It must be Hanukkah, because there’s miraculously already more than a week’s worth of stadium news! (Don’t think about it too hard, just go with it.)
- Both Kansas City Chiefs president Mark Donovan and Royals president of business operations Brooks Sherman met with Jackson County executive Frank White this week, presumably to discuss putting a referendum on the ballot in April for a sales-tax surcharge extension to fund new or renovated stadiums for the two teams. Fox4 reports that “a source close to the situation” says the team owners might be willing to give up park levy money and insurance coverage they get from the county currently — the insurance money, you may recall, is what had the county figuring a new Royals stadium alone could cost more than $1 billion in present value costs, so this could potentially trim the subsidy demand to more like $500-700 million, which is better without actually being good. More unconfirmed rumors as events warrant.
- Tampa Bay Rays president Brian Auld has announced that the Rays have no intention of changing their name to St. Petersburg Rays after moving from St. Petersburg to next door in St. Petersburg. The St. Petersburg city council is set to vote next week on a requirement that the team do so in exchange for getting at least $600 million in city money for a new stadium; Auld had previously warned that “Serious people recognize that putting this entire project at risk over a 25-year-old name of our organization is probably not something worth doing,” which sounds like a threat to me, plus a personal attack by calling councilmembers unserious, it would definitely be disallowed if Auld had tried to post it here in comments.
- Not only is the Los Angeles Dodgers stadium gondola dream not dead, but it has a new price tag: $385-500 million. Plus another $8-10 million a year to operate it. The environmental impact report that gave the new projections says the money could be covered by private bond financing (which isn’t actually a way of covering anything, just a way of borrowing), sponsorships (uh, sure), naming rights (uh, suuuuuure) and fares (though trips to and from Dodgers games, which are most of the point of the thing, are supposed to be free). The report acknowledged that there’s suspicion that the whole gondola scheme is just an excuse to develop the parking lots around the stadium — which former Dodger owner Frank McCourt, who is behind the gondola idea, still owns — but says there’s no proof of McCourt’s plans to proceed with “a larger, more grandiose project in the future,” so just try not to think about that, and focus on the glory that is gondola.
- Add the Soldier Field parking lot to the list of potential stadium sites Chicago Bears ownership is considering. No indication of whether or how that would work any better than building on the current stadium site, but at this point the team is just kicking tires on any site it can to hope one comes with a huge pile of public cash, which hasn’t worked so far, but they only need to find one sucker to be successful, so can’t fault them for trying. (Except for 100% faulting them for extracting public money for private profit, that’s the whole point of this site, haven’t you been paying attention?)
- So it turns out it’s the state of Maryland that wants to separate the Baltimore Orioles‘ new lease from its new development agreement, that makes more sense than the other way around. It sounds like the whole issue is more about lack of time to get the documents finalized before next season starts than the state actually looking for some kind of leverage to negotiate a better deal; the O’s may go to a month-to-month lease in the meantime, the better to keep everyone on tenterhooks until they get all the t’s crossed and i’s dotted on their
- Plans for a new NYC F.C. stadium in Queens cleared a community board vote after the city agreed to build a new police precinct there, which was apparently the board’s main demand. Still unclear: Who will pay for hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure costs and whether the team will get hundreds of millions of dollars in property tax breaks, maybe if we’re lucky we’ll find out before the city council grants final approval in the spring, but don’t count on it.
- Jon Styf at The Center Square wrote a report on economic impact consulting reports for sports venues and interviewed both J.C. Bradbury (who called them “fantasy reports”) and me (who called them an attempt to “put across B.S. as fact”). He left out my explanation of the clear plastic binder effect, but you can’t have everything.
- A high school football team that had to play all its games on the road because first its home field was destroyed to make way for a new New York Yankees stadium and then the replacement field that opened years later fell apart and was left unplayable has won the state championship! I can’t actually tell if this story is supposed to be heartwarming or scandalous, let’s go with both.
The only tracts of land smaller than the Soldier Field site, are the Soldier Field parking lots. A modern NFL stadium is not going east of Lake Shore Drive without years of lawsuits. Back in the 1990s there was talk of using the McCormick Place truck lots for a new domed stadium. The McDome. But it involved displacing public housing and building above the transit lines and above the truck staging area. It never got off the ground. Literally or figuratively.
