Friday roundup: San Antonio okays $489m arena subsidy to prove “love” for Spurs, plus: invasion of the soccer zombies

First things first: As expected, the San Antonio city council voted yesterday to move ahead with plans to give $489 million in tax revenues to Spurs owner Peter Holt to use toward a new arena. The actual council action was two votes: One to reject Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones’s proposal to pause arena talks until an independent economic review could be conducted, and one to allow the city manager to “complete negotiations and execute a nonbinding Term Sheet,” notwithstanding that a term sheet already exists — it’s unclear what the city manager is authorized to negotiate going forward from here, not to mention exactly what the council has actually committed itself to given that the term sheet is nonbinding. Councilmember Edward Mungia said that “we still have the ability to get out of this deal at any point before other project deals are signed,” but didn’t specify if the council would have to vote to withdraw from the deal or still needs to vote on a binding agreement or what.

Jones, who votes as a member of the city council because San Antonio has that kind of city government, voted against the arena subsidy, as did councilmembers Teri Castillo, Ric Galvan, and Leo Castillo-Anguiano. Mungia and the “more business-friendly” councilmembers, as the San Antonio Report put it, voted in favor: Sukh Kaur, Marc Whyte, Marina Aldrete Gavito, Misty Spears, Ivalis Meza Gonzalez, and Phyllis Viagran. As Viagran explained her vote: “You either trust this team … or you don’t. I’ve heard so many people say, ‘We all love the Spurs.’ … But do you really?”

There’s still some possibility of an independent economic analysis down the road, or more hearings to see if public support for the project is still as “tepid” as it was earlier this year. (Jones is also pushing for a public referendum on the city’s spending next spring, but we’ve seen how her proposals go over with the business-friendly councilmembers.) And, of course, Bexar County voters can still throw a wrench into things in November if they vote down the ballot measure that would give Holt around $150 million worth of county tax money on top of the city funds. Regardless, in the first round of the Project Marvel arena battle, the San Antonio council has spoken, and its verdict is “Nothing says ‘I love you’ like half a billion dollars in public money so you can boost your sports team’s profits.”

Who else is loving who this week and how? Never thought you’d ask:

• Like everyone else, I’m still trying to wrap my brain around MLB’s new set of TV deals that are supposed to be finalized soon, with Apple out and Peacock in and ESPN in on some things but out on others. As far as what it will mean for teams’ media revenues — and, by association, how footloose teams can be about moving into smaller media markets to seek more lucrative stadium deals — it sounds like teams’ cuts of media revenue won’t change much, it’ll just be that ESPN will increasingly be the ones selling the right to watch games, and they’ll be making you pay for an ESPN subscription on top of an MLB.tv subscription to do it. Only 17 years until the last World Series, get your baseball-watching in now!
• Buffalo Bills owner Terry Pegula bought his $100 million superyacht in 2021, the year before he got $1 billion in state and county tax money for a new stadium, but people aren’t any less unamused at the juxtaposition. One wonders if this might even have become an issue in New York state legislative hearings on the stadium subsidy, if there had been any.
• Manchester United seeking public money for their planned stadium project isn’t new news, but it did just get the attention of the Guardian, which called the team’s plan to seek hundreds of millions of pounds to clear land for the stadium a “sinister US tactic.” Which is fitting, given that Man U is owned by sinister Tampa Bay Buccaneers owners the Glazer family, though maybe not for much longer.
• What would happen if a minor pro sports team — say, the Pittsburgh Riverhounds of the USL Championship — wanted to issue renderings of their proposed stadium expansion (to be “paid for with public and private funding, although details have not been provided“) but couldn’t afford the Pro version of Microsoft Stadium Wizard? We have the answer, and it is a hellscape of identical featureless soccer zombies, please enjoy your nightmares: