Another week in the books! Will “in the books” soon become an anachronism, once there are no more physical books to keep? Or will “books” just become a term for long documents, and future English speakers will wonder why the phrase isn’t “in the spreadsheets”? Has this already happened and I didn’t notice? Gen Z readers, say your piece!
Moving on to the news:
- Chicago Bears president Kevin Warren said, “What intrigues me about downtown is I strongly believe Chicago is the finest city in all of the world,” and now everybody thinks this means the Bears would prefer to build a stadium in downtown Chicago rather than it just being a savvy negotiator trying to create leverage for a stadium wherever he can get one paid for by somebody else.
- Virginia’s billion-dollar-plus subsidy for a Washington Capitals and Wizards arena in Alexandria may now turn on Metro public transit funding, as Senate majority leader Scott Surovell says “making sure Metro is fully funded is a precondition before we have any kind of dialogue about the arena” while Gov. Glenn Youngkin retorted that he wants to see a Metro business plan first because “they’ve got overhead levels that far exceed any of their benchmarks.” Hey, you know what would help fill Metro’s $750 million budget deficit? Here’s a hint, it rhymes with “bot giving a billion dollars to the local sports team owner,” hth.
- New Tennessee Titans vaportecture! This time the (imaginary) camera moves but the (pretend) people don’t, so we get a horrorscape of fans frozen in place with their arms flung skywards for all eternity! All except for the rock band that is playing forever to a perpetually frozen audience, and the video boards that show moving replays of a forever-static game, this is the most terrifying Black Mirror episode ever.
- Former Utah Jazz majority owner (and current minority owner) Gail Miller is buying up land around the site of her proposed baseball stadium for her proposed MLB expansion team, hey at least Salt Lake City has more TV households than Las Vegas.
- The public cost of the new Chattanooga Lookouts stadium has soared from $80 million to $139 million in the last 17 months, which will be fine so long as an extra $500 million worth of development appears from out of nowhere and pays new taxes that won’t cannibalize existing ones, this is fine.
- “The Orlando Magic are making millions by selling naming rights to a building the team doesn’t even own,” yup, that’ll happen.
- “[Arizona] Coyotes on ‘precipice’ of announcing location organization will focus on for new arena,” reports an Arizona Sports headline, then the story itself doesn’t have anyone at all saying the word “precipice” with regard to anything, wut.
- Baseball stadiums built since the early 1990s have crazy-far upper deck seats, reports Travis Sawchik for The Score, will that change with the latest wave of new buildings? Populous architect Zach Allee says there’s a tradeoff that’s “kind of like a balloon” where “if I say I want to be closer to the field horizontally, it ends up pushing the seats up higher,” which isn’t really how geometry or balloons work, and then Sawchik touts the Texas Rangers‘ new stadium for moving the last row of its upper deck 33 feet closer than the last row in its old stadium, but actually they did this by just removing the last 8,000 seats, this is actually a terrible article, I’m sorry I linked to it.
I’m traveling next week, posts may appear at sporadic and/or unexpected times. Have a good long holiday weekend, or as our Toronto readers know it, Monday.
I love how the Coyotes president had to tell people that the owner has been attending games. I don’t think I have ever seen an owner be this anonymous (when its an individual and not a corporation) when the team has such an image problem
When was the last Cowboys game when the cameras didn’t toun on Jerry Jones reaction to the game at least 10 times (30 some years ago, before Jones owned the Cowboys). When was the last time the cameras showed Alex Meruelo in the arena, at a press conference, anywhere?
“Alex has left the building.”
I don’t mean to imply he needs to be like Jerry Jones. However, the team has an image problem. You have things like The Athletic article the tax issue in Glendale where they almost got evicted, etc. During the campaign to get the arena in Tempe the opponents were raising all kinds questions about his character. Despite all that he had Javier Gutierrez doing all the talking. There was a public debate he was in the audience. When the referendum lost he wasn’t at the press conference. He hasn’t hired a PR firm to coach him.
Agreed Aqib. The least they could do is put in an appearance.
