We already knew that Convention, Sports & Leisure, the consultants who did the economic impact report for the San Antonio Spurs‘ proposed Project Marvel development, have an abysmal track record on accuracy and are part of Legends Entertainment, whose owners include the Dallas Cowboys and New York Yankees. The only way the city’s hiring of CSL could look worse, really, would be, oh, maybe if the company turned out to connected to the Spurs themselves, but how likely is —
A background check lists Sixth Street Partners as the parent company of Legends.
In 2021, the Spurs announced that Sixth Street Partners, along with Michael Dell, the Chief Executive Officer of Dell Technologies, became strategic partners of the team.
Not great! It turns out “strategic partner” is business speak for “minority owner,” as Sixth Street owns a 20% stake in the NBA team, San Antonio Chief of Financial and Administrative Services Ben Gorzell defended the arrangement on the grounds that “there is kind of an ethical wall between the work that CSL does and the ownership group” and “we felt from everything we did, and based on our due diligence, they were quite capable of providing an independent analysis and report.” That’s a little hard to fathom given CSL’s resume — recall that these are the same consultants who were forced to reveal on the day of releasing a previous report that two-thirds of the projected benefits weren’t actually projected benefits — but “we hired a company owned by some of the same people asking us for at least $650 million in public money, that seemed like a good idea to us” sounds even worse, so sure, let’s go with “ethical wall.”
In any event, none of this looks like it’s going to prevent the San Antonio city council from fast-tracking the development project, which includes a new arena to replace its 23-year-old one: The council could vote as soon as next Wednesday on a term sheet that would include specific subsidy amounts — none are available now, but surely they will arrive in time for councilmembers to give them a thorough casual glance before rubber-stamping them. After all, even though Spurs owner Peter Holt says the team won’t move without a new arena, KSAT writes, other sports teams have moved, sometimes after not getting a new arena, so clearly it’s a possibility! How much of a possibility? For that we would need to know how many sports teams didn’t move after failing to get a new arena, and that seems like a lot to count, best to not think too hard about it and just sign on the dotted line.
But three people wrote the KSAT story, how can you not trust its thoroughness?
It’s a one-horse sports town in a state with bigger, more relevant, and more fashionable cities/metro areas. They’ll eventually find a way to “keep” the Spurs in town, most likely at little cost to the actual owners of the franchise.
The wurzbach-hardeberger land bridge cost $23 million, project marvel land bridge would likely cost more. This project should not be a priority with all of the unchecked crime and flood abatement infrastructure needed in the city and county. How much does the city and county stand to benefit from the $5.523 billion project marvel before cost overruns? How much does marc Whyte stand to benefit by grabbing the mayor’s arm to shut her up?
The city council members will getting pay from spurs some how ,you will see,and they are acting like owners of san antonio, and they can get away with anything in san antonio, (like the DUI’S,),we shouldn’t support give our taxes money away to the Rich guys,when the salary of most of taxpayers is ridiculous, and 90% of citizens can’t afford to go to a game,