I hope everyone who celebrated yesterday had a good holiday and gave thanks to those we owe gratitude to. We now return to our regularly scheduled hellscape.
- Oakland A’s execs are reportedly looking to the Texas Rangers‘ Globe Life Field as a model for their Las Vegas stadium, which is raising anew questions about how to fit a retractable-roofed stadium on a nine-acre site. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that the Rangers stadium “sits on 13 acres,” but sports economist J.C. Bradbury points out that it’s really 18 acres once you count the space needed to open the roof. Globe Life Field is also pretty much universally reviled as butt-ugly, with sportswriter Jeff Passan saying after it opened during the 2020 COVID postseason that it “looks like what would happen if a Costco and a barn had a baby,” but I guess it’ll be too hot in Las Vegas for anyone to spend much time looking at the outside of it anyway, and people inside will be too distracted by watching the butt-ugly A’s baseball, so maybe this will work out just fine!
- Minnesota Wild owner Craig Leipold is reportedly kicking the tires on public subsidies for upgrades to his 25-year-old arena, though no specific numbers have been revealed. Leipold has hired a former state official, Jim Schowalter, as a state lobbyist on “capital bonding” and “sports facilities,” and St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter says, “We are committed to working with the Wild to envision and ensure the arena’s long-term success,” so I think we can all tell which direction this is heading. St. Paul already got approval to extend its tax increment financing district until 2023, which could provide another ten years of tax kickbacks to funnel toward buying Leipold a glass wall or whatever it is he wants on top of the reduced rent he negotiated back in 2019.
- As if having three possible stadium sites in Kansas City and North Kansas City isn’t enough, Jackson County legislator Manny Abarca is now warning that the Royals could move across the state line to Kansas, and take the Chiefs with them, if they don’t get a pile of public cash in Missouri. “We have heard from direct sources that there are serious considerations for a move to the Kansas side,” says Abarca, and … sorry, what are “direct sources,” exactly? Does that just mean people he talked to directly, not things he heard secondhand? Wouldn’t secondhand news still be from a “direct source,” since someone would have to tell him about it directly even if they heard it from someone else? I also want to ask whether Royals and Chiefs fans would really rather spend over $1 billion in tax money on stadiums just to avoid having to cross state lines to see games, but we may never get to that if we’re too busy with this direct source business.
- The $4 billion Las Vegas arena proposed by Jackie Robinson (not that one) way back in 2013 may finally be almost dead, with Clark County sticking to a November 30 deadline for Robinson to show he actually has $4 billion. This will leave Vegas with only 87 arenas (approx.), one hopes it isn’t too much of a blow to the local economy.
- And finally, one last Vegas note: The A’s should stay in Oakland, according to actor Paul Giamatti, the son of former MLB commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti — wait, that guy is the son of that guy? How did I not know this, or did I know it and then somehow forget it? I need to go think about this, enjoy your weekend and see you Monday!
Hope you had a great Thanksgiving, Neil, and thank you for all you do!
You’re not alone – it was only a year or so ago that I realized Paul was Bart’s son.
I didn’t realize it until I saw Sideways. There’s a scene where Paul’s character looks wistfully at a photo of him and his dad—looked on IMDb, saw it was a real photo of Paul and his father Bart.
I can’t imagine a more toothless threat than, “We will move 9 miles away and make the people on the other side of the imaginary line pay.” I suppose the team owners will say that the players’ salaries will no longer be subject to Missouri state income tax, but I doubt that amount is more than the money they want for stadium construction.
Agreed, Jeremy. In fact, I doubt the net loss of revenue related to the move (supposed – we have no idea where the players will file their taxes or ‘live’ IE: primary residence declaration regardless of where the team plays) would even cover the extra policing and other “protective” costs associated with having an MLB or NFL team there.
Fun fact the players pay taxes in each state they play, even on the road. So it really doesn’t matter to the players which side of the line they’re on. It’s going to be negligible to them especially since Kansas’s and Missouri’s tax rates are about the same.
It’s clear they’re trying to gin up a 2nd bidder to give them the billions that Jackson County seems not to be giving them.
The road games are really the only ones that “matter”, given that the players will have taxes due on each road game (notably with the exception of states without a state income tax…) and may or may not have tax shelter options that cover both home and road earnings. We are assuming that the players will be residents of either Kansas or Missouri for tax purposes. I don’t know that that is a given, do you? Wealthy people often buy homes in states with no income tax to establish residence for tax purposes (like a couple of former presidents I can think of).
There are squads of accountants at work finding ways for players to avoid paying what most employees would consider a ‘reasonable’ tax rate on their high incomes. One of the best: Self administered/directed charitable foundations to which the player’s income is assigned/tax sheltered.
I could believe that player X who lives and plays in Missouri would have to pay state tax on some income from playing. But if they have an approved tax shelter, there is nothing saying they have to pay state tax on every dollar of their “paper” earnings of, say, $8m annually. They could easily be paying income tax on $1m of that, given that half of it will be earned in other states and perhaps 2/3rds of the total amount could be sheltered (depending upon the jurisdiction and the capability of their accountants).
We should never assume that a player making $6m in a state with a 10% income tax is paying $600k to the state every year. Knowing what we know about the tax minimization schemes available to the rich, it is not certain they would even be paying $600k in total (federal, state, out of state etc) annually.
Vegas will figure it out. If the roof being open covers part of the resort they’ll use the space wisely. Like some sort of amphitheatre.
” Like some sort of amphitheatre”
So, basically a Sunsetter?
has anyone been able to say that anything in vegas was ever wisely?
this requires more research.
Think who we are dealing with here…
Vegas and the owners of the adjacent sites have inadvertently given Fisher the power and ability to charge them for sunlight.
Clearly the incompetent fool act has just been a ruse to lure some unsuspecting company/municipal district into a sense of false security… and now, GAPman and Robbin’ deploy their dastardly evil plan!!!!
apologies for going off topic here a bit… but since we talk so much about how flawed the mores and ethics of both professional athletes and (more often) their franchise owners are, I thought this deserves honourable mention:
https://theathletic.com/5084824/2023/11/23/arizona-diamondbacks-playoff-shares-money/
Ok, it’s not like the players donated their paychecks or anything… but it is a positive step.
I only knew about Paul Giamatti being Bart’s son when Ben Bernanke was asked about the movie Too Big To Fail and he when he met with Paul who was playing him they just talked baseball.