The stadium deals are coming fast and furious now: Hamilton County and the Cincinnati Bengals owners have reached an agreement on a lease extension, four days before the team owners could have extended their current lease unilaterally. The new lease, approved yesterday by a 2-1 vote (Alicia Reese, dada poet, abstained) will run through the 2036 season (with five two-year options afterwards), and the team will receive $350 million in county money toward $470 million in stadium upgrades. The team will start paying rent for the first time (beginning at $1 million a year, gradually rising to $2 million), while continuing to receive 93% of parking revenues.
That’s a little over $30 million in public money per year of lease extension, which would be high but still short of the $43 million a year that the Carolina Panthers received last year. But the real question is: Did Hamilton County succeed in getting out from under that state-of-the-art clause that requires taxpayers to buy the team anything that other teams’ stadiums have, famously including holographic replay systems should they ever be invented? Neither the Bengals’ statement nor the county’s statement mentions this, and if it’s still in place, then you have to wonder why the county didn’t just let Bengals owners the Brown family renew the old lease and pass on giving them $350 million in cash.
And it could end up being more than $350 million: Hamilton County stated that “Commissioners plan to pursue state support as capital grants become available to grow the size of the renovation project” — which would be insane for the state to do in exchange for exactly nothing in return from the team owners, but the Ohio state legislature isn’t exactly known for its sanity lately.
More news as events warrant, then, but it certainly looks like a big win for the Browns, not to be confused with this week’s big win for the other Browns. And while we await more news, here’s more news:
- The Kansas City Chiefs owners have officially requested an extension on Kansas’s offer of state money for a new stadium, either because they really want to move to Kansas or because they want to scare local Missouri lawmakers into sweetening the pot on the state money that was already approved there. The Kansas legislature will discuss the extension proposal on July 7; in the meantime, state senate president Ty Masterson declared: “The letter from [Chiefs president] Mark Donovan indicates that the drive to bring this historic project to Kansas is moving down the field. Now that we are in the red zone, this extension will provide stakeholders sufficient time to ensure the ball crosses the goal line” — at which point the English language itself died of metaphor overload.
- The community revitalization levy (Canadian for TIF) that provided $300 million in tax money for a new Edmonton Oilers arena is set to expire soon, so of course the Edmonton Chamber of Commerce wants it extended for another 20 years, or else: “Extending the CRL is about making a generational investment in our city, and it directly responds to what we’re hearing from local businesses. A vibrant Downtown isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s a must-have,” said ECC CEO Doug Griffiths. Some of the money would go toward expanding the Oilers’ ICE District Fan Park, which is less a park than an event space that Oilers owner Daryl Katz can use to hold GWAR concerts; “We shouldn’t be doing secret deals behind closed doors for one or two businesses. That’s just wrong,” objected city councillor (Canadian for councilmember) Michael Janz in advance of public hearings yesterday and today.
- The Tampa Bay Rays need to figure out where to play their home playoff games if they make the postseason, and if you want to read Ken Rosenthal expounding semi-coherently on it — sample text: “Come October, a team known for disrupting the sport might provide its wildest wrinkle yet: a public-address announcer bellowing, ‘Welcome to the 2025 postseason at Steinbrenner Field!'”— here’s the Athletic paywall, go to town. (Or, psst, you can always try archive.ph.)
- The Marietta Daily Journal reports that the Atlanta Braves‘ stadium is producing more tax revenues than it’s costing Cobb County in tax expenditures; no, it’s not, points out Kennesaw State economist J.C. Bradbury, who notes that this fails to account for the 60% of county costs that are covered by sources other than property taxes, which puts the county comfortably back in a sea of red ink.