It looks like it could fit if they took out that parking deck and maybe redid a bit of that marina.
Possibly. I always felt “marina” was just a nice word for smelly-boat-parking-lot. Also, that might be considered lake-fill, which will also get them a court challenge. And a new stadium would take up more space than the current stadium, since they want wider concourse and more seats, etc. If the Bears want to build a ball park village type business, I can’t see it happening on that side of Lake Shore Drive. There’s just a lot of rules about that. (and for good reason.)
Physically, it’s possible to be done.
Politically, that parcel of land is the original Public Trust Doctrine property.
There will never be privately owned development there. Ever.
To do so would require an amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
In short, the chances of the Bears paying for a stadium there are zilch.
The ongoing Arlington Heights tax negotiations must be going poorly for this idea to be floating around.
Yes because it’s a small suburb of 11k people that Vance support a $3Billion development project and Chicago politicians would veto if
Maybe rethink McCormick Place too.
I’ve been to a bunch of meetings there. It’s one of the biggest.
My feeling, based on some data, is that the world just isn’t going to have nearly as many massive conventions any more like it once did.
I’ve been thinking that too, replace some of McCormick Place with the stadium. Or use the truck lots plus the Michael Reese site (building over the train lines). I’d love to see something west of LSD plus the track work to bring trains from downtown to the lakefront and finally solve the ‘Why isn’t the train station next to the stadium?’ issue.
But I assume the AH plan will eventually happen.
And in international news, a US company is designing a stadium / shopping mall for South Korea. Complete with Vaportecture and lots of talk about how it will be a destination.
https://www.dezeen.com/2023/12/07/dla-plus-baseball-stadium-shopping-mall-south-korea/
Well I just got a new spring break destination!
I’ve always wondered why cities like Anaheim didn’t attach a condition to their deals requiring the city’s name being required for the team (obviously Anaheim’s old sweetheart deal blew up regardless). I think Arlington could’ve gotten the Rangers to change their name in exchange for $500 million, although the Cowboys wouldn’t have in a million years. That said, I agree with the logic that if the team can’t draw 20k to see a 99 win team in the playoffs, why would you alienate anyone in the region? Better offer would be to make the $600 million conditional on the city owning naming rights and guaranteeing St. Pete Stadium or something, at least to the extent that offering $600 million to build a stadium for a team with no fans can be considered a good offer to begin with.
I think the answer to why politicians “don’t do [fill in the blank]”, I think the answer is usually because they are spineless and/or stupid and/or corrupt.
Anaheim did. Which is why they were the “Anaheim Angels” from 1995 to 2004 and the the “Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim” even though everyone called the the “Los Angeles Angels” from 2005 until the lease requiring that expired in 2015.
They’re not put in because they’re not really enforceable. If a team wants to be a dick about it they will be an there really isn’t any recourse from the city.
I agree JM. Those types of things are totally unenforceable on either party or the fans.
Which is why I still watch the California Angels playing at Anaheim stadium whenever I watch them… which isn’t often since Arte took over.
Speaking of pro sports subsidies, the Minnesota Wild want a state bond issue to fund renovations to their taxpayer-funded arena in St. Paul. Fiscally prudent politicians aren’t looking too favorably on it: “How is it going to benefit the senator in Hibbing, or the people in Hibbing, or those in Duluth?”
https://kstp.com/kstp-news/top-news/early-talks-put-cost-of-xcel-energy-center-renovations-at-up-to-300-million/
The problem with the article with the high school football team is that it’s from the New York Post so naturally assume its “scandalous”, as it’s bitching about the New York City government being too useless and not worrying about “the little guy”, which is ironic because I thought they’d like a former Republican as mayor whose made it his effort to turn New York City into a police state, lock up all the homeless, and take away everything poor people rely on. But he’s a “former” Republican, that’s the issue.
That’s just how that particular political group works these days.
“We’re the party of the working class except when it comes to every single imaginable public policy that affects the material well-being of the working class, in which case we’re in favor of corruption, cruelty and greed.”