Weeks keep happening, and we keep making it to the end of them! (Well, most of us.) If you ever need a break from the general state of everything, you might want to check out this other project I’m involved in, where you can immerse yourself in great live music of the recent past to gird yourself for the present. Or just experience whatever exactly this is.
Back now, all musicked up? Good, because there’s some news waiting for you and it’s not going to stay hot forever:
- As promised, the city of Cleveland officially sued the Cleveland Browns under Ohio’s Art Modell Law this week to force team owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam to offer the team for sale to local owners before trying to move it to the suburb of Brook Park. The Haslams already preemptively sued to block the Modell Law, so now this will be in the hands of the courts, though it’s also in the hands of the state legislature that is being asked for maybe $1.2 billion to help build a Brook Park dome, hey guys, I think I came up with a way to save a bunch on lawyers’ fees!
- Denver Broncos co-owner Greg Penner said Wednesday that “We haven’t ruled out anything at this point” in terms of a new or renovated stadium to replace or upgrade their 24-year-old one, adding, “We’re still looking at options on the current site, around Denver.” If that sounds suspiciously like “We’re kicking the tires of local governments to see what our leverage is,” congratulations, you’ve passed Chicago Bears 101!
- Speaking of the Bears, Illinois house speaker Chris Welch said he might consider having the state pay for some infrastructure costs of a new NFL stadium, so long as the team owners build one at the Michael Reese Hospital site that they first rejected before saying they might reconsider. Fox 32 Chicago further reports that “Governor JB Pritzker is open to talks with the Bears regarding the Michael Reese site” (according to “sources); if the Bears execs’ plan is really “keep throwing things at various walls until we see what sticks,” this might be just the opening they’ve been hoping for — now, how to define an entire stadium as “infrastructure”?
- The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal … I probably shouldn’t even finish this sentence, but in the interest of the completeness: Mr. Bowtie says that Tampa Bay Rays owner Stu Sternberg needs to find a way to get a stadium built in his current city or else sell the team, and that the situation is “not identical” to the Athletics moving out of Oakland, because Tampa-St. Pete is a large market and the Rays have a stadium offer in hand while the A’s … well, they’re just different, okay? This is probably just Rosenthal going off for his own reasons, but he does spend a bunch of time discussing how MLB commissioner Rob Manfred is taking a “different approach” with the Rays than the A’s, so there’s some chance the consummate baseball insider is sending a message on behalf of MLB leadership, in which case maybe Sternberg will take the hint and stand down from his “Thanks for the billion dollars, what else you got?” gambit.
- Retiring Miami Mayor Francis Suarez gave a farewell speech in which he stood before the under-construction Inter Miami stadium — as well as an American flag and two John Deere tractors, because Florida — and declared the “the best sports deal in America.” Mmm, maybe not quite that actually, but we have some lovely parting gifts.
- Remember that time San Diego almost had a floating ballpark? Wait, that was never really going to happen? Shh, it makes a great story.
Oh I love this quote from Janet Marie Smith:
“But nowadays, architects have to take pricing, practicality and some new factors into consideration when thinking about construction.”
Really? Really? There is literally no evidence that pricing of anything but tickets being sold to “fans” (and then only in terms of how much can we fleece the dummies who show up at games?) being considered in modern sports facility design.
When a third party is paying most or all of the cost, why would any owner (much less architect or engineer) worry about the cost?
In the rare instances when owners are paying the majority or all of the cost of facilities (which is often for college facilities, not professional ones), you DO see some connection between how much a particular amenity costs and how much it can increase revenue per game/annually.
But when the good old taxpayer is footing the bill, hey, why worry?
It’s highly unlike that MLB would ever “do a Meruelo” to either Stu Sternberg or John Fisher, but the league office might want to maintain that option just in case. It’s not impossible to imagine that one or both of them might ultimately wind up in a place where no local government in North America really wants to deal with them in any capacity — not even in their home markets (or “home” market, in the Aths’ case.)
And as a tangent to that: I’ve always found it weird that not being loyal to a team (or teams) owned by absolute d—kheads somehow reflects badly on the city and/or the fanbase. Even if that sentiment is only shared by the type of people who turn their sports fandom into an entire personal identity, the idea that people like Sternberg and Fisher — and a bunch of others in NFL, NBA, and NHL — are being “held back” by so-called unsupportive cities and fans feels like a cynical bit of victim-blaming, if not outright gross.
The Reese site is not only a great option for the bears, its the only option. The city owns it and the tax payers are carrying it for $9M a year, for 20+ years? It is close to McCormick Place and benefit from shared infrastructure (parking, road improvements). Maybe even benefit from the close proximity, ie: bears games and concerts becoming part of the convention offerings, new entertainment options, restaurants, bars, spur development on the south side where it is needed. It’s time the City does something smart for the tax payers and the Bears should feel guilty for fielding such lousy teams. Win, Win for everyone.
Had the Bears’ management had half a collective brain, construction would’ve started already at Arlington Park with the club’s new home ready by 2026-27.
Holding out for a site within the city of Chicago “because it’s always been that way” is a loser’s game propagated with the help of Big Government and Dumb Sportsball Fans.
The Bears and the city of Arlington Heights only reached an agreement on the property tax assessments last month. There is no way they were going to start construction without that deal being done. Ironically, the cost increase of building a stadium (due to waiting) at that site almost certainly is many times higher than the property tax savings they negotiated.
One twist in the Broncos situation is that the “public contribution” for the cost of their current stadium was/is funded by a sales tax on six counties in the metro area, which was approved by voters. Regional rivalry being what it is, I am very skeptical that voters in all of these suburban counties would approve their money going to a stadium that is anywhere other than Denver itself — i.e., a county 10 miles north of Denver is not going to give its tax dollars to a stadium in a county that is well south of downtown Denver, and vice versa.
So the Walmart folks who want public money for a new Broncos palace may have to shake down the state legislature rather than local governments. And, as seen in other places, shaking down a state government is a viable option when the state has only one franchise in that particular sport.
Doesn’t even have to be just one franchise in that sport in the state. The Marlins shook down Tallahassee, and the Browns are working with the Ohio legislature.
City says Miami Freedom Park is ‘on notice’ for unpaid $12.5M owed for stadium deal
https://amp.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article298650413.html
It had a good run at #1.