- The Washington, D.C. city council has scheduled public hearings on a proposed Commanders stadium for July 29 and 30, which makes it clear that the council won’t be voting to approve the potential $7-billion-and-up subsidy deal on July 15 as team officials and Mayor Muriel Bowser had hoped. Any delay past July 15 would “jeopardize D.C.’s ability to attract premier concerts, global talent and marquee events — including the 2031 FIFA Women’s World Cup” and “slow new jobs at a time when the District needs them the most,” a Commanders spokesperson harrumphed. Council president Phil Mendelson says he still expects a stadium deal to be approved this summer; the big question is whether the council will do anything to trim the proposed record-breaking public costs or will just greenlight basically what Bowser approved. If nothing else, the hearings should be a good opportunity to fill out some of our bingo cards.
While we’re only at the halfway point, it does kinda feel like a matter of *when* the Rays get to the postseason, rather than if. They’re a team that’s used to making do with what it’s got, both on and off the diamond — whether that’s out of necessity or due to insincerity is a whole different topic — but even by their standards, what they’ve been able to do so far this year is borderline absurd.
A Rays-Yankees postseason series at Steinbrenner Field would be amazing (and amusing) on so many levels.
Did the $15m payment to the Yankees include post season games? If not, I sense an opportunity for the Steinbrenner family here…
Hey, it’s not just home stadium extortion that is in play this week… the cost for Vancouver to host 7 World Cup games in 2026 has risen almost $400m since the idea was first floated…
https://www.biv.com/news/commentary/kirk-lapointe-world-cup-windfall-fades-into-fantasy-as-costs-keep-climbing-10870049
Toronto is still claiming they can host 6 matches for just $325m or so… but hey, nobody really believes that do they??? Maybe if you ignore a half billion in security costs…
So lets see, under 400,000 tickets available for seven games in Vancouver – around half of which will be allotted to either FIFA or the competing nations for distribution – and you’d need to generate around $2500 per ticket sold in new tax revenues to break even.
Easy Peasy, right?
Vancouver now knows why Montreal said no to hosting World Cup matches.
Many cities across North America did. I haven’t found much in the way of detailed looks into what US cities are spending/losing hosting the FIFA carpetbaggers (which is odd in itself, but maybe I’m not looking in the right places and this info is freely available), but I’m sure it’s significant.
It does seem like the publicly funded stadiums deals are more frequent and more eye popping of late. My assumption is that it is some combination of construction costs soaring, cities hungry for “economic development” after COVID, and leagues getting more sophisticated and organized (in part because side ownership groups are more savvy w/private equity and such) as they look to grow their revenues. Curious to hear the thoughts of others and if this is real, or I’m just paying closer attention to it.
Or and more sports leagues too…
It certainly seems like the asks are getting larger and more frequent to me, Greg.
Some part of that will be normal inflation, but it seems relatively common for a stadium/arena built less than a decade after a previous one to be double the cost… and that is not inflation at work, it is something else entirely.
As to WHY this is happening, I don’t know. I’m tempted to say it’s as simple as “nobody is saying no, so why not keep asking for more until someone does?”
But there are many other possibilities as well.
@greg I can’t help but wonder if the politicians who continue to approve these massive taxpayer giveaways are just stupidly enthralled with billionaire sports owners. For the life of me I can’t wrap my head around how these “deals” keep happening when published analysis from reputable sports economists show in stark black and white numbers that these so called “deals,” never benefit the taxpayers.
It baffles me why politicians don’t use plain English to their constituents in turning down these billionaires requests by saying to the public “Do you want me to give YOUR tax dollars to a Billionaire sports team owner who pays little if any taxes, and therefore can easily afford to pay for a new stadium out of their own pocket, but wants YOU to pay for HIS stadium. Do you understand why I’m saying No?”
Politicians have to spend a lot more time answering to billionaires (or to representatives of billionaires) than to constituents.
I’m sure it varies by office (and individual), but it would be interesting to see how the time spent for the two audiences compares.
How long is the roof repair at the Trop supposed to take? Is it really not going to be finished by October?
It’s being made in Germany, assembled in China, and then shipped to St. Pete starting in August. Expected to be finished by December.
Sounds like the tariffs alone will be the same price as a relief pitcher.
Not a Rays relief pitcher. They’re notoriously inexpensive and get shipped out at the first sign of promise OR they blow out their elbow.