Eleven weeks after announcing a new lease deal for the Baltimore Orioles that would keep the team at Camden Yards for 30 years in exchange for maybe a billion dollars in state cash and rent and development rights kickbacks, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore again announced a new lease deal for the Orioles yesterday, this time with actual signed paperwork. Take it away, Wes:
“I want to say something that I have been waiting to say for a long time — Baltimore, the deal is done. … From the very beginning, I was clear that we would only sign an agreement that puts Maryland taxpayers at the top of mind, keeps the Orioles in Baltimore long term and benefits the entire City of Baltimore, and that is exactly what we have done here by extending the Orioles’ stadium lease at Camden Yards for another 30 years.”
Except, about that 30 years: As noted previously, the new lease gives Orioles owner John Angelos, or whoever buys the team from him, an out clause where he can leave early if he can’t come to an agreement with the state on a development deal for the area around Camden Yards by the end of 2027. (The original plan was that the team could then break the lease after ten years; in the final version that’s been pushed back to 15 years.) And he gets to keep and spend the $600 million in state renovation cash, plus more if they can pay off state bonds fast enough and sell new ones, either way — meaning this could end becoming a $40 million-a-year 15-year lease extension, which would tie the new Ravens deal for most expensive per-year cost in sports history.
Regardless, this was apparently enough to placate state senate president Bill Ferguson, who after griping about the deal last week said yesterday, “I am so deeply thankful for the opportunity to have put this 30-year deal into place and to have some small part to work with this team.” Not that he gets to vote on it anyway: Moore already approved the renovation subsidies last year contingent on the teams signing new leases, and it was down to the unelected Maryland Stadium Authority to finalize the lease.
What’s left now is for the state and Angelos to negotiate the development agreement, but Moore has effectively tied his own hands in those talks, since if he doesn’t agree to what the O’s owner wants, Angelos can spend his $600 million and then walk. Or, more likely, spend the $600 million and then demand more in about a decade, since he’ll be able to point to his expiring lease. We’ve known for a while that elected officials are really bad at this, but sometimes they are even more really bad than others.
So the Orioles can leave after fifteen years, and keep their $600 million? It sounds to me like a fifteen year deal, and how they are selling it is to keep calling it a thirty year deal. Guaranteed additional concessions at the fifteen year mark to the Orioles to get them to the thirty years they say they are committed to already.
Yep, that describes it well.
Does anyone realize that 30 is the new 15?
Politicians are never good with math.
Is there an over under on how much more than $600m Angelos or his designated purchaser will demand (perhaps as early as 2027) if he successfully fails to ‘reach a development agreement’ that he asked for the opportunity to negotiate on land he does not own and appears not to be willing to pay to lease? If he successfully fails at this, he can then threaten to trigger the 15 year out clause… which…. I would have to think means he can announce at the end of 2027 that no acceptable agreement has been reached and therefore he can leave in 2042.
I mean, if we can bet on how long it will take an anthem singer to complete their task at a sporting event, how can the bookies just let an opportunity like this slide by?
15 years out given inflation and the fact that what he is asking for right now is about 2.5x (adjusted for inflation) what it cost to build the stadium 30 years ago… yeah, why not.
I’m going for $985m for the second 15yr extension, though obviously we can’t call it a second extension as it is really part of the first although, clearly, much more expensive. And the owners at the time will demand public appreciation for the fact that they kept the number under that all important $1Bn threshold to minimize the number of police & fire stations, libraries and schools that must be closed to free up the money to subsidize the Orioles.
Anyone else?
Peter Schmuck is right there with you:
https://www.baltimorebaseball.com/2023/12/17/peter-schmuck-impertinent-questions-orioles-new-stadium-lease/
Yikes! Now it’s ten years?
“Do I hear five, five five, can we getta Five five five five here we go five going now five five five five lemme hear five five five five…”
Ok, so one of the many things I am not is an auctioneer.
No, it’s still 15 — it was revised from 10 on Monday, Schmuck phrased it poorly.