Today’s Friday where you are, right? I’ve completely lost track, honestly. Some things happened this week, or maybe last week, but they definitely happened, let’s talk about them:
- The Baltimore Orioles owners announced a 30-year lease extension on Camden Yards last night by putting it up on the scoreboard between innings, that’s totally normal, yup. Actual details like what if anything the team got on top of the $600 million in state money approved last year will have to await a Friday news conference.
- Wisconsin state representative Rob Brooks, who co-authored the bill to give Milwaukee Brewers owner Mark Attanasio even more money than he asked for, now says that he doesn’t want the city of Milwaukee to give Attanasio $7.5 million a year, but just $5 million a year. “If they come up with the things they’ve counted they can do and we think we can do, I do think it will be around $5 million,” said Brooks, which, sorry, what? You really gotta show us some actual legislative language, man, this trying to describe things using your words thing just isn’t going well at all.
- “Representatives with ties to the A’s” have sued the teachers’ union–backed group Schools Over Stadiums over their proposed Las Vegas A’s stadium referendum “not fully describing the petition’s ‘substantive impacts’ on the project,” according to SOS. Who? What impacts? “This is a developing story. Check back for updates.” Pro journalism tip, Las Vegas Review-Journal: Try to answer at least some of the five W’s before hitting publish. (The Las Vegas Sun has a bit more info, adding that the suit is from registed lobbyists Danny Thompson and Thomas Morley and is objecting to the referendum petition trying to overturn just the funding part of the stadium bill and being “argumentative,” but doesn’t explain why either of those things would disqualify it from the ballot.)
- Arlington Heights is still talking to Chicago Bears execs about a new stadium, and so is the mayor of Chicago, and that could mean that they’re about to approve a ton of subsidies or agree to a deal that doesn’t require a ton of subsidies or not agree to anything, really. “It’s what the people of Chicago elected me to do is to bring people together,” said Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson. “Being collaborative, compassionate and competent, those are the hallmarks of my administration. It’s what I expect, quite frankly, all leaders to possess.” Is there some sort of brain worm they inject mayors with at their inaugurations that make them talk like this?
- Michael Baumann of FanGraphs writes that the Tampa Bay Rays and Kansas City Royals owners are both trying to get new stadiums by claiming it would let them start spending money with the big boys, but “we all know this is bunk.” He also complains that new baseball stadiums are too disconnected from their neighborhoods and too tall and too generic (all true), and then headlines the whole thing “The Jewel Box Under End-Stage Capitalism,” to which I can only say promises, promises.
- The Chicago Tribune is worried that if the Bears don’t win games, no one will want to give them stadium money, and WCPO is worried that if the Cincinnati Bengals don’t win games, no one will want to give them stadium money, and both are probably right, but is that really the part to be worried about?
- Sports management professor Mark Rosentraub still thinks Saskatoon needs a new arena, this time to remain “competitive” for concerts, LOLRosentraub.
- Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke may pull his stadium from consideration for hosting 2026 World Cup games because FIFA won’t let him have enough of a cut of the vig. Sometimes when elephants fight, we can just get an entertaining elephant fight, maybe?
- The Athletic noticed that A’s owner John Fisher, during his recent interview with ESPN, said (in ESPN’s words) that his San Jose Earthquakes‘ stadium “is already outdated compared to newer MLS stadiums” and “lacks the capacity and premium seating that drives the kind of revenue needed to compete for championships.” The stadium is eight years old.
- “I don’t really like owning teams,” New York Knicks and Rangers LOLowner James Dolan told The New York Times, adding, “Being a professional sports owner in New York, you’re not beloved until you’re dead.” This may be overly optimistic, but sure, he’s welcome to try.
“End-stage capitalism” always overpromises and underdelivers.
LOL James Dolan
“This is gold, Jerry, gold!” Nice roundup Neil.
On the rays, I find it especially funny that the owner is talking about spending … when his team has been exceptionally competitive without spending.
So you’ll get bigger names, and maybe win less? Is that what you’re arguing for?
They would have a *slightly* better chance of winning a WS if they spent just a bit more, I suppose. They could maybe keep popular players, which maybe could also help attendance.
Lots of maybes. There’s no assurance that they will spend more money if they make more money or, even if they do, that it will necessarily lead to better outcomes.
They could have a slightly better chance of making or winning a World Series, sure. But if spending is tied to net revenue (supposedly) then why are the Rays and Athletics among the more profitable franchises? Their net operating income (per Forbes, which, yeah) is pretty good compared to some of their competitors… and they spend relatively little on player payroll (whether they are competitive or an outright embarrassment like Fisher’s team has been).
There’s really no evidence that new facilities will drive increased revenue AND thus lead to increased spending on payroll.
It might, if the owner is inclined to spend any new revenues on payroll… but then, that owner might spend the new revenue very poorly, or just pocket it.
