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And with that business out of the way, let’s move on to the real excitement: the week’s leftover stadium and arena news!
- Detroit City F.C. CEO/professional lobbyist Sean Mann has promised that the USL Championship team’s proposed stadium will pay full property taxes (yay!), but the surrounding development will not (significantly less yay, and maybe could have mentioned that in the headline, Axios Detroit?). The project would also seek “city and state support for infrastructure and programmatic build out,” whatever that means, maybe we should hold the yays until there are more details about financing.
- Ottawa Senators owner Michael Andlauer has an agreement to buy 11 acres of land at LeBreton Flats, meaning a new arena now just awaits someone who wants to pay for it, something that’s been true for 11 years now.
- San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones said she still wants an independent economic analysis of the Spurs arena plan even if the city council and the Express-News editorial board don’t, and called the team’s CSL-written report “like fingerprint painting.” (We know what you meant.) Jones also said the report that CSL did for Philadelphia on a potential new 76ers arena was much more robust, yeah, can’t go with you on that one.
- We-Don’t-Need-No-Stinkin’-City-Name A’s owner John Fisher took in a game this week at the team’s West Sacramento temporary home and got vigorously booed and cursed at. Maybe the A’s could start announcing “Boo John Fisher Nights” in advance and see if that would convince locals to actually buy tickets.
- D.C. journalist Pete Tucker was interviewed by Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting about media coverage of the Washington Commanders deal and called it “woeful,” with the Washington Post in particular describing the public cost as “more than $1 billion” when it’s more likely more than $6.6 billion. Also not doing so hot with its reporting, said Tucker: City Paper, whose owner Mark Ein just happens to be a minority owner of the Commanders.
- The Cincinnati Reds have a holographic wall, don’t tell the Bengals, they’ll want one too!
#LOLFisher
From one of the linked articles…
“the A’s are averaging 9600 fans per game in 2025”.
Well, they might be averaging that many tickets sold when you include season ticket holders, but anyone looking at the stands during a game at their minor league stadium can tell that the numbers of butts in seats would start with a ‘6’ some days, and maybe even a ‘5’ on others.
Who cares if the tickets are sold, right? Well, the owner should. Because people who bought tickets and neither use them nor give them away (to people they want to stop being friends with…) are not buying merch or spending at the concession stand.
Or hurling obscenties at the clueless owner as he runs away from his customers.
Anyone think MLB is happy with this overall “look”?
On the other hand, pursuing our gracious host’s suggestion, “Dunk the Clown” nights sound like a perfectly appropriate side activity for a minor league ballpark…
MLB is so embarrassed by Fisher’s act that his fellow owners elevated to their executive committee earlier this year.
MLB owners may be bad at lots of things, but they’re pretty strong on class solidarity.
“Elevated” may not be quite the correct term to use in this context. Think of some of the other names who have been named to that committee over the years.
Detroit City for years was held up as an example of a fan-owned soccer club doing things “the right way,” and there was some truth to that idea (e.g. driving local fan support/engagement). But give these operations enough time, and they almost always end up with the exact same inner motivations as leagues and franchises operating under the model they publicly decry.
You’re 100% right. They used to be the plucky little indie club (albeit with a million dollar budget). But once they no longer could play an entire season and leave the state of Michigan only twice or so, and once they couldn’t host like four playoff games to make their nut, they became like everyone else. They are now just as corporate
Love this headline
The $62m question: does a high school really need a professional-style stadium?
A 10,000-seat arena for a school in Georgia with fewer than 2,000 students raises questions about America’s sporting and educational priorities
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/aug/14/buford-goergia-phillip-beard-stadium
Nice. It would be interesting to know what Buford’s infrastructure and social amenities are like… IE: how far below or above the state standards.
Even in places where HS Football is a religion and they can fill 10-20k stadia, you still wonder if the share of the revenues going to the public coffers (if any…) are enough to pay the carrying costs on the facility, let alone earn the municipality back it’s investment.
Of course, in cases where the schools fundraise and pay for the facilities themselves, hey, I’m all in on that… so long as it has nothing to do with tax dollars or student fees etc.
What the Ohio General Assembly giveth, Ohio DOT could taketh away.
https://www.cleveland.com/news/2025/08/new-cleveland-browns-stadium-would-interfere-with-airplane-traffic-state-aviation-officials-say.html
A 231 foot high football stadium barely outside the runway protection zone of runway 28, what a great idea. Imagine landing on runway 28 in gusty snow squalls off Lake Erie and a hulking football stadium is appearing and dissappearing in blowing snow and fog slightly to your left. Cleveland’s lovely winter weather is a good reason not to allow obstacles anywhere near Hopkins Airport. Ardent Hills, Anika County and Arlington Heights and now Brook Park, all schemes to con gullible politicians into raiding public coffers to build playpens for greedy billionaires. Cleveland and Chicago should have built their current stadiums as domes, if you want to replace publicly funded 20 year old stadiums, pay for it yourself.
“Manchester United are importing a sinister US tactic: public money for stadiums”
It takes a progressive daily founded in Manchester to lay out what no legacy news site from Murica will dare say.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/aug/19/manchester-united-new-stadium-public-funding