More news on the possible amendments being planned to the half-billion-dollar-ish Milwaukee Brewers stadium renovation bill as it heads to the state senate after passing the state assembly:
- Bill co-sponsor Rep. Robert Brooks said yesterday at a senate hearing that he may add a ticket tax on non-baseball events at the stadium — “everything from monster truck rallies to George Strait concerts,” in the words of the Associated Press — to help trim the public’s costs. Brooks didn’t say how much money taxing the occasional stadium concert would raise, but he did say that taxing the 81 baseball games a year that are the main programming at the stadium was a “non-starter” for team owner Mark Attanasio, so that’s gotta be off the table, I mean obviously.
- It’s also possible that Attanasio could be asked to put in more than the $100 million he’s currently expected to contribute, though no one is saying how much more.
- State Sen. Kelda Roys said yesterday that she wants to see more city and county members of the state stadium board, which, uh, that’s a choice, I guess.
Will all this add up to enough to get 17 votes in the 33-member state senate? Your guess is as good as mine. Will it significantly move the needle on the public price tag, currently standing at roughly $471 million? What do I look like, here, a crystal ball? (History says “probably” and “almost certainly not,” but there are always outliers.)
Meanwhile, Brewers president of business operations Rick Schlesinger said at that senate hearing, “The last thing I want to do is figure out a way to leave. … I’m not here threatening to leave. I want to be here.” This is a pitch-perfect rendition of the non-threat threat, best explained way back in 1996 by then-Miami Heat exec Jay Cross:
“We never threatened. We never said we’re going to leave. When people asked us what we’re going to do if we don’t win the referendum, we said, ‘We don’t know. We don’t know where we’re going to play. We don’t have a choice. We’ll have to look around.'”
That’s a good strategy not just to keep from being hated by everyone in town, but to avoid anyone fact-checking your possible relocation targets to, say, notice that the leading candidate just elected a mayor who ran on a platform of opposing stadium subsidies. So long as both local elected officials and local journalists keep falling for it, though, team execs would be crazy to change it up now.
A small, declining city with an inferiority complex is an easy mark for the sports tycoon.
The Milwaukee metro area is actually steadily growing:
https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/23067/milwaukee/population
The Metro Area Brewers play in Milwaukee, which has been losing population since 1960. But I’m not sure if enthusiasm for stadium subsidies is greater in Milwaukee or in Metro Area.
I’m just saying that city limits are fairly arbitrary — the Brewers market for tickets and TV eyeballs is people within driving distance, and that doesn’t change which side of the city line people live on.
For comparison, Detroit has fallen from the 4th largest U.S. city in 1950 to 27th in 2020, but the Tigers aren’t moving anywhere while there are still plenty of people in Dearborn.
Maybe the Brewers should market to Illinois residents with gimmicks like a $1000 guarantee against rain outside, buy 2 Cubs game tickets get 3 other games free, etc. A million Illinois residents live within an hour of Miller Park, make that 1 1/2 hours and the numbers go off the chart. Nashville offers what? 50,000 Kentuckians within an hour?
Yeah, Chicago and Milwaukee are pretty intertwined. In the paper ticket days you could buy Brewers tickets from a kiosk in Chicago. But Cubs, and sometimes Sox, games in Milwaukee already sell well. And it’s only a small benefit to Milwaukee since the Chicago fans don’t stay overnight.
Given the current MLB playoff format, the most number of playoff games the Brewers can host is 14 (3+3+4+4). Take the 95 baseball games and generously add on 25 other events, and the stadium is only in use 120 days. That means the stadium and parking lot are not used 245 days a year.
Let the Brewers leave and find more productive uses for the land.
In its entire history the Brewers stadium has hosted 22 concerts. A couple soccer games on a narrow field, and some rando one off events. That ticket tax will need to be pretty steep, like over $100 a ticket.
Place any meaningful ticket tax on concert tickets and those 22 concerts over 22 years will move to the Fiserve Forum, Allstate Arena or United Center. Oakland, Kansas City and Tampa are looking at new markets, the White Sox are still in a horrible location. The Cubs kept playing at Wrigley Field until it was 100 years old and concrete was falling from the upper deck. What repairs, besides lining Attanasio’s pocket could possibly total $500 million for a 20 year old stadium. With 7 years left on the lease and a very limited number of cities willing to cough up $1 billion for a baseball stadium (hopefully). There are plenty of schools in Milwaukee over 20 (and approaching 100) years old that need repairs more than Miller Park.
Not sure how Allstate Arena & United Center got dragged into this, both Rosemont and Chicago already have ticket taxes.