The D.C. city council held its second day of Washington Commanders stadium hearings yesterday, questioning Mayor Muriel Bowser and team officials, but all you really need to know is in this paragraph from the enshittified Washington Post:
By the hearing’s end, it was clear that a majority of the council members had made peace with the idea of supporting a publicly funded stadium development despite initial skepticism over the price tag. A council budget office study found that while a different type of mixed-use development may generate more revenue in the long run, a development anchored by a new pro football stadium would unleash economic benefits six years sooner — a timeline that multiple lawmakers said they found persuasive.
That council budget office study is here, and this is the chart showing what apparently turned the heads of some councilmembers:
If you think the blue line looks more enticing than the yellow line, congratulations, you’re qualified to be on the D.C. council!
But the budget office didn’t only look at tax revenues from the project — which, importantly, were just generated by plugging the amount of spending at a stadium district into the REMI projection algorithm, with no accounting for whether it would cannibalize any spending or development from elsewhere in the district. It also looked at public costs (under separate cover), and as Greater Greater Washington reported, hoo baby would there be a lot of those:
That’s cumulative cost, not present value — in other words, it counts costs 30 years down the road the same as costs today. But it also leaves out one mammoth subsidy: The 26 years of rent-free land, followed by 64 more years of reduced rent, that Commanders owner Josh Harris would get for his surrounding development, which economist Geoff Propheter has previously calculated as costing the city somewhere between $6 billion and $25 billion.
But, you know, that blue line looks good enough to dispense with most councilmembers’ skepticism, sure, let’s run with that. With today’s council vote looking largely in the bag, councilmembers unhappy with the deal appear to be trying to win some concessions around the edges, which is tough to do when your vote isn’t needed for passage, but they’ve giving it their best shot:
- Zachary Parker wants more local union jobs at a hotel adjacent to the stadium.
- Robert White wants guarantees that affordable housing will be built in the first 10 years as promised, and is seeking a housing preservation fund to keep residents from being priced out of the nearby Kingman Park neighborhood.
- Charles Allen wants to cut down on the number of parking garages built for the stadium, saying he’s worried it would lead to more traffic.
Concerns like these are all fine enough, but focusing on them when there’s a $6-billion-plus taxpayer giveaway on the table is a little like cleaning the bank windows while your vault is being robbed. D.C. residents have said they overwhelmingly want a better deal; we’ll find out today if the council agrees, or if it thinks trimming a few hundred million dollars off the billions in subsidies to a sports billionaire is good enough for government work.
Minor (and honestly stupid) quibble with this: the scare quotes in the title should be around “overcomes” rather than “skepticism” because everything I’ve seen about this suggests the DC council was essentially a doormat, and that there was virtually no scenario where the majority of the council was going to vote this proposal down.
And as a tangent: this would make it four times in the last five years where perennially underachieving franchises — the other three being Buffalo, Tennessee, and Jacksonville — parlayed their first good season (or two good seasons) in forever into stadium deals with massive public subsidies. Leaving aside the looming outlier in Cleveland, I would look toward this potentially becoming a thing in Chicago over the next few years, as well.
So…. their own numbers (regardless how/where they got them) show that they would generate approx $1bn more without a stadium on the RFK site, and that the direct subsidies required to ‘get’ a stadium for Mr. Harris will cost at least $4.5bn tax dollars more.
And they vote for it.
Hello? Hello? Is this thing on???
I can understand them ignoring the value of the ‘free rent’ and no property tax because they will want/need to look at this as though “there could not possibly be anything else built there for 30 years without Josh Harris” – even though that is total BS.
Oh Look!
John Fisher just traded two of his best pitchers – including arguably the game’s best reliever who is under team control until 2029 – for an 18yr old blue chip prospect and not much else
Good luck Las Vegas baseball fans!!!! Maybe ask for your season ticket deposit refunds on seats in a stadium that doesn’t exist sooner rather than later.
I guess what happens on the way to Vegas certainly doesn’t stay in Vegas,huh?
#LOLAthletics #LOLMLB #LOLVegas
While Mason Miller is a great young reliever, JP Sears is hot garbage, and the A’s got two good pitching prospects along with DeVries, the 18-year-old shortstop. Early reactions are that the Padres got taken to the cleaners on this one, though obviously it’ll depend on how the younguns turn out.
but… he’s one of the A’s best pitchers (Sears)… And De Vries (at 18) might end up being a great major leaguer – or not. You never know with prospects.
I read several reactions that had the the A’s winning this deal. I just don’t see it. The best player went the other way.
Now, I know he was making almost Eight. Hundred. Thousand. dollars a year… so he had a bullseye on his back as far as the A’s were concerned, but…
IMO, a very bad deal for the Athletics franchise. How soon will the rest of their young stars be shipped out?
“One of the A’s best pitchers” is the damningest of faint praise.
And a really good relief pitcher is still just a relief pitcher. If any of De Vries or the three pitchers turns out to be even an above-average MLB regular, that’s worth more than Mason Miller. (Also, pitchers break; a friend today just reminded me of the last A’s rookie reliever phenom, Andrew Bailey, who essentially ceased to exist after his second year in the majors.) If two or three of them turn out to be solid, then this is an absolute steal for whichever intern is still on staff in the A’s front office.
“One of the A’s best pitchers” is the damningest of faint praise.
Yes, that was the point!
And, agreed, relievers in particular can be flighty. For every legitimate great who has been signed as a free agent or traded for full value, there are many who’s short window of effectiveness closes early. But he is still one of the league’s best relievers right now and that has value.
Given the choice, I would rather be the Padres in this deal than the A’s (regardless what the talking heads at USA today or ESPN say). Deadline deals are all about “now”… and the Padres pried a guy out of (west) Sacramento that was ‘off limits’ as of yesterday.
The A’s got three pitchers, one who is 22 and in AA a second who is 23 and in also in AA while the last is 26 and in AAA (and hasn’t made the majors yet). The 26 year old was probably just a thrown as someone who could potentially pitch in the majors this year (He has 4 games with the padres and has 4.2 innings so a typical short reliever). This whole deal hinges on Devries and how well he does. He’s very young but hasn’t been completely lighting the minor on fire so there is definitely a good amount of risk for the A’s
If de Vries ends up being even an above-average major leaguer, the Aths will just ship him out three or four years into his big league career for some more prospects… and so the cycle goes.
It’s a little bit scary with them, because they’ve still managed to cobble together some winning rosters using that same strategy, which then allows them to justify their perpetual cheapness. Who knows if that will ultimately be the case at any point during their nomadic years (however long it lasts), but that possibility can’t be discounted.
This is exactly the problem with the Athletics, Kei. If you follow them long enough you’ll see this exact cycle repeating… yes, we just traded a bona fide major league starter but we got back a blue chipper and a couple of good prospect arms.
And three years later, with the bona fide starter already traded and one of the three youngsters looking like you could pencil them into the starting lineup every day, that youngster needs to be moved on for ‘the future’. Somehow the elusive super team of the future built on years of pain is always three seasons away. Or more.
The A’s as run by John Fisher will never be anything but a farm team for actual major league clubs. It doesn’t matter where he moves them (even though “every” destination was supposed to end this endless loop of selling off good players), he will never be anything but a seller.
Butler, Clarke, Langeliers… they are all on the list to ship out. How can any fan support this incompetent clown act?