So this happened:
That’s it, I’m done, I can’t top that. RIP comedy (???? – 2025 AD), reality has finally become too absurd even to laugh at.
If anyone still cares about the rest of the news, here’s some:
- Proving once again that expiring lease deadlines are almost never really deadlines at all, Los Angeles Angels owner Arte Moreno responded to his lease with Anaheim being set to end in 2029 by signing a three-year extension through 2032. There had been talk about voiding the lease entirely because it was negotiated by the city’s former mayor who ended up going to prison for attempted bribe-taking and illegal helicopter registration surrounding an attempted stadium upgrade deal, but apparently that went nowhere, so instead Moreno will kick the can down the road in hopes everyone will have forgotten about that whole mess and he can get back to harvesting subsidies and spending them on players who are about to forget how to play, LOLAngels.
- Rob Manfred’s mouth opened and words fell out again: “It’s important the way I say this — I am spending a ton of time with [Tampa Bay Rays owner] Stu [Sternberg]. I think he’s confronted with an extraordinarily difficult situation, and we’re trying to work that situation through and keep my goal, keep the franchise in Tampa Bay. … We’d like to keep the franchise in Tampa Bay. We think the market is big enough and that there is passion for the game. Having said that, it is challenging.” That’s a non-threat threat, I think? Either that or a humblebrag about how he gets to spend time hanging out with one of the most hated people in sports, hard to say, really.
- Speaking of arbitrary deadlines, Kansas City Royals owner John Sherman says its his “objective” to be “prepared to talk about” a new stadium “by mid-year,” which is a little odd since the Missouri and Kansas legislative sessions will both be done by then, so either he’s hoping for a special session or just hoping the passage of time will make everyone forget about his own recent public embarrassment as well.
- And speaking of mumbling incoherently, someone asked Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie if he planned to build a dome on his team’s stadium, and he replied: “I don’t have a strong opinion on it, because you’re torn. I love outdoor football. I love it. I love the cold games. I like the hot games. I like the snow games. On the other hand, Philadelphia deserves to host the Super Bowl, NCAA Final Four, and lots of great events. It’s an incredible sports city, so yes you got to balance all those things. Can I go now?” (Okay, not actually that last bit.)
- Anyone else? You in the back, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell! “I think the process that they’re going through is very positive. They’re speaking to everybody about their needs as well as community needs and where they can find a stadium that would be suitable.” Guess in comments which team he was talking about, or click the link for spoilers!
- Illinois state representative Bob Morgan has introduced the Balanced Earnings And Record Standards (BEARS) and Stadium Oversight and Expectations Act, which would limit public stadium spending to sports teams with a winning record three of the last five years. Nice try, Rep. Morgan, but comedy is dead now, you probably didn’t hear.
- It’s not just the Shh-Not-Sacramento Athletics discovering the joys of artificial scarcity pricing, the Rays are jacking up prices through the roof now that they’re playing in a tiny ballpark, too!
- How are those arena jobs created by the new taxpayer-subsidized Detroit Red Wings arena working out for workers? Oh. Welp.
- Corporate tax breaks are costing local fire departments millions of dollars a year in budget shortfalls, this is fine, probably.
- I spent an hour on WVXU’s Cincinnati Edition yesterday discussing the Bengals stadium situation and proposed statewide sports gambling tax to create a stadium slush fund with several Ohio journalists, and you can now listen to it in its entirety here. (Not included: the pre-show discussion of the donuts in the WVXU vending machine, which are apparently incredibly bad, thoughts and prayers to my WVXU colleagues.)
Well at least Mike Trout now knows where to watch the Angels play during the final year of his contract.
I thought maybe they’d be able to pull it out once Manfred finally retires, but it seems that Deep Space Nine’s prophecy of professional baseball collapsing in the 21st century is still in the cards.
Wouldn’t be over the collapse of regional sports networks. Wouldn’t even be due to the ever-insatiable desire for taxpayer-financed sportsball palaces.
It’d be the endless spending by the L.A. Dodgers that’s spurred calls for a salary cap — which could lead to a lockout of the MLBPA when the union contract expires after the 2026 World Series.
Telling that Manfred would declare keeping the Rays in Tampa Bay to be *his* goal, rather than the goal of the guy who actually owns the team. As much as I dislike the cliche of “saying the quiet part out loud,” he might have essentially confirmed that Stu Sternberg doesn’t give a f— where his little baseball plaything ultimately ends up in.
And just to go off on a tangent: this kinda goes to the flipside of the whole snowbird industry and aesthetic of Florida. This isn’t a state that produces even moderately wealthy people, let alone people with enough clout to purchase entire pro sports franchises; it’s only capable of attracting that cohort once they’ve attained their riches. Whether it’s Stu Sternberg in St Pete, Shad Khan in Jacksonville, or the deVos family in Orlando, pro sports franchises in Florida have drawn the type of owners who see their teams as little more than another source of passive income, and who otherwise have little to no engagement with their team’s home markets (afaik, only Sternberg has a home anywhere in the region that his team is based in).
By and large, long-time residents of Orlando, Jax, and St Pete yearn to be connected to something bigger than themselves — and pro sports is the easiest outlet for that connection. When they see that the owners of the local teams don’t share that same sentiment, they’re bound to respond accordingly.
Agree with what you said, but there is one person that is the exception.
Jeff Vinik of the Tampa Bay Lightning. They are one of, if not the best run sports franchise in America and it starts at the top. Admired by fans and players, he turned a fledging organization into what it is today. Record streak of consecutive sellouts, a great facility (he put tens of millions of his own money to fix it up when he took over) and the overall atmosphere is electric. His philanthropy work in the area cannot be overlooked.
He’s from Boston and even owns a small share of the Red Sox.
Vinik is great (though he recently sold a majority stake and will only keep control for the next couple of years).
But the Lightning weren’t so much a fledgling organization when he bought them (they’d been around for 18 years) as just a bad one.
Yeah, true of the owners of the marlins, panthers (who surprisingly won the cup last year go figure!), and especially the dolphins.
The owner of the heat is a rare exception since he was involved with carnival cruise lines in Miami and seems to take pride in the team.
Excellent observation, and something so simple to see but something that I ignore. Absentee owners who really do not have a stake in their communities are at best mere interlopers and at worst trying to undermine their current surroundings.
Did you mean for the link about the Rays jacking up ticket prices to go to a San Francisco Chronicle story about the A’s? (It’s behind a paywall so I can’t get to enough of it to see if it references the Rays at all.)
Ugh, no, sorry, that was supposed to go to here:
https://bsky.app/profile/draysbay.bsky.social/post/3lhls3mfqek2n
If you haven’t turned against MLB, what are you waiting for?
Re Goodell- It’s the Bengals, right? Wait no the Bears. Jacksonville? Oh hell it could be any team.
Now I’m sorry I clicked that link. But I knew it all along.
Surprised no mention of Bears majority owner Virginia McCaskey passing. I know it is too soon perhaps but how does this change the stadium calculation for the Bears? The McCaskey Family is one of the last of the old time owners — rich because they own a team, they did not own a team because they are rich.
Depending on what the estate plan looks like might this mean the family might sell some of their share in the team? There was discussion in Chicago a year or so ago that some local rich persons might be interested in buying a minority share of the team with the funds used for a stadium. But the family and our “progressive pro-worker” mayor wants to city funded stadium for the team.
“…. elevated John Fisher to the executive committee….”
What? Forrest Gump was unavailable?
“Stupid is what stupid does.”.
– Forrest, proprietor at large with Lieutenant Dan