It’s one of the great lies told about the stadium extortion game. “we” don’t need this to be competitive. We need better management and better recruiting. Fans tend to come and spend money if you give them a reason to. They also tend to stay away if you give them reasons to. Especially if it is obvious that you are trying to lose (Fisher, et al)
They could definitely make more money with a better stadium, especially if somebody else is paying for it. More luxury suites, etc. And if more people actually came to the ballpark, that would help too, of course.
It would also probably help them gain sponsors and corporate ticket holders if those businesses had more confidence that the team was going to stay.
But of course, there’s no reason to assume any of that extra money would go to the roster.
As I’ve said before, MLB needs a real salary cap if for no other reason than that’s the only way the owners will agree to a salary floor.
Right now, there’s just no incentive for middling teams to not just tank. The way their owners – and a lot of fans – see it, if the team isn’t a real contender, they’d rather see a complete tank-and-rebuild rather than make an effort to win 75 games. And they’ll save a lot of money along the way.
Expanding the playoffs probably helped in this regard. If more teams are in it, fewer teams will sell at the deadline.
In the past, at least, the A’s, O’s, Pirates, Reds, etc, could afford a few years of outright tanking while offering vague promises that they were “rebuilding” and or that they were just doing what they had to in order to compete as a small market.
The O’s have shown that such rebuilds are actually possible. And now they have their hand out to the public, of course. That’s now going to be the model all those teams will follow.
But unlike those teams, the Rays have never built up much goodwill in the region. They don’t have sepia-toned pictures on the walls of local sports bars from the good old days.
The only “good old days” for the Rays were the terrible Vince Naimoli years, where employees had to pay to park and didn’t have email, and all that.
So they have had the difficult task of actually trying to win and giving people a reason to come to the park, while also putting their hand out and pleading that they can barely afford to exist.
And yet, so far, it looks like they’ve succeeded.
If The Honorable Mayor of Chicago really expects all leaders to be collaborative, compassionate and competent, I fear he’s going to be sorely disappointed when he meets Tom Ricketts and Jerry Reinsdorf.
LOL. I bet he’s already encountered many examples that disprove his unsupportable hypothesis.
I would think Enos Stanley Kroenke has next to no leverage. FIFA may have picked the shiny new SoFi over the Rose Bowl and Coliseum but either is a perfectly workable replacement.
They could also just drop LA from the event and pick up one of the cities that didn’t quite make the cut – Baltimore, Denver, Cincinnati, etc. They are smaller cities, of course, have nicer (well, newer) stadiums than the Rose Bowl.
That may seem dumb, but I suspect FIFA would rather do that than let the world know that any city that doesn’t do what it originally promised will lose their games.
The thing is that Southern California is really the most important place in the country when it comes to soccer fandom.
They really should have told Kroenke to shove it and put all their games in the Rose Bowl, but it’s not shiny and new.
They don’t need to play in SoCal.
This isn’t 1994.
The games will likely all sell out regardless of where they play them and the TV money will be whatever it is regardless.
The NFL had zero teams in LA for a long while. It didn’t really matter.
I mean, I obviously don’t know what will happen with this.
But Kroenke and LA should not assume that FIFA won’t walk away just because LA is a huge city with a lot of futbol fans.
In regards to the Bears, win A game , not necessarily even a Super Bowl. Just win A game, any game and maybe we’ll start talking about money you’ll need to pay the fans to show up wherever to watch your pathetic performance.
Dolan might not like owning the teams, but he loves owning MSG because he can force bands to book his band as an opening act.
Despite being only 8 years old, if you ever attended a Quakes match at PayPal Park and did a good walk around of the facility you would finally be in full agreement with a John Fisher quote Neil..
Why do you think I’m only eight years old?
Didn’t he and his partners build that stadium? If it sucks, it’s his fault.
If and when he moves the A’s, MLS has to force him to sell the Quakes. How can the club attract fans and sponsors when they’re owner by one of the most hated men in California sports history?
I can’t imagine the local taxpayers want to give him a dime for stadium improvements. I don’t know if they’d be more amenable to subsidizing another owner either – not should they be, of course.
My thought exactly, Reed. Only someone truly blind to his own incompetence could complain about a stadium he held overall responsibility for the design and build of.
“I wasted $70m on this and it’s all your fault California/San Jose/MLS/America/Somebody/Anybody/Hey! Look at me! My parents were riiiiiiiiiich!”
We’ll see what happens. For most of MLS’ history, they were desperate to get more owners. They couldn’t afford to be too choosy.
Now they can be, but I can’t recall them ever facing a situation where it was clearly in their best interest to get rid of one.
MLS clubs are getting to be expensive. San Diego’s expansion fee was $500m, which gives some idea. That’s about 20% of what the next NBA expansion fee will be, but that’s still a lot for MLS.
But still shouldn’t be too hard to find a Silicon Valley billionaire or two who would want to own the Quakes and actually spend money on them.