Arizona Republic reports that the Diamondbacks owners still want to renovate Chase Field, but that “the organization thus far has been unable to find the sort of public/private partnership to make that happen,” which is a very creative way of saying “we keep waiting for somebody to leave a suitcase full of unmarked twenties on our doorstep, but it hasn’t happened.” Team CEO Derrick Hall told the paper: “We don’t have our hand out, but if you look at some of the other situations very similar to ours — like Milwaukee, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Baltimore — in each case they are getting strong investments from the public, from a mixture of city/county/state, and we just aren’t.” Hall added: “I’m starting to get concerned with the timing. I don’t think the city officials in particular understand the urgency of our lease, which expires in 2027.” That’s urgent for someone, clearly, but it’s not the city of Phoenix that would face having to go play in the street. Hall did say that the team would put in “more than” 75% of a potential $500 million price tag, though he also said he’d be interested in getting “land we can develop,” so be sure to read the fine print of any eventual proposal.
- The state of Wisconsin and city of Milwaukee are now looking at spending $600 million in public money over 20 years to upgrade the Brewers stadium that a 2018 study found needed a maximum of $84.5 million in improvements, reports Urban Milwaukee’s Bruce Murphy. Milwaukee residents overwhelmingly oppose the plan, but the Republican leadership in the legislature is currently looking at just taking tax money away from the city and giving it to Brewers owner Mark Attanasio, which is exactly how democracy is supposed to work, A+ work there guys.
- The House Oversight Committee approved a bill to let Washington, D.C. keep control over the RFK Stadium site, while defeating an amendment that would have prevented D.C. from using public funds to build a new Commanders stadium there. The politics is a little complex here, though, with some Congressmembers arguing against using public money while defending D.C.’s right to use public money, so there’s a lot more haggling to go where this came from.
- The development team behind the Philadelphia 76ers arena plans released a report it commissioned on the economic impact of the project; please pick a random three-digit number and add six zeroes to it and you’ll be as close to accurate as the report. In related news, the 76ers’ developer partner is apparently kind of a dick.
- Missed this one last week: The New York city council has approved a new operating permit for Madison Square Garden, but only for another five years. This can will apparently be kicked down the road until Penn Station gets renovated, or the sun burns out, whichever comes first.
- The temporary cricket stadium in a Bronx public park is dead, with the 2024 men’s T-20 Cricket World Cup matches now to be held in a temporary cricket stadium in a Long Island public park instead.
- The Associated Press declares the four front-runners for eventual MLB expansion to be Charlotte, Nashville, Portland, and Montreal, though then also mentions Salt Lake City and Austin, so it looks like they’re mostly going by Googling “baseball expansion cities” and taking whatever’s on the first page of hits.
- “Local tourism agency releases PowerPoint on how cool a new sports arena would be” is exactly the kind of journalism I expect from 2023, deep sigh.
Regarding MLB expansion- Nashville’s mayor elect is very much against public financing. In Charlotte, the Panthers are starting to put out feelers for a new stadium.
I found this article interesting. It’s focus is on the A’s and some of the financial disclosures that were revealed recently. The writer asks a big question- if this is what the financials look like for the small market teams (needing revenue sharing, local subsidies, vanishing local tv money etc) why would anyone want to buy an expansion franchise?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/maurybrown/2023/09/21/the-oakland-as-relocation-and-business-plan-is-haphazard-at-best/?sh=9a2c04e1db35
I think the answer, which Maury hints at but never quite says, is that the even if the leaked A’s numbers are accurate, the A’s are not at all typical of MLB teams. The Yankees and Dodgers and Braves etc. are all bringing in quite enough money to cover any losses by teams like the A’s just to fill out the schedule.
And that’s setting aside people wanting to buy teams just to own a team, and other billionaires lining up behind them, which means even a $2 billion expansion fee is probably a good investment. It’s a $2 billion asset if someone is willing to pay $2 billion for it, and sometimes all you need for that is limited supply relative to demand.
Agreed. For all the hype about the pitch clock and attendance being up- I don’t think MLB is in that good of place though. Having 5 real teams and 27 “schedule fillers” seems like a failing sport. Local tv rights are becoming worthless outside the big markets, national rights probably take a hit the next time they come around.
But I guess it’s all good if the convince 2 cities and owners that it’s worth it.
The rights to the other teams are not “worthless.”
For example, Ballys pays the Reds $30m annually. That’s a lot of money to a team like that.
And it’s certainly valuable to the regional cable providers. Why else does anyone in Ohio get cable except for sports?
