Two leading members of the Virginia state legislature introduced legislation to create a sports authority to build a Washington Capitals and Wizards arena in Alexandria on Friday, during a snowstorm, while muttering, “Shh, don’t tell anyone, let’s keep this our little secret.” (Two of those three things are true.) The bill language is here, and a quick perusal reveals that it would:
- Leave the negotiation of a lease for later on, but require that the teams pay rent (undetermined) and parking fees and payments on naming rights to the arena district (but not the arena itself) and seat license funds (“if any”) to the state. The term of the lease would be required to be as long as the term of the construction bonds, but there’s no indication if the teams would have any out clauses or state-of-the-art language allowing them to leave early if the state doesn’t sink more money into upgrades.
- To help fund the rest of its $1.5 billion in bonds, the state would collect “all sales tax revenues,” both state and city, from the arena campus, as well as “all personal income tax revenues, corporate income tax revenues, and pass-through entity tax revenues.” (Since the project would be state-owned, it would already be exempt from paying property taxes.) This would be a mega-TIF, the same rarely employed mechanism that was proposed last year for a Commanders stadium in Virginia; they have tended not to work out too well, coming under particular criticism for the part where arena district employees have their income taxes paid directly to their bosses.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin immediately promised that not all the tax revenue is expected to be needed to pay off the arena project, though none of the many numbers he threw around on Friday actually specified what percentage of the tax money would be siphoned off to pay for construction. Youngkin also didn’t get into how much of that tax money would actually be new and how much cannibalized from spending elsewhere in the state — a common problem with TIFs.
The big announcement from the Republican governor on Friday was that he will now agree to expand funding for the D.C.-area Metro transit system, which was a key sticking point for legislative Democrats on the arena proposal. In fact, state house appropriations chair Luke Torian said that even though he co-sponsored the bill (with state senate majority leader Scott Surovell), he still doesn’t necessarily support the project, but just introduced it in order to move negotiations ahead, as one does.
There’s still much to be resolved, sure, but all signs point to Metro-funding-for-arena-funding being the key horse trade here, with any other details to be worked out later. State Sen. Danica Roem even spelled it out as “I look it as the same way as U.S. House Republicans, ‘Well, we’re not going to give Ukraine funding unless you give border funding.’” Expect plenty of heated public hearings and the like, but whenever you have bipartisan agreement on a sports subsidy deal, it’s awfully tough to undo it, no matter how many billions of dollars are at stake.
I understand how politicians get scared of being blamed for a team leaving, so they are willing to pay to get it to stay. I don’t understand how politicians are willing to pay to get a team to move to its state when the teams are going to continue to use the name Washington, and not Virginia.
However, it will be funny when athletes get salary paid to tax sheltered foundations to avoid the state collecting the personal income tax revenues.
Washington for now until the deal is cemented. There is no way VA is going through all of this and expect the name to stay, Washington. I see the name being changed to the Virgina Bullets and Virginia Captials. Leonis is no idiot, he sees roughly 9 million fans over not even a million in DC itself. And you can best believe, Virginians from all over that state will be making church, bus, car trips at some point to see a professional team finally in their lifetime since the, Squires. The biggest issue I perceive, is it selling out often. DC has no say so in this and just like it use to be called Baltimore Bullets, it will go to another name. VA is not trying to satisfy DC or Leonis. He’s a business man and see the new trend happening with mini city complexs for sports. DC is no longer the center here. Those days are long gone. And the Commanders may be next ina joint venture with a MLB stadium in VA where there’s already 3 locations for another mini city complex. Cities are no longer the avenue for professional sports. Now owners want land and residual income year round. In short, professional sports has outgrown many cities.
That’s the party line, certainly, but there’s no actual evidence that it’s true. (DC, for one thing, is still very much the geographic center — an arena closer to Virginia is farther from Maryland.) Owners mostly want land because it’s easier politically to get free land or tax breaks on it right now than it is to get cash approved for arena construction, so like Willie Sutton, they go where the money is.
I failed to mention state named pro sports. Minnesota (state) Vikings, Timberwolves. Tennesse (state) Titans. Arizona (state) Cardinal/Diamondbacks. New England (region) Patriots. Carolina (state) Panthers.
So if this passes the VA legislature, the name I perceive will reference the state (Virginia.) And there is nothing wrong with that at all. And be sure of one thing, if championships surface; especially from the basketball team, DC will get onboard. You build it and they will come. DC has to stop thinking the professional teams are all theirs and theirs alone, because it has Washington attached to it. And I think this is the issue many are having. They (DC residents) want ownership and say and the entire DMV to reference them. Those days are long gone.
If the federal govt moved to Iowa for security concerns, would DC be the center of the region? I don’t think so. We’re not talking about the federal govt, but Mayor Bowser lead 4 little section DC, not the tourist attraction.
First, assume a spherical continent…