The D.C. city council voted on Mayor Muriel Bowser’s Washington Commanders stadium plan on Friday, and it went as expected, approving the revised agreement 9-3. Needing five votes to block a two-thirds majority, opponents were only able to muster three: Matthew Frumin, Brianne Nadeau, and Robert White. Councilmembers Charles Allen, Zachary Parker, and Janeese Lewis George all signed on to the deal once the Commanders agreed with local unions to guarantee using union labor and 51% local hiring on the mixed-use component of the project. Frumin, who had been a potential yes vote, switched to no after team officials refused to agree to financial penalties if housing on the site isn’t built on time.
Commanders owner Josh Harris is now set to get $1.058 billion in city cash plus at least $5.6 billion in free rent and tax breaks, which will be the biggest public sports subsidy in U.S. history by a mile. (The previous record depends on how you calculate the value of tax breaks, but all the contenders are well under $2 billion.) There’s still another council vote to be held in September, but D.C. has apparently told Harris to go ahead with stadium work regardless, apparently on the assumption that D.C. won’t be hit by any hurricanes in the interim.
For a team owner who had no other tangible offers in place from other local governments, and a site that was a potential gold mine for the district but which will now be in Harris’s control on a 90-year sweetheart lease, $6.6 billion is a pretty incredible get. Maybe savvy enough negotiators don’t need leverage? Or maybe it’s as simple as what one councilmember, hiding behind a veil of anonymity, told ESPN: “The alternative is we’re still talking about this in 10 years.” Got some bad news for you, buddy: You may yet be talking about this again in 10 years.
So $6.6 bil to make a mildly uncomfortable conversation go away. An absolute clinic on public policy put on by that council member.
And this is from a Democrat mayor and council; this is why Trump won. It’s because the so called opposition party is a bunch of self-serving corporate sell outs.
Local politics are different.
Yeah, for real. Oklahoma City gave a billion for a basketball arena last year, but I’ve got to imagine there are some DC residents that are discouraged. They didn’t even bargain.
I think you may have left out a word:
“…opposition party is ALSO a bunch of self serving corporate sell outs.”
We say “He can’t keep getting away with it”
But he does
Doesn’t the federal government have some say in DC’s budget?
Look what the city of Oakland caused …there refusal and stalling all these years of not getting the Raiders and A’s new venues has caused every sports owners to now “require” public funding.
Neil? What is the big deal. Congratulations to Washington D.C getting back their football team. Public subsidies for stadiums are never going away. I
Public money shoveled in large quantities to billionaires who own entertainment businesses is not something to celebrate. It is something society should absolutely make go away if possible.
Sorry Tim K. But it’s not happening. Do you know people who work for sports owners follow these pages. they read the complaints and strategies. If I was a owner I would demand my subsidies as well. Nothing in life is free. Oakland…Kansas City started a war…now more Sports Owners are demanding public subsidies. How about we come to the middle?
P.s yes I do celebrate for all the African Americans in that Washington D.C neighborhood that will get construction ️ jobs for the new Washington stadium ️
The strategies used by sports team owners to get public stadium money haven’t changed in 30 years, as seen by the fact that the “Art of the Steal” chapter in Field of Schemes keeps getting updated in subsequent editions with “yup, still the same.” So if they’re learning from this site, they’re not learning anything new.
“Nothing in life is free”
Except stadiums for team owners
What happened to Trump’s proposal to take away tax breaks for team owners?
That’s not a thing Trump ever proposed. His budget bill did trim the old Bill Veeck amortization loophole, but on the more important issue of access to tax-exempt bonds, Trump specifically stopped Congress from cutting that subsidy back in his first term:
https://www.fieldofschemes.com/2017/12/22/13278/friday-roundup-trump-rescued-stadium-tax-break-sacramento-mls-group-needs-more-cash-more/