The Reds contract goes thru 2032. That’s very different from a team trying to negotiate a deal now. The Twins RSN deal expires after this season and they don’t have a broadcaster for 2024.
In Vegas the Golden Knights RSN went under. There currently is no RSN on cable to do games. The Golden Knights will be on free tv next year.
So yes, in a lot of markets there isn’t much value in the local tv deal. The RSN collapse is coming.
RSNs are collapsing because cable is collapsing, but that doesn’t mean the rights to show their games won’t be valuable to somebody else.
Most top tier soccer leagues have 3-5 real teams that have a chance of winning and the rest is just filler of various levels of suck.
Those leagues aren’t unhealthy even if they’re boring as hell.
The leagues are not necessarily unhealthy but a lot of the teams are. Every year, there’s a new batch of stories about clubs – including some that have had success in the past – going into administration.
And those leagues have promotion/relegation to keep it interesting. MLB and American sports are really designed for the fans to think they have a chance.
You’ve got that backwards. Pro/rel creates the illusion that every team has a chance when in fact many of them have a better chance of going out of business than ever winning anything.
In MLS, every team actually does have a chance. Cincinnati went from not existing, to doormat, to now running away with the Supporters Shield.
MLS isn’t a league in the sense of even MLB, NHL, NBA, or NFL. It’s a tightly regulated single entity with the appearance of a league. Every player contract is with MLS.
I’ve been telling people for years that I get at least as much entertainment out of watching the A’s ballpark saga as I do out of watching the games. But Manfred’s tenure so far really makes it seem like it’s expanded to a league-wide comedy of errors. Sometime during the next 20 years, there may well be the opportunity to write the history books about how baseball’s leadership totally bungled the game. Our gracious host surely has copious notes to work from…
I’m not sure I want to spend the several years it would take to write a book living inside the head of Rob Manfred…
And really, “bungled” makes it sound like they’re mismanaging it even for their own benefit, which I’m not sure is true. Sure, some things like the A’s moving to Vegas may end up looking bad, but almost everybody is still making money hand over fist, franchises are still selling for record prices, people are still buying tickets and watching on whatever is left of TV, owners are pocketing ever-larger piles of public money… It may not be good for baseball as a cultural institution, but it’s hard to say it’s not working out for baseball owners.
What makes you think the rights fees for this proposed book would be anything like manageable?
If the Lords of Baseball had the slightest sense of responsibility and morality, they’d make sure Montreal got an expansion team or a team that moved. “If” is the operative word here, though.
“The organization thus far has been unable to find the sort of public/private partnership to make that happen. … We don’t have our hand out,” says team CEO Derrick Hall.
Wrong, Derrick. Any time you need the “public” to “partner” with your “private” business, that’s literally sticking your hand out. You may as well be dressed in a barrel and suspenders with hat in hand. The chutzpah of these people and their inverse relationship between money and shame….. can’t even keep their story straight from one sentence to the next.
“If you look at some of the other situations very similar to ours — like Milwaukee, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Baltimore — in each case they are getting strong investments from the public, from a mixture of city/county/state, and we just aren’t.”
Too bad, so sad. Sometimes life just isn’t fair. But since you don’t have your hand out, what other teams are getting from other cities shouldn’t matter, should it?
Yes, also if you are “the public” and you get literally no say in how your tax dollars are used (until the next election, when you can kick out the people who promised not to give tax dollars to billionaires last time and put in people who promise not to give tax dollars to billionaires next time but probably will anyway) and also get a return on your “investment” of (insert negative number needed to cover unfunded operating expenses for the facility that you paid to build) then it is not an investment and it is not a public decision.
It’s extortion and or hostage negotiation.
Which, like many other things, is legal when billionaires do it but gets you the needle (in some states) if you try it.
I don’t get the appeal of adding 4 more teams to the MLB schedule. The risk of a Portland vs Charlotte World Series should scare the crap out MLB’s TV partners. Baseball already has a national footprint. Do you want to have fewer marquee games– Boston/Yankees, Dodgers/Giants, Cardinals/Cubs– in order to have Boston vs Austin? Dodgers vs Portland? Cardinals at Charlotte? The expansion fee doesn’t seem high enough to cover the dilution of the product.
The recent Vegas/Florida Stanley Cup finals didn’t appeal to you? What about last year’s Colorado/Tampa?
Baseball has already de-emphasized the traditional rivalries by imposing a balanced schedule where every team plays each of the other 29 teams. Plus there’s not enough big-league talent to fill 32 big-league rosters.
