Friday roundup: St. Pete council says loud parts quiet on Rays stadium, A’s Vegas plans get even murkier

Another week has run its course, but before we get to the remaining news tidbits, we have one new news item to attend to:

The St. Petersburg city council took up its discussion of a Tampa Bay Rays stadium project yesterday, and team execs led by releasing a pile of new renderings, no doubt figuring correctly that even if they don’t show much more than the old renderings — we still don’t see the inside of the stadium, for one thing — they’d still dominate the news coverage. Rays execs still had to answer questions at the council “workshop,” though, and questions there sure were, including about guarantees that affordable housing will be built, why the city should be on the hook for $142 million in infrastructure costs, whether the community benefits agreement could provide more community benefits, and whether the projected tax revenues to pay for the whole mess depend on monkeys flying out of J.C. Bradbury’s butt.

Nobody on the council appears to have asked the “$1.5 billion in public subsidies, really?” question, though. Tampa Bay Times columnist John Romano, who’s staked out a position as a critical-but-not-too-critical advocate for the deal, called this “refreshing” because “no one attacked it as a nonsensical corporate giveaway.” (Karla Correa of the St. Pete Tenant Union did say “We desperately need public housing, we don’t need more of these public, private partnerships” and “we should not be giving away upwards of a billion dollars of our taxpayer’s dollars,” but she said it at a protest outside the council hearing, so she doesn’t count, I guess.) One of the more critical councilmembers, Richie Floyd, when asked if there were enough votes on the council to kill the deal, said “no,” so it sounds like the council debate will mostly be nibbling around the edges; there’ll be another workshop session next month, which may shed more light on the likely endgame.

Okay, now the news tidbits:

  • Oakland A’s owner John Fisher may have selected the site of the old Tropicana hotel for a new Las Vegas stadium, but it turns out he and landowner Bally’s still don’t know which part of the site the stadium would go on, and NBC Sports has the explanation: “because the project’s master plan has yet to be completed.” That’s, uh, not actually an explanation, it’s just saying the same thing a different way? Anyway, add “Where exactly will it go?” to “How will it fit?” and “Who will pay for it?” and “Will the public money approved so far get overturned by referendum or lawsuit?” on the list of unanswered questions about the soon-to-be officially cityless Athletics franchise’s future stadium plans.
  • Ohio House Speaker Jason Stephens says he’s against giving $600 million in state money toward $1.2 billion in public funding for a $2.4 billion Cleveland Browns stadium in Brook Park, because “we don’t have $600 million to give” and “it’s really easy to not support it when you don’t have it.” Then Stephens said he would prefer to raise the money by selling bonds, which suggests he either isn’t really against it or doesn’t understand that bonds have to be repaid somehow — apply Hanlon’s Razor as you see fit.
  • DaRon McGee, the Jackson County legislator who introduced the sales tax hike plan to funnel $500 million or so to the Kansas City Royals and Chiefs for stadium projects before it was trounced in a public vote, turns out to have asked the Royals’ stadium front man and team owner John Sherman’s personal assistant for box seats to a game in the run-up to negotiations. McGee says it’s all cool, he paid for the tickets now that somebody noticed, get off his case, okay?
  • The Richmond city council voted to issue $170 million in bonds to build a new stadium for the Double-A Flying Squirrels, to be repaid by hotel and restaurant tax surcharges in the stadium district. The plan was immediately met by a lawsuit from local attorney Paul Goldman saying the bonds should have gone to a voter referendum; Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney dismissed Goldman as a “gadfly,” which is at least better than the time Goldman successfully sued to block a casino project and got called “a white Jew with a background of Judas,” so, progress?
  • Albany and New York state officials are talking about building a $75 million minor-league soccer stadium as part of a $300 million downtown redevelopment, to be paid for by “still unknown.” Gov. Kathy Hochul is involved in the talks, though, so we can probably guess what direction this is headed.
  • The Atlantic ran an overview this week of the state of stadium subsidies, and while I could nitpick a couple of things — crediting Camden Yards for the new-stadium boom leaves out the earlier formative effects of Toronto’s Skydome and Chicago’s New Comiskey Park, and shutting off the supply of federally tax-exempt bonds wouldn’t really be the most effective way to eliminate the problem — but I get quoted saying, “Teams need a place to play, and if local governments told them to pay a fair rent or go pound sand, owners would have little choice but to go along,” so I wholeheartedly endorse it.