After all, many owners don’t live in the cities that their taxpayer funded stadia are located in and bill the team (and by extension, it’s fans) for flying in to watch.
Win Win!
I often wonder, though, if the players would prefer that they stay away? I don’t think JJ’s misty eyed viewing of practices necessarily helps the Cowboys or their coaches.
The latest whisper, or meaningless Craig Morgan article, said something about an arena deal along the 101. Looking into my crystal ball, next month there will be an announcement about a deal to purchase a parcel of state trust land, and the Coyotes are putting down $2 or $3 million. Real meaning, the Coyotes will pay for a market and environmental analysis of the parcel, which would give the Coyotes an excuse to stay at 4,600 seat Mullett Arena, aka ASU’s couch, for a 3rd and 4th season. Even if the Coyotes successfully bid on the state trust land, approvals from Phoenix or Scottsdale will be needed, and the ghost of George Zraket says that ain’t happening.
So I guess that’s different than the Mesa property that was discussed before?
It’s a bit rich for them to be saying “this is all privately funded” at the same time saying “we need to avoid another public vote.” It it’s all privately funded, why would they need to worry about a referendum anyway?
I guess Mesa wasn’t biting and that gravel pit will probably be a co$tly property to develop.
Gail Miller no longer owns the Jazz. Ryan Smith does. As far as I can tell, she’s sold all of her family’s interest in the Jazz.
Next you’re going to tell me that John Stockton retired!
(Thanks, will correct this when I’m back on a computer, which may be a bit.)
The Jazz actually play in New Orleans too Neil.
On another topic the description of the Titans vaportecture video reminds me of SCP-1733. It is a DVR recording of a Celtics-Heat game in 2010 where every time it’s played back subtle changes occur; at first they are minor and not harmful like a technical foul that wasn’t called in the original game. The more times the DVR is played back the more disturbing it gets. The players and fans start to realize they are reliving the same thing over and over. They unsuccessfully try to escape the arena. This leads to factions of fans vs. players and other dark happenings.
https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-1733
Correct on Ryan Smith being the primary franchise owner of the Utah Jazz (owning an 80-ish % stake in the team), though I think the Millers actually retain a minority stake (somewhere around 20%), last time I checked.
The Millers are spearheading the MLB-to-SLC campaign and retain the ownership of the PCL’s Bees, who are moving to a privately-built stadium out in Daybreak (SW Salt Lake County) after the 2024 season concludes.
I don’t see the MLB ballpark being entirely privately-funded, but I’m glad someone’s noticed that Salt Lake is a bigger TV market than Las Vegas. Maybe John Fisher sells to the Millers if things go south for A’s-to-Vegas (lawsuits, funding issues, etc.)?
The Orlando Sentinal actually called it “a grift.”
Do the Magic not have a subscription?
Shocking!
Well, in a world where prerequisite appears as “precondition” and things that currently exist are often referred to as “pre-existing”, I would suggest that ‘in the books’ or ‘uploaded to the Hexagon/Dodecahedron and confirmed by e-Msg” is very much a matter of user’s choice.
Nice to know that a Populous Architect fails to understand geometry, and that “being up higher” is actually a good thing if you are further away from home plate as it improves the view of the field.
“Spend a pile of money on Metro bureaucrats and hangers-on”
vs. “Spend a pile of money on a sports arena.”
As usual, nobody seems to have considered the option of “Don’t spend a pile of money.” Not all choices have to be binary!
Regarding the architect’s quote, that is actually how sight lines work.
Nope — if you get closer to the field it makes the stands *steeper*, but it doesn’t require them to be higher.
Well, last week ended…weirdly….
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/mlb/bankrupt-diamond-sports-gets-extension-to-score-mlb-streaming-deal-with-amazon/ar-AA1mOxcB
Never thought of ‘being unable to meet your financial obligations” as a form of strategy… but most large companies seem to.
In my world, you don’t own anything you can’t pay for. Maybe that’s what is keeping me from becoming a billionaire???