I would disagree on big-league talent — the U.S. population is 70% more than it was when MLB had 16 teams, plus there are lots more players now from Latin America and Asia. There were plenty of marginal players in 1968 and even 1958, too, they just stand out more because they’re the fat part of the bell curve.
See also:
https://www.marcnormandin.com/2023/07/24/rob-manfred-mlb-commissioner-reelection/
antagonistic, petty, mean – ok. I think you left out incredibly impressive and skilled at time management, but ok.
But unconvincing liar?
No. Just no.
Just ‘cos you recognize some of my lies doesn’t mean you recognize all of them. It is all about the camoflage, man.
And as John Fisher has so capably proved, literally any player can be a big league talent in 2023. Even if you play them in a position they have never taken before. Even in an elementary school sandlot game.
Just remember when you are thinking about not buying tickets because you hate me, the A’s ownership group (and others) have demonstrated that you don’t need a player’s strike to deploy replacement players.
I agree with you MB, dilution of the product is a serious issue for fans.
However, MLB ownership is all about cash now vs gains (or losses) long term. When the owners club meets, I think they notice that most of them are not young men and none of them are women… so the lure of a bigger national tv deal in 2055 vs $100m-250m in expansion fees (depending on how many teams are added at once) right now is not really a calculation. They will take the fees and cash out (probably for more money than they could sell for pre-expansion) when they feel like it. Or croak.
In addition to that, I think we do have to look at the long term effect of adding teams (even weak ones). I know the owners sometimes look at it as splitting the existing tv (or radio, in years past) pie more ways. And in the short term that is true… but you are also producing more “inventory’, baseball games to sell broadcast rights to. Even if a lot of the ‘new’ teams aren’t major revenue drivers, the fact of the matter is that baseball today has about twice as many games to sell (on tv or radio) as it did in the 16 team 154 game era.
That may not drive rights fee increases in the short term, but over the long haul it does. You and I might never view the Dbacks (just as an example) as a legitimate MLB team or location (and yes, I know, it’s a bigger market than plenty of existing or historic ones…). The generation for whom the Dbacks have always existed, however, will do.
The Expos, Padres, Royals, Pilots/Brewers, Mariners and Blue Jays – among others – were all added during my life time… but they still seem like they have ‘always’ been there in away that the Rays, DBacks, Rockies and Marlins do not. For people under 40 or so, these teams have always been part of MLB in the same way that John Lennon, Joe Louis or John Wayne have always been dead.
Taking a cue from the Coyotes, maybe the D-backs can play here: https://thesundevils.com/facilities/phoenix-municipal-stadium/5
I’ve been kind of sad lately, everyday there is a new giveaway to a team, the Oakland to Las Vegas deal makes no sense, at least no cricket stadium in Van Cortland Park!
Mark’s comment reminded me of one of the biggest jokes in sports: the Coyotes playing in a 5,000 seat arena with no end in sight. At least other teams had plans for the future when they played in small/old venues.
That article on Cincinnati is *not* bad journalism at all. There are no lies in it and quite a few truths.
It’s clear that the reporter resented being told to cover a PowerPoint presentation, so they mention that it’s a PP many times.
They also clarify that there’s no plan or public support for a new arena and that the Bengals, and the county, I guess, would rather dump more money into that than a new arena.
I suppose you could argue that the local hotel lobby asking for a new arena is not news, but it’s not a bad excuse to report on how plans for a new arena are going, or, as the case may be, not going.
I imagine Cincinnatians are curious about that. They lost Cincinnati Gardens and the continued existence of the Riverfront arena where the Stingers played is a curiosity.
I wish all these national “experts” would stop mentioning Austin as an expansion city.
Though I don’t serve on the council of billionaires that runs this region, there hasn’t been a peep of gossip about anyone wanting this plus the city and county wouldn’t pitch in a dime much less a dollar (sounds refreshing I know, but the truth is they don’t have it).
Our traffic is already a nightmare even before they tear up IH35 next year, a project that will last 10 years!
No, stay away, stay far away…..
Just because you don’t want it doesn’t mean the council of billionaires won’t make it happen.
It is big enough, especially if it can attract the San Antonio market too.
If the problems in Houston can’t be overcome, maybe it could do an NHL franchise.
Did they give any chance to Oakland after the Vegas move? Some outlets are saying they’re a favorite, and it’s just the right thing to do to do them and Montreal right. I just don’t see the South as a great baseball hub.
Dilution! It’s screamed after every expansion and things turn out fine!
Like Neil noted, the population pod is a lot larger.