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13 comments on “Friday roundup: St. Pete council says loud parts quiet on Rays stadium, A’s Vegas plans get even murkier

  1. St Pete council supporters are completely embarrassing themselves. The Q&A is so mindless, my 4 year old could ask tougher questions.

    All these compromised or clueless officials, just grinning and fiddling away as they plan on shoveling away billions in civic financial security.

    Every leading financial indicator is looking extremely serious, and the best a council member can ask is whether we could have CHILDCARE as part of this bloated, unnecessary boondoggle.

    Lawsuits need to be filed immediately to shut down this dereliction of duty.

  2. Gov. Hochul might be leading in giveaways by a politician, not bad for being in office 3 years: buffalo bills stadium, belmont park racetrack, and now a new albany soccer stadium for a team that doesn’t exist yet. Can she also get credit for the giveaways for the nyc fc stadium?

    1. I’m no Cuomo fan but I wouldn’t be surprised if he was taken down by the stadium-industrial complex to get Hochul into office.

        1. If the stadium-industrial complex took him down, they were really playing the long game.

          1. Cuomo was actually the first one to push fir a new Bills stadium, before the Pegulas themselves even wanted one.

  3. 2034: Vivek Ranadive bankrupt after investing in ill-fated cryptocurrency revival scheme; Sacramento Athletics purchased by Sinaloa Cartel front group and moved to Tijuana as MLB’s first Mexican affiliate, after the shortest city tenure by a major league team in the modern era.

  4. Talk about pounding sand, Maricopa County has nearly 10,000 square miles of really hot desert sand full of rattlesnakes and the Diamondbacks have been pounding away for 10 years, with Maricopa County standing firm. Cry, cry, cry about the roof. “We can’t have the roof closed and then open it for a fireworks show after the game”, wah, wah. After a decade of crying about that deadly roof, the Diamondbacks indicated that the roof will be fixed next off season. As for the 9% theme park district, “we don’t want to tax our fans” (most of that tax would probablyend up coming out of our pocket), we just want to tax everyone else in Maricopa County. “We looked around Maricopa County for a new stadium location and kept coming back to Chase Field”, duh, the Coyotes had a real love affair with Glendale and North and West Valley fans would really love driving to Mesa on a weeknight. This one is especially aimed at you, Brandon Johnson, the White Sox and da Bears are not moving to Greensboro, Nashville, Bluefield, West Virginia, or even Arlington Heights, so tell the White Sox and da Bears to head over to Oak Street Beach and start pounding sand.

    1. Roof fixed, as in repaired, or fixed as in it won’t be retractable any more?

      1. From the way it sounded, the roof will be “safe” to open or close with fans inside. The roof is always opening and closing, but the Diamondbacks claim it isn’t safe to open or close the roof with fans inside.

  5. Finally found the third alternative streetwear Coyotes jersey Alex Meruelo Jr. paid $250,000 for. The “desert nights collection” designed by “global fashion designer” Rhuigi Villaseñor was also promoted prominently on Coyotes advertising during the second half of the 2022-23 season.

    “We are so excited to introduce our new third jersey, which complements our already classic Kachina sweater, and provides our amazing fans with even more to be excited about,” said Coyotes Chief Brand Officer Alex Meruelo Jr. “Rhuigi did an incredible job capturing the essence of Arizona with this design, and we can’t wait to see our players and fans wearing these great jerseys the rest of this season, and beyond.”

    Beyond, all the way to Utah.

  6. Neil, I very much enjoyed your media analysis article that dropped on Jacobin yesterday. Well said. Hope I’m not crossing the streams by saying so here, but Jacobin’s comment culture is a bit less evolved than here. Once NYPD starts herding arrested students into Wien Stadium organized by PSLs, though, well, we all saw the original Ghostbusters.

    1. Thanks — that was actually Jacobin’s reprint of a piece I wrote for FAIR, so I haven’t seen the comments on their site. Will check it out now!

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