Negotiating is a funny business: You simultaneously want to hold the line in hopes of getting the best deal for your side, while also offering concessions as an enticement to get a deal done. It’s a tricky dance, and requires knowing when to bluster and when to accede, in the hopes of vanquishing your enemy while also making them feel like they’ve won a reasonable victory.
Or, you can do like Tampa Bay Rays CEO Ken Babby, and just tell the people you’re negotiating with that your offer is final:
“Collectively we are not reopening a discussion on the economics in the MOU approved by the county commission and city council,” Babby told the Tampa Bay Times at Yankee Stadium. “We do recognize that there are many unresolved issues, and we will begin focusing on that this coming week.”…
The numbers in the stadium deal, Babby said, “are what they are,” with the team unlikely to make further concessions or additional contributions.
This is a bit of a bold move, given that Babby and company appear to have some work cut out for them winning over elected officials in the wake of last week’s narrow approvals by the city and county of a nonbinding MOU. Tampa city councilmember Bill Carlson, who cast that body’s swing vote to approve the MOU, subsequently told the Tampa Bay Times he only did it to keep talks alive, and that he “will definitely vote no” on any final proposal. That leaves Rays execs having to flip one of three other no votes: Charlie Miranda, who called the Rays plan “a terrible one for the taxpayers”; Lynn Hurtak, who warned that the Rays’ plan could force the city to sell bonds at high interest rates; and Guido Maniscalco, who asked Babby if the Rays would consider reimbursing the city for Community Investment Tax money that voters had been promised wouldn’t be used for stadiums, and got told nope, the Rays don’t plan to pay for anything more than the $1.3 billion (less $1.1 billion or so in free land and tax breaks) they’ve already committed.
This wouldn’t matter so much if the Rays could go ahead and use the nonbinding MOU to get state funding approved now and come back to the city and county later, as seemed to be the initial plan. But while the Florida legislature has put $50 million into the state budget for “campus improvements” to Hillsborough College — read: rebuilding its classrooms in one corner of its Dale Mabry campus to make way for a Rays stadium — state senate appropriations chair Ed Hooper still says he’s opposed to final approval of the $50 million until the city and county have signed off for real on their parts, and adds that Gov. Ron DeSantis is too: “He will get the budget eventually, and I believe the local governments are in a position where they’re not going to take forever to make these decisions.”
It seems unlikely that DeSantis is really trying to sandbag the stadium dreams of his pal and donor Rays owner Patrick Zalupski, so maybe this is just a move to pressure the city and county to commit to something binding before the end of their sessions this week? And maybe Babby is attempting the same? It’s so hard to tell 4D chess from hubris, even with Hanlon’s razor in hand.
It’s the perfect storm vis-a-vis zie Buccaneers stadium reno’s.
Hey, when did the “non-binding” MOU become sealed and approved? Is anyone surprised the team’s friendly smiles on the idea of a non-binding MOU become an iron grimace once it passed? How can elected representatives continue to be so guillible and infantile? Surely this will never happen again, right?