With all the ginormous stadium and arena wrassles like the Washington Commanders stadium and the San Antonio Spurs arena project and the never-ending Tampa Bay Rays saga, it’s sometimes easy to forget about all the other deals that are somewhere in the vicinity of the back burner. Let’s check in on some of those this week, along with some old favorites:
- The Chicago city council voted yesterday to approve the Chicago Fire‘s plans for a new stadium at the The 78 site, which since Fire owner Joe Mansueto says he’ll build with his own money, so there should be no public funding involved. The Chicago Tribune, though, notes that “some details still need to be ironed out” for the larger redevelopment, including what to do about a new Red Line CTA station and relocating Metra train tracks after developer Related declared the original plan too costly. And what about the rumored parking garage that would, like the now-scrapped transit improvements, possibly use kicked-back property taxes via a TIF? Maybe it’s best to say there probably won’t be any public funding involved, fingers crossed, knock wood.
- Sacramento Athletics fans are already fast on their way to being non-Athletics fans, reports ESPN, with one season ticket holder writing to the team: “Being a season ticket holder for the Athletics is embarrassing to the point that I regret telling my friends or coworkers. I cannot give away tickets, I cannot easily sell games I can’t make it to (at market rate-especially on SeatGeek), and I feel ignored by the team sales staff.” (The team responded by giving him a plastic bag of leftover giveaways that he already had.) SFGate, meanwhile, reports that an A’s fan this summer summed things up by declaring, “Fuck John Fisher. John Fisher’s a piece of shit,” while wearing a “Sacramento hates you too” cap. Things will surely improve once the team starts playing in Las Vegas in 2028, theoretically.
- The San Francisco 49ers owners are supposed to cover the $6.4 million cost of hosting the 2026 Super Bowl, but the team’s nonprofit that is on the hook for the costs has no money, which is maybe a problem? Sports economist Geoffrey Propheter says he is “particularly concerned about the statement that the 49ers will reimburse the city for ‘approved expenses,’ with the 49ers seemingly being the judge of what is approved,” and sports economist Michael Leeds agrees, warning that “mega-events such as the Super Bowl almost invariably have costs that are higher than predicted and local impacts that are lower than predicted.”
- A downtown site targeted for a possible new Kansas City Royals stadium was just sold to a Wichita developer, decreasing the chances that it will end up used for a ballpark. Not that Royals owner John Sherman has said much about where he might want to build a stadium as a December deadline approaches for accepting around $700 million in tax money from Kansas if he moves there, shh, he’s trying to get city or county money to go with his state money from either Kansas or Missouri, don’t bother daddy while he’s trying to concentrate.
- Going with the headline “Brewers bolster ballpark after $500M deal” when $471 million of the money is coming from state taxpayers is a choice, Fox6 Milwaukee.
- Marc Normandin has a good rundown on MLB commissioners Rob Manfred’s conflicting missions of doing what team owners want and doing what’s best for baseball, especially when owners themselves can’t agree on what they want: Some owners want to force the players union into accepting a salary cap at all costs, while others are more concerned about the damage an extended lockout in 2027 would do to the league’s broadcast value when it’s time to renegotiate TV deals after 2028. Explains Normandin: “Basically, he has to use this time to convince them of what they should want, so that he can then enact it just like they want him to — otherwise, he’ll have to do what they want him to, even if he thinks it goes against their best interests, because he is beholden to them in the end.” Shaking down players and cities and TV networks for money all at once is no easy feat, you try it sometime!
- Fine, here’s an update on the Commanders stadium deal as well: The mixed-use district around the stadium will need to go through normal zoning procedures rather than being fast-tracked under a last-minute amendment, meaning they may not be ready for years after the stadium’s planned 2030 opening. That’s bad if you want to live in the promised affordable housing, but does at least also make the development rights less valuable to team owner Josh Harris, meaning the public subsidy is now more likely to be closer to $6.6 billion than $25 billion, yay?
Saw that they’re changing some of the CFL rules https://www.cfl.ca/2025/09/22/tradition-meets-innovation-cfl-announces-major-changes-to-the-game/
I did rather enjoy seeing this among the comments people left:
“First off… a shorter field coupled with shorter endzones WILL make any new stadium construction much more affordable.”
Right. Because that’s what it’s all about.
I like the CFL rules, but I do wish they were closer to NFL rules and that CFL and NFL teams could someday buy/sell/loan players between leagues like European soccer teams. “our running back is out for the year, let’s buy Edmonton’s.”
Or, or, or….maybe NFL rosters are big enough, and there are enough American players, that you don’t have to buy Edmonton’s.
First, Edmonton’s is likely an American and second, likely not good enough to play in the NFL.
Why an American gridiron league and a Canadian gridiron league have to look more like European soccer leagues is beyond me.
Because European soccer leagues are really popular. See Edmonton then uses the money they got selling their running back to buy a new QB or some other position they need.
European soccer leagues are really popular because soccer is really popular in Europe and many countries around the world.
Buying players from Canada because Real Madrid can buy someone from Croatia isn’t going to make the NFL “really popular.” It already is, right?
Quiet as it’s kept, America produces tons and tons of fungible NFL players at the bottom of rosters. You lose your running back? Next man up. Or you poach someone from another NFL team’s practice squad. Or you trade for one. Or you wait until the spring, when an entire cadre of running backs will be available.
The guys on NFL practice squads right now are better than a guy you could buy from Edmonton.
Because we know how the CFL loves building new stadiums.
They went 30 years between stadium builds (BMO Field was built for soccer, the Argos moved into it after the fact.)
And the idea that taking out a total of 45 feet of stadium (10 yards of field size, 5 of end zone) drastically reduces the stadium cost is so stupid I don’t know where to begin.
If MLB wants a salary cap, they better prepare for an 18 to 24 month lock out. The next labor stoppage will be more of an owner vs owner struggle than a battle against the players. The players are happy with the current deal.
Some of the owners are too.
I don’t think it will happen. Unless some of the wealthier owners who don’t want a lockout flip to support their poorer cousins- bwahahahahaha! Sorry, I can’t even finish that sentence…
Their generosity knows no bounds, I am sure they will backstop a competitively low-interest loan to their friend John Fisher any day now.
The only group the owners hate more then the players are the other owners.
I don’t care about a salary cap, moreso a salary floor. I’m tired about hearing what an awesome player Paul Skenes is (and he is) and knowing that he’s just being wasted on a Pirates team that will never make the postseason as long as Bob Nutting owns the team. If half the league is effectively eliminated from the playoffs come May because ownership would rather collect revenue than win titles, what is the point?
True, but every sports league has it’s share of patsies (and most effectively pay them to be just that).
Even in the NFL with a “hard” salary cap and the majority of revenues being central/shared, a handful of teams just can’t get their shit together. Sure, once every half century they might accidentally be competitive through fortunate drafting and an inability to give the wrong players away in trades… but it doesn’t last.
Like having Coastal Carolina and Central Kentucky community college on a BCS ranked team’s schedule, these teams are just cannon fodder. But they are seen as necessary.
As a Yankees fan I know once said “You can hate Steinbrenner all you want. It’s justified. He’s an ass. But as a Yankees fan, I know that nearly all the money I spend on them will be put back into the team. Sometimes he’ll waste it on idiotic decisions, but he’ll always spend it on the team”.
And it’s true. If you look at the Yankees championship years, their annual profits were generally miniscule, despite raking in tonnes of cash.
All you can say about teams like the Pirates, Royals, Reds, Rays, Athletics and a handful of others is that, no matter what, they will always farm the subsidy. The only thing you can be sure of is that the owner will be taking home $30-70m each and every year, whether the team stinks or not.
George Steinbrenner was all kinds of awful, IMO. But he always spent money on the team.
Selig courted a lot of owners who really had no business owning a team. It was his way of centralizing power in the commissioners office. MLB would be so much better if every team had an asshole owner who wanted to win like Steinbrenner.
Hmmm. Apparently, I’ve been out of the loop (no pun intended). How does Mansueto’s plans for an MLS stadium in the 78 affect/not affect Jerky Reinsdorff’s proposed White Sox stadium?
Or has he given up on a taxpayer gift in the $billion range out of sheer embarrassment and guilt based on the performance of his team?
Yeah, no, you don’t have to answer the last one…
The White Sox have gone radio silent regarding their future. Which really is sort of surprising given their lease expires in 2029. How much that has to do with the evolving ownership transition is unknown.
Regarding the 78, the local alderwoman supported and approved the Fire stadium but made noise about only being supportive of one stadium on the site. And the aldermen have significant sway over projects in their ward. My guess is that the Sox never build a stadium at the 78.
Oh, man….
“The team responded by giving him a plastic bag of leftover giveaways that he already had”
is the best A’s quote since, errrrm, a couple of weeks ago I guess, when this site revealed that River Cats tickets are actually going for more money on reseller sites than A’s tickets are.
John Fisher may be a bag of shit, but he can always make us laugh.
He’s not trying to make us laugh, but that just makes it all so much better…
The 49ers stadium is by far the worst in the current Super Bowl/College Football championship rotations. I get that hosting big games is a way to appease the tech industry- but it’s so bad I feel embarrassed for the fans who go to games there. How on earth they built such a poorly shaded seating area is architectural malpractice
The A’s latest half-hearted attempt to win over fans in Sacramento is a new “alternate” jersey to be worn next season at Saturday home games that says “Sacramento” across the front. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/46411466/athletics-feature-sacramento-alternate-jerseys-2026
Conveniently, it’s also a way to rattle cages in Vegas by letting them know what might happen if Nevada doesn’t give Fisher more money for a ballpark there.
At this point, I wonder if “Vegas” wouldn’t be happier if Fisher abandoned his fantasy fever dream in Nevada once and for all.
He needs them a lot more than they need him or his incompetently operated business.