How’s everyone doing out there? The news has been a lot lately, both the stadium shenanigans and the other non-stadium stuff, I get it, I’m as tempted as anyone to just shut off the outside world and watch Murderbot. Feel no obligation to read this week’s news roundup if you’re out of spoons, but do know that whenever you’re ready for it, it has some classic Rob Manfred garblequotes in it, those are kind of amusing at least:
- Apparently one reason we don’t know all the details of Hamilton County’s new lease with the Cincinnati Bengals that could cost the county more than $700 million for future stadium expenses is that the county commission members haven’t seen the final lease either, even though they already voted to approve it, this is fine.
- Kentucky Congressman James Comer says the D.C. council had better vote on the $7 billion or so Washington Commanders stadium subsidy before it goes on recess in August, or else his Committee on Oversight and Government Reform could do unspecified things, don’t make him come in there! Retorted councilmember Charles Allen: “D.C. has a responsibility to scrutinize the proposal & demand a better & fair deal before it comes up for a vote (psst, the Council has already said they will hold a vote). This is a billion-dollar industry negotiating for a deal & terms they want. We should all act like it, too.”
- Meanwhile, a “new grassroots campaign” is pushing for the passage of the Commanders stadium plan, reports WTOP, led by the advocacy group Opportunity D.C. Let’s see who’s the chair of that group … a top lobbyist and former chair of the DC Sports and Entertainment Commission that built the Nationals stadium, doesn’t get any more grassroots than that, no notes.
- Possible new Tampa Bay Rays owner Patrick Zalupski could be possibly interested in building a stadium on land in Tampa’s Ybor City that was previously considered by possibly outgoing owner Stu Sternberg but then later repurposed for a possible women’s soccer stadium, which could possibly be replaced now by a Rays stadium. No mention of how such a stadium would be paid for, which is maybe somewhat relevant given that Sternberg backed away from the Ybor City plan because nobody came up with money for it, “I’m not concerned with having the financial capacity for getting these deals done,” said Hillsborough County Commissioner Ken Hagan, which makes one of him.
- The city of Cleveland is suing to block the Browns from building a new stadium in Brook Park on the grounds that it’s a violation of the team’s lease, which prohibits the team from seeking to relocate until the lease expires, which it doesn’t so until 2028. Without seeing the lease (and getting a law degree, probably), I can’t comment on the suit’s likelihood of success, but anyway I’d rather spent my time puzzling over this photo of the Browns owners that someone at TalkSport decided to caption “Jimmy and Dee Haslam initially shared their excitement after securing $600m funding.”
- Jackson County executive and former Kansas City Royals second baseman Frank White now says he would consider supporting a sales tax hike to help pay for Chiefs stadium renovations, with conditions: two-thirds of the tax hike proceeds would have to go to upgrading a courthouse, juvenile rehab facility, and county-owned hospitals, with the rest going to the NFL team. Surely this has nothing to do with the recall campaign that was launched by a dark money group after White opposed the last stadium sales tax hike.
- MLB commissioner Rob Manfred told reporters that there’s no reason Oakland couldn’t get an expansion team, not now that that bad lady Sheng Thao is gone: “In terms of expansion, open book,” he said. “You know what? People who want baseball should participate in the expansion process when we start that process, and I think by being wide open, with no predeterminations as to where it’s going, we’re going to end up with the best locations if we want to expand. … I thought Mayor [Sheng] Thao was not particularly helpful when we got down to brass tacks, but I don’t think I’m going to have to deal with her going forward.” Oakland getting a new team plus getting rid of John Fisher sounds like a win-win, except that the “expansion process” is almost certainly going to include getting cities to compete for how lavish a stadium they will fund, so maybe not all wins there.
- Meanwhile in their Sacramento exile, the Athletics are struggling with too-short foul poles that led to their manager getting ejected for arguing. Also their new stadium construction cam livestream is broken, LOLAthletics.
- “Railyards deal falls through. Sacramento Republic FC pushes ahead with stadium” is truly the most 2025 of 2025 headlines, even before you read the part about how local residents successfully blocked the expansion of a special taxing district but the city plans to move ahead with the project and figure out which tax money to use later.
I don’t have a link handy but wanted to call out the Adam Silver indicated a few days ago that NBA expansion to Seattle and Vegas may be paused, subtly threatened Portland to build the next owner a new arena, and will probably shake down a few more cities along the way (looking at you, San Antonio). Straight from the playbook.
“brass tacks?” How did Rob Manfred become MLB commissioner without knowing proper baseball cliches. “…when the game was on the line, when we got into the late innings, when our backs were against the wall, at crunch time, the last at bat.” Also, the A’s were offered two prime locations, Jack London Square area, and the Coliseum site with all its transit options.
“… and we need a partner who will just keep grinding with us all the way to the finish.”
On second thought, maybe it’s best Rob Manfred not publicly discuss grinding with anyone.
Unless he’s at a Coldplay concert
The Giants will not allow another team in the bay area. With Pac Bell Park being 26 years old, they will allow Oakland to compete with SF on a new park.
I’m pretty sure MLB hasn’t ceded the East Bay rights to the Giants yet. Recall that unlike in NY/LA/Chicago, the Giants and the A’s didn’t have overlapping territorial rights — that’s the whole reason Lew Wolff wasn’t able to try to move to San Jose.
The former A’s “territory” remains as it was in Oakland/Alameda. It is ‘neutral’ (but not free) territory in MLB’s corrupt little world.
Mumblfred was very clear on that fact when Fisher relocated to Sacramento for nothing instead of taking the $400m+ he had on offer in Oakland.
Rob the Gob should be careful with his failed attempts at humour. At the pace the Athletics progress in LV is happening, Thao could be back in office before the A’s take up residence in Vegas – if in fact they ever do.
To be fair, Jackson County residents were not very happy with Frank White before the Royals-sales tax vote. County property taxes in 2024 increased greatly through what has been shown to be a very flawed process (by the State of Missouri’s AG) by an outside company approved by the county under Mr. White’s watch. Then despite all the furor and uproar over the increases (mine went up over 200%, there were reports of others having increases of over 500%, and this was county-wide), Mr. White seemed publicly to be very non-plussed about the matter. I remember petitions for his recall being circulated before the Royals-sales tax was put on a ballot let alone voted on.
lol if Fisher/Manfred think Barbara Lee is going to be any friendlier to billionaires looking for a handout
Second to last point: it wasn’t the A’s manager who got ejected, as your sentence implies. It was John Schneider of the visiting Blue Jays who was ejected arguing the foul call.
Of course the batter homered on the next pitch, because baseball.
Thanks – I read that, too, and should have remembered because it was Davis Schneider who homered and John Schneider (no relation) who was ejected, but then between reading it and writing the bullet point I forgot.
If anyone has a good source for RAM upgrades for the human brain, I’m in the market…
It’s not hard to replace foul poles. During the first home stand at the third Busch Stadium, fans complained that the foul poles were too wide, and difficult to see around. So the team replaced them before the second home stand. Will be interesting to see if the A’s can do this, or if it’s something only major league teams can do.
It isn’t technically hard to do. But you have to find someone willing to pay for the new poles and the crane and, you know, actual wages for the workers who do the job. You might think lots of people would be willing to do this work and donate the new foul poles for free, but that isn’t the case.
That’s the hard work that people don’t see. Finding someone else to pay for this.
People think being a billionaire team owner is easy. It’s not easy.
Good point. If you ask a billionaire to pay for his own foul poles, next thing you know, you’ll be asking him to pay for his whole stadium.