As we come to the end of another programming week, let’s pause briefly to wish a happy 25th birthday to Good Jobs First, the corporate subsidy watch group that Greg LeRoy founded the same year Field of Schemes launched. Neither this site nor our book would exist without LeRoy, whose 1994 report “No More Candy Store” was a constant reference as we got up to speed on the then-new phenomenon of companies, whether sports teams or auto plants or computer chip factories, demanding giant piles of public cash in exchange for relocating to or remaining in a city. Happy birthday, GJF, and I hope neither of us still needs to be doing this another 25 years from now.
And now, the news:
- With MLB owners preparing to vote on whether to approve the Oakland A’s relocation to Las Vegas, opponents are turning up the pressure to try to get eight owners out of 30 to vote “no.” Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao sent a letter to 15 potentially swayable owners on Wednesday, pointing out that her city is offering more than $900 million in infrastructure money for a stadium project at Howard Terminal and pointing out that owners would be giving up a potential $2 billion expansion fee in Vegas if they let John Fisher move the A’s there for free. Also included were “Stay in Oakland” gift boxes provided by a local
barapparel company named for the Oakland Coliseum’s nickname of the Last Dive Bar, which include an A’s cap, a “Summer of Sell” DVD, a “Keep the Athletics in Oakland” postcard, and a personalized baseball card for each of the 15 owners. Meanwhile, the A’s released new renderings of their planned Vegas stadium, but apparently released them only to MGM Resorts International CEO Bill Hornbuckle, who described them on an investor call as “spectacular” and left it at that. Fisher’s agreement with Tropicana Las Vegas to buy their site for his stadium is only good if MLB votes for the relocation by the end of the month, so expect a lot of dueling fruit baskets when owners meet next week. - Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai, who holds sway over spending decisions in San Antonio because San Antonio is weird, says he’s open to the idea of the Spurs moving to a new downtown arena so long as team owners do something to boost job development in the East Side location of its old arena. “We will bring exciting new projects in this area and incentivize business developments to harness the potential that exists,” said Sakai, which is awfully handwavy, so we’ll just have to wait to see if he has anything in particular in mind or this will just end up with the Spurs buying local schools some new basketball nets.
- Here’s a report by Kansas City’s NPR station claiming that it would cost as much to repair the Royals‘ Kauffman Stadium as to built a new one, based entirely on a 2022 report by Populous, the company that is hoping to design and build the new one, nope, no conflict of interest there.
- The Las Vegas Sphere concert arena lost almost $100 million in its first three months, LOLDolan.
- Would it be cheaper for Baltimore to condemn and buy the Orioles rather than give them possibly $1 billion to sign a new lease? Sure, say local activists Andy Ellis and — hey, it’s Bill Marker, he was another early interview for our book, hi, Bill! Anyway, even they say the condemnation route is a longshot, but it’s still worth noting that the city has other potential responses available to O’s owner John Angelos than “Sure, how much should we make the check out for?
- And speaking of Baltimore, here’s me being interviewed by Nestor Aparicio yesterday about the whole Orioles (and Ravens) mess, and how they’re just following the playbook that other team owners have laid out, though given that John Angelos’s dad Peter helped get the ball rolling on stadium subsidies back in the late ’80s, they can probably lay a claim to intellectual property rights.
Condemn and buy the Orioles? Isn’t that part of the reason why the Colts fled the city in the middle of the night?
Yeah, because Baltimore didn’t get its act together fast enough for the condemnation proceedings.
Actually it was the state of Maryland that planned to seize the Colts using eminent domain. That’s why Bob Irsay hired the Mayflower vans to haul the Colts’ gear in the middle of the night.
I just checked Chapter 1 of Field of Schemes, and we’re both right: The city asked the state to use its eminent domain powers to seize the team. Before the state could act, Irsay called in the moving trucks.
If the Orioles were to try this wouldn’t they need a city to flee to? What would their options even be in this case? Any city with a big enough stadium I guess. Montreal? Mexico City? Maybe Oakland in a couple years?
The Orioles just did this already:
https://www.fieldofschemes.com/2023/10/30/20547/warehouse-giveaway-could-bring-total-os-subsidy-to-750m-1b-what-do-numbers-even-mean/
The move threat in that case was “Uhhh, Nashville maybe?”
Oakland is offering $900 million in infrastructure money to the A’s?!! LOL!! Where the heck did that come from?! In these parts of the bay that’s what you call a bunch of bull feces! Oakland would’ve been lucky to scrounge up $380 million for off-site infrastructure. Nothing but a too little, too late campaign by Thao to say to her constituents/A’s fans “Hey! At least I tried..”.
I have it as $775 million, but either way it’s some real money:
https://www.fieldofschemes.com/2023/01/11/19554/feds-to-oakland-no-you-cant-have-180m-for-a-new-as-stadium-by-insisting-its-critical-infrastructure/
Even if you only count the $495m the city has committed, it’s still real money (and more than enough to fully renovate the lower bowl of the coliseum/fix infrastructure and demolish Mount Davis).
Apart from that, if MLB is just not interested in Oakland that’s their prerogative. But they shouldn’t let an idiot like Fisher decide where they should be instead. Fisher’s plan in Vegas is so utterly lame I am secretly hoping it goes ahead… it will be such a slow motion trainwreck that I will not be able to look away.
The City of Oakland should not
stop at go, not collect $200 and start with an immediate demolition of Mount Davis. Maybe when there’s a 1966 view of the Oakland Hills the Coliseum will look 1000% better.
Uh oh, pulling out the fruit basket tactics! Things are getting serious now…..
No kidding. Is the next step a fruit basket with a horse’s head in it?
Moving the team – any team, really – to a too-small site in Vegas has never been a good business decision, so trying to explain it to them in business terms isn’t going to help.
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/07/10/reason-out/
Clarification: the Last Dive Bar™️, gift box makers and designers of a wide range of Oakland-related merchandise, is not, in fact, a bar.
Thank you! Will add a correction.
I thought Selig’s legacy would be the Wild Card, but it’s getting clearer and clearer his legacy will be enabling existing bad owners and expanding the pool of ownership to a bunch of his loser buddies (McCourt, Loria, Wolff before Fisher, Reinsdorf, Angelos, Nutting et al).
It’s wild how many owners have no interest in having a winning team. Other leagues have their shitheads, but most owners are trying to put out a winner. MLB owners are a truly pathetic group.
Baseball’s financial system incentivizes that behavior.
They didn’t just pick the wrong billionaires.
Most of them were/are barely billionaires though!
See? See what I mean? I don’t get no respect. Why are we still talking about Bud’s legacy? I mean look around, people! Things have changed!
I appreciate your support Al, and I would agree that I am whoafully underpaid. I mean come on!
$70m for Goodell? Really? Really?
LOLDolan indeed. Any word on how much of that $98.4m is down to poorly attended JD & the Straight Shot sets???
Can we look at this as a net transfer of tax dollars from the people of NY to the people (ok businesses) of Las Vegas?
At least he’s using that property tax exemption to fund other rich people… god’s work indeed.
The word from the company is that loss only includes 3 U2 shows. That the 4th quarter will be better because of more concert dates and screenings of that movie.
However- there’s no concerts scheduled after February 18th. They need to be announcing new residencies ASAP to give the tourists time to plan. They can always extend U2, but if they can’t get any other major artists to perform there, it’s hard to see much of a future for the venue.
They said just two years ago the Bills’ stadium was cheaper to replace than fix. The replacement is also a Populous job. I guess that’s in the playbook now, criticise an adequate facitilty as “falling apart”.