San Antonio to spend $126m on minor-league ballpark, gullible journalists call this no public money

The owners of the minor-league baseball San Antonio Missions, who somehow include both Nolan Ryan and Manu Ginobili, have been angling for a new stadium since they bought the team in 2022, and their proposal has finally reached the city council, with a projected cost of $160 million. And how would that money be raised? Not to worry, says KENS-TV, “if current plans hold, taxpayers wouldn’t be on the hook”:

Funding for the new ballpark would primarily come from a $34 million team equity contribution from the Missions. The rest, about $126 million, would be paid for by bonds issued by the newly created San Pedro Creek Authority, with a pledge from the Houston Street Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone (TIRZ).

Those are taxes collected under a state law which are used for economic development projects.

Now, I am not an economist, though often play one in poorly fact-checked articles. But I am fairly sure that if a project is being funded by $126 million in taxes, then taxpayers are, by definition, on the hook.

The argument here, of course, isn’t that taxpayers aren’t paying for the stadium, it’s that they’re paying for it with money they wouldn’t have without the stadium. This is the Casino Night Fallacy, and while I could talk yet again about how just because tax revenues are “new” to a specific parcel of land doesn’t mean that it isn’t being cannibalized from other tax money that woulc be collected anyway, or would not be available for public uses if someone developed the land but without the ballpark, but I would much rather let Felix and Oscar explain it:

Felix: What have you got there? Where’d you get all that money?

Oscar: From Arnold, he owed it to me.

Felix: What?

Oscar: Yeah. He owed it to me since the year one.

Felix: The “let it ride” guy owed you money?

Oscar: That’s my Arnold.

Felix (reaching for a pile of cash): Well, that’s wonderf—

Oscar: Don’t touch the money, Felix.

Felix: But what a—

Oscar: Don’t touch it, I told you not to touch it.

Felix: But now the opera club gets its money back. Yay!

Oscar: I don’t think I heard you.

Felix: We’re saved! We get our money back!

Oscar (hastily gathering up his money): Now I know I didn’t hear you.

Felix: Surely you’re not thinking of keeping that money?

Oscar: Why not? It’s my money!

Felix: No, it’s not! It belongs to the opera club!

Oscar: How do you figure that?

Felix: Well, Arnold got it from us, you got it from him, you give it back to us! Then everybody’s even!

Oscar: That can’t be right. See, I’d be out all this money.

Felix: No, you wouldn’t! You’d just be back where you started from!

Oscar: Yeah, but only Arnold wouldn’t owe it to me anymore. See, I had this money coming to me.

Felix: But it came from the opera club! From them to him to you to me! It’s like an isosceles triangle!

But fine, that’s only one San Antonio news outlet, anyone can have a gullible day. Let’s see how the San Antonio Express-News covered the—

The Missions owners’ first pitch to city officials for a new ballpark downtown boiled down to this: Please foot almost the entire bill.

That’s how City Manager Erik Walsh on Wednesday recalled that first meeting.

The minor-league ball club struck out.

Seriously?

One article like this is bad enough; two is clearly the sign of a concerned media campaign to spin $126 million in public spending as “no public spending.” There is only one acceptable response by the San Antonio council: Don’t touch the money, Felix.

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6 comments on “San Antonio to spend $126m on minor-league ballpark, gullible journalists call this no public money

  1. I am not familiar with where this ballpark would be built, but according to ParkingReform.org, downtown San Antonio is 29% parking lots, so at least there is plenty of empty land to use.

    Be easy on those politicians and reporters. There is a good chance Nolan Ryan threatened to put them in headlocks and punch them.

    1. I originally wrote the headline as “idiot” journalists, but changed it to “gullible” because I don’t know the precise reasons for why they’re publishing terrible journalism.

  2. I thought I’ve heard it all but “team equity contribution” is a new one. One would assume this means said team’s owners is borrowing money against their ownership stake similar to a HELOC. But hey, this euphemism sounds so much better.

  3. Here is what it cost to build these old ballparks in today’s dollars:

    Shea Stadium – $285 mil
    Busch Stadium II – $233 mil
    Kaufmann Stadium – $349 mil
    Riverfront Stadium – $353 mi
    Turner Field – $406 mil

    Newer minor league ballparks are not too far behind these numbers.

    If we double these numbers to add some modern updates, (video boards, clubs, more concessions and restrooms), they would still cost less than modern parks being built today.

    Are we building parks to be like social clubs, (major and minor leagues)? What happened to build a park meant to watch the game?

    1. I know this is your shtick, but the chances of the Angels moving from the 2nd largest TV market to the 31st are somewhere below 0%.

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