Imagine you’re a wealthy sports team owner in the middle of trying to strike a stadium deal. (You go get your top hat, monocle, and snifter of cognac; I’ll wait here.) What is the best thing to say in a public statement, on the occasions it seems necessary to deign to speak directly to the public? You don’t want to make the task at hand seem impossible, because that could be interpreted as a loss of momentum for your demands; but at the same time, you don’t want to make it seem a sure thing, because that could take the pressure off elected officials to grant you the bags of cash/tax breaks until the sun burns out/land grants from here to the distant shore that you so desire. How to thread that needle?
Let’s see how some actual sports team execs do it! Contestant #1:
“It’s always been my experience when you’re doing important work, it’s not easy,” [Kansas City Royals owner John] Sherman said. “It shouldn’t be easy, and these are complicated processes. Public-private partnerships, multi-jurisdictional, dealing with multiple entities as well. But I think we’re making progress. I’m as anxious as anybody to get this behind us.”…
“We’ve got a little bit of a cushion, but not a big one,” Sherman said. “It’s time to get on with it.”
This is pretty much the same as Sherman said last month, when he described the lack of a finalized stadium deal as “from the governor on down, there’s a lot of effort being put forth” but also “when you have a window of opportunity, you better run through it because those windows close.” You’ll also note the Sherman avoided mentioning what the holdups are, or when some decisions might be reached — to date, Sherman hasn’t even identified a site or sites where he might want a stadium built, but that’s a double-edged sword, since the more you narrow down your options the fewer potential bidders you have. Sometimes it’s better to say nothing, or at least nothing in a lot of words, and hope that the media wanders off and pressures elected officials for some action instead.
(Sherman also got in a statement about how much he liked the Atlanta Braves‘ Battery stadium district when he visited this past week for opening day, because “there were bands playing” and “tons of people around.”)
“We’re confident that [the $600 million is] going to come through and obviously we’re starting a stadium,” [Cleveland Browns co-owner Dee Haslam said. “We’re building a stadium. So we’re full steam ahead, but we’re pretty confident. I mean, they’ve done it in the past for economic development and this definitely fits into that criteria.”
This is in reference, of course, to the $600 million that the state of Ohio promised to give the Browns owners last summer, yet which is being held up by lawsuits over whether the state can legally use unclaimed private funds to supply the cash. Dee and Jimmy Haslam are already moving dirt for the stadium and have an official groundbreaking set for April 30, so they have to be at least a little bit antsy about how to pay the construction companies. Nothing they say is likely to sway the courts, though, so they best they can do is express confidence in the system of “economic development,” which is that governments give a lot of public money to “job creators,” and then some number of jobs are created, or not.
And contestant #3, who is not strictly a team owner but plays one in the press conferences:
“We have the legislation passed in Indiana, and they’ve been a great partner to work with,” [Chicago Bears] president Kevin Warren said. “We are going through legitimate due diligence because we have working through traffic, and construction items, and transportation and all those kinds of different things. It’s progressing right on pace.
“Illinois, they’re still working on legislation and we have a wonderful piece of land in Arlington Heights — 326 acres. So we don’t have a set deadline, but I am confident that sometime this spring/summer, we’ll know.”
“We’ll know” is a strange way of saying “We’ll make a decision that is entirely up to us,” though less so if you take it as “We’ll see what offers we have on the table, and then we can decide which one should make us the filthiest rich.” As discussed here last week, Bears owner George McCaskey doesn’t have any pressing reason to make a decision before the Illinois legislature adjourned at the end of May, so we can expect another two months of kicking the can down the road while hoping that Illinois will match or even raise Indiana’s bid. (Or at least come close: It’s always possible that McCaskey would take a lesser deal to stay in the state where most of his team’s fan base is, though if so he’s sure never going to admit it.) “I am confident that sometime this spring/summer” there will be a Bears stadium decision is an especially clever turn of phrase, given that it sets an expected deadline without actually setting a deadline deadline that anyone can hold Warren to in case circumstances change over the next two months.
What did we learn from all this? Not much in terms of the actual state of stadium talks for the Royals, Browns, or Bears, which is why it’s almost certainly bad journalistic practice for the news media to start transcribing every time the local sports team owner opens their mouth. Ask questions about the stadium deal process? Absolutely. Run an article when the owner says something newsworthy? Sure. Give the local rich guy or gal unlimited column inches to spin the situation however they like, instead of going out and investigating what’s actually being discussed or what experts have to say about whether it’s a good idea? This is maybe not what you spent $130,000 on that journalism degree for.
If the KC area had sensible local politicians, they would tell the Royals to pay for their own new ballpark. The Royals have no leverage. Kansas will have enough trouble trying to get a stadium built for the Chiefs; they are not going to take on the Royals on top of that. And no place outside the area wants a baseball team badly enough to pay the lion’s share of a billion dollars to attract the Royals.