Sorry I missed this one last week: Alicia Reece, one of the Hamilton County commissioners proposing a $1.2 billion Cincinnati Bengals stadium renovation with no actual proposal of how to pay for it, has said that her county should get the same amount of state money that the Cleveland Browns get for their new stadium, assuming they get any:
“You can’t give everything to Cleveland and leave us with the scraps,” Reece said during Tuesday’s public meeting of the Hamilton County commissioners.
The state of Ohio hasn’t actually offered anything toward a Browns stadium yet, though Gov. Mike DeWine met with Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam and Cleveland officials last month to talk about the stadium plans, and his spokesperson said the governor is generally in favor of spending public money on stadiums. Though apparently DeWine is aware of the slippery-slope aspect of giving money to one team owner and having all the others in your state show up, hats in hand:
“When you do something with one stadium and one team, that obviously creates a desire all the way through, to do it multiple times,” DeWine said in answer to a question at a Columbus Metropolitan Club forum [in May]. “And that that is what the legislature and I have to be cognizant of and think about as we look at kind of one-off proposals: what is this do to every other team in the state?”
What is this do, indeed? So far, state legislators haven’t seemed super-enthused about lading gobs on money on the Haslams, and are only likely to get less so if the Bengals have to get equal billing. Still, local officials in both Cleveland and Cincinnati are going to be leaning hard on the state to help “solve” their stadium “problems” — so, even if neither team is threatening to move out of state and it shouldn’t matter to state legislators where in Ohio the Browns and Bengals play, don’t be too surprised if DeWine’s response is less “not my table” than “how big a check, exactly?”
The opposite is true. The legislature will be more likely to go along with a Browns stadium subsidy is if there is one with the Bengals.
Scroll back to the Northeast Ohio is a Democratic stronghold Columbus is a swing area and the rest of the state is Republican. So they are more likely to do a deal where Cincinnati is included. Probably some sort of lottery.
You can scroll back to the comments under the last Bengals post and I predicted they would go to the state.
Yep, I saw your comment, it was an astute prediction.
As to whether there’s a better chance of this happening if the legislature can be seen as handing out goodies to both parties, I’ll leave that to someone who is more knowledgeable about Ohio state political machinations.
Long story short Northern Ohio (particularly Northeast Ohio) is Democrat controlled most of the rest of the state is Republican controlled. Loss of manufacturing has resulted in population losses in Northeast Ohio. Typically Democrats only win state wide in state or Presidential elections of they run up big margins in Cuyahoga County (when Cleveland is) a few years ago there was a huge corruption scandal a bunch of Democratic officials and party leaders went to prison. That has deflated Democratic turnout. Combined with many rounds of gerrymandering the southern part of the state dominates the agenda.
The Republicans do throw crumbs up north to keep the peace. Governor DeWine threw state money at the Guardians to get a lease extension. So throwing while throwing a lot of money at the Browns might have been a hard sell but if you are throwing money at both teams it’s a bit easier
I’m unsure the politics matter as this generally happens in states with two big cities like Pittsburgh/Philadelphia and KC/StL.
Kind of like what the 76ers are trying to do by saying if the Flyers get money, they should too. They get to make it look like their arm was twisted into taking public money when they’re basically guaranteeing they get it.
It would greatly surprise me if the Flyers get public money.
Comcast Spectacor’s entire selling point with their projects is that they’re fully privately funded.
Without that, there would be a lot more pushback towards them.
So, billion dollar handouts to current billionaires are really more like glorified soup kitchens… non judgemental, non denominational, sort of a giant hand up for every billionaire who can walk/be carried in a bejewelled sedan chair through the door and who owns a sports team of sufficient value?
Interesting times.
I don’t understand why either team needs a new stadium. They seem to have good locations for football stadiums and were built in 1999 and 2000 respectively.
This is getting out of hand. Stadiums shouldn’t have to be replaced every twenty to thirty years. More like every fifty -if that.
“I don’t see anything wrong, from an owner’s perspective, with the idea of a new stadium every year.” — sports economist Rod Fort