Now if they would just pick more
All Star players. It was a lot easier to make an All Star team 70 years ago…..
MLB expansion, Nashville Stars & Portland Pioneers
Beavers!
Has to be Beavers…..
It’ll be interesting when $an Jose throws it’s hat in the MLB expansion ring: with a multi-billionaire $ilicon Valley ownership group, clean/ready to build 10 acre plot in downtown $J and FAT naming rights package from a local tech conglomerate! Will MLB really give that all up for some B.S.”rights” that shouldn’t exist in the first place? Stay tuned Neil…
Unfortunately, all those tech needs don’t care about sports. Locally, Michael Dell is worth way more than Cohen of the Mets but he had to be browbeaten by his PR staff to put up a few dollars (the equivalent of me spending a penny) to put his name on the Round Rock stadium. Mark Cuban is quite the exception…..
“Will MLB really give that all up for some B.S. ‘rights’ that shouldn’t exist in the first place?”
Yes. Next question?
Looks as though the St. Louis Blues’ practice facility has encountered financial difficulties:
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/business/maryland-heights-defaults-on-payment-for-ice-center-raising-questions-about-rinks-future/article_a21b9fa4-596e-11ee-aa67-eb2c230a06c2.html
Utah resident here. The SLC proposal for an MLB expansion team is, to put it lightly, extremely unserious for many reasons:
1) The bid is coming from the Miller family, proprietors of local Larry H. Miller-branded car dealerships, movie theaters, real estate developments and until very recently the Utah Jazz. They made a big deal about turning thar team over to a trust fund to ensure it never leaves Utah and is always financially secure, then turned around and sold the club to local tech bro Ryan Smith 3 years later. Allegedly, they sold because COVID had wrecked their businesses. Now they’re trying to plunk down another billion+ for an MLB team? Where is the guarantee their business empire won’t fall through the floor again? There’s been zero transparency on whether they actually have the financial wherewithal to operate a modern sports franchise or are looking to flip a team as an asset years later.
2) The proposed ballpark is atrocious. They could’ve leveraged the AAA Bees’ soon-to-be-vacant ballpark footprint in the neighborhood known as…The Ballpark, or tried to buy out the failed Gateway Mall development on the west end of downtown that would’ve put it next to the Delta Center and Salt Palace. Either would have built-in mass transit stations and easy access off the I-15 freeway whilst still affording spectacular views of the Wasatch Mountains and/or the SLC skyline. Instead, they went with…an industrial zone owned by Rocky Mountain Power in the southwesternmost corner of the city. Besides having no easy freeway exit or mass transit, the ballpark renderings have smoke stacks looming over left field because it’d be abutting a damned gas-fired plant.
3) The public funding portion has been extremely fuzzy. Salt Lake City and County authorities have categorically refused to use public monies while the rest of the state continues to screw them on a slew of other funding issues. The state already blew a potential funding workaround when they set up their “Inland Port” scam and sent the bill to the city. Politically, it’s extremely hard for folks who represent rural constituencies in the state legislature to put money towards SLC projects, which they regard as Gomorrah. Any ballot measure to fund it would get shot down.
4) Not for nothing, but they’d be creating another Coors Field situation with the altitude that they’ve never been able to resolve. Maybe an in-stadium perk will be free hot dogs for every smoke stack hit by a homer!
Altogether, not even the idiots at MLB’s offices in New York would go for this. It’s bad business and Utah is getting played hard to drive up the cost on the eventual new franchisees.
If they build a new arena, SLC could probably work for the NHL. But baseball is a lot harder.
The question for the arena is whether to expand the Maverik Center in West Valley City (~12k capacity) where the Grizzlies hockey team plays, or redo the Delta Center again. The owners dropped $125 million into renovating the arena in 2016 and I doubt they’d do that again so soon without government money. WVC could be easier, but it’s kinda in the middle of nowhere and the Wasatch Front just isn’t big enough to justify holding 2 major sports arenas.
According to your local news, the location isn’t as bad as you’re making it out to be. On Temple near the Utah state fairgrounds. There would be light rail.
It’s still kind of a crappy site, also it’s hard to believe that the region really has the people for 81 home games and the tv audience will be tiny.
That was a proposed site; however, the stadium renderings released a few months ago with the smoke stacks was the Rocky Mountain Power site and the one identified by the Millers as the most workable. The state fairgrounds site proposal was killed due to pushback by the Utah State Fair and a bunch of other agricultural stakeholders who didn’t want to go find another site to hold their regular livestock events. They like being close to the state capitol to bring in lawmakers and stuff.