Happy Friday to those of you who can see this through all the burning Canada! Everyone stay safe, mask up, and stay indoors to read the latest sports subsidy news, only most of which this week involves Florida men:
- Hillsborough County Commission chair Ken Hagan said Wednesday that if the Tampa city council won’t go along with contributing tax money to a new Tampa Bay Rays stadium, maybe the county will just go ahead without them. Hagan did not go on to describe where he would find $180 million to replace the city’s planned contribution. Rather than object to being threatened with a good time, Tampa council chair Alan Clendenin warned his recalcitrant colleagues, “Unfortunately, there’ll be a cost of the city not having participated in the process.” He didn’t say what kind of cost he meant, but he gave his word that it was the case, and that’s good enough with old Clenny.
- The chances of convincing Tampa elected officials to spend public dollars on a Rays stadium, meanwhile, could plummet if Florida voters adopt sweeping property tax cuts in November, which would decimate local budgets. On the bright side — sort of — that would at least make any property tax exemption for the Rays stadium project worth less, since there would be less in property taxes to exempt, though it still would leave Tampa in the same budget hole for the project.
- And finally, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred also chimed in on the Rays stadium situation, saying at the All-Star Game, “Every delay just makes it more difficult to hit a timetable of when the stadium is going to open,” which, yes, that’s how time works. Maybe Manfred would like to impose a pitch clock on stadium talks?
- The group of wannabe Orlando MLB expansion team owners say they have more than $2 billion in place combined for acquiring a team and building a stadium, and with MLB’s expansion fee expected to be more than $2 billion, they’re asking the state of Florida to kick in $975 million in tourist tax dollars toward a stadium. The prospective ownership group said this would 100% be worth it, as a new team in Orlando would generate $73 trillion dollars in new economic activity in the first week alone (or something like that, I didn’t write down the actual number, mine is equally likely to be accurate). It also raises the question of whether Orlando is really a move threat for the Rays if it would require state money too, meaning state officials would really be bidding against themselves.
- Some rich people in Nashville would like an MLB expansion team too, but city officials there say that’ll only work if they can privately fund a stadium, good luck with that.
- The Chicago city council, as expected, approved spending $425 million in property tax proceeds on roads and public plazas and stuff surrounding a new downtown Chicago Fire stadium. Alderman Anthony Beale called the project “what exactly TIF is supposed to be used for,” adding, “When you look at the jobs that are going to be created by this, when you look at the revenue that’s going to be brought into the city by this project, the restaurants, the parking, the ticket sales and all the things that go along with that, that’s how we make our economy grow.” Beale did not explain how moving the Fire from one part of Chicago to another was going to create all this new revenue — or, for that matter, how encouraging construction of new housing in one part of Chicago rather than another — but surely he knows what he’s talking about, no reason not to trust him just bceause he once attended a fundraiser in his honor held by the taxicab industry the week before before voting to water down taxicab regulations.
- Washington, D.C. council chair Phil Mendelson has proposed spending $300 million in city money on expanding D.C. United‘s stadium to 28,000 seats and building a roof on it, with the team owners on the hook for the other $320 million. In exchange, the district would receive “stadium-generated revenues and economic activity,” which is to say no actual money, just “maybe it’ll host some more concerts and not everyone buying tickets would have been spending their money elsewhere in D.C. anyway.”
- The city of Portland broke the stalemate in Portland Trail Blazers arena talks yesterday, sending team owner Tom Dundon a draft term sheet that doesn’t include rent payments but does include payments in lieu of property taxes starting at $3 million a year and escalating over time. This came after NBA commissioner Adam Silver griped that Dundon’s plan to get $600 million in public money for arena renovations while putting in nothing of his own money “seems to have gone off track,” then refused to promise that the Blazers would stay in Portland even if the $600 million was approved — which seems to be a violation of Extortion 101, but maybe you do catch more flies with vinegar than honey, who knew?
- Cleveland’s Gateway Economic Development Corp. just got a $52 million bill for projected repair needs for the Guardians stadium and Cavaliers arena, and doesn’t have $52 million to pay it with. Surely nobody could have seen that coming when the city agreed to cover the teams’ future capital expenses as long as they played there! Live and learn, or in Cleveland’s case, just live.
- More World Cup economic impact data points: Some businesses in Atlanta are doing well, others are not; Arlington businesses are only doing well if they sell tourists on Texas-y things like barbecue or access to cattle drives; New York’s bars made out better during the event than its hotels; bars in England are doing great, too, despite England not actually hosting any games; downtown Seattle got an extra 3 million visitors on World Cup hosting days, but the Downtown Seattle Association didn’t release figures on whether the rest of Seattle got fewer visitors than normal on those days; and Miami and Los Angeles and Arlington should all see massive economic impact, report news sites (mostly former news site CBS) that only cite FIFA’s numbers.
- Economist Geoff Propheter decided to get into the vaportecture game with AI designs for a new Blazers arena, and after some online kibitzing it ended up here, 10/10, no notes.
One time in college, an RA salted the icy pavement. When he was done, a fellow RA looked at the mounds of salt and remarked, “you can tell that he didn’t pay for the salt.”
Reading these stories of politicians frittering away our resources makes me think of that.
By most accounts roughly half (give or take) of US citizen’s don’t pay income taxes. Ergo, half the people don’t care how the money is spent / wasted because it’s not coming out of their pocket…….and if we’re running a deficit it’s because someone else isn’t paying their fair share, not because they aren’t paying anything.
Sorry to make it political but that’s at the core of all of this, namely city, county, state, etc. government spending tax payers money therefore by default it’s political from day one.
And I “get” that a lot of cities/counties/states don’t charge income taxes and that hotel taxes, restaurant taxes, rental car taxes, etc are frequently used to help, but not fully, pay for these types of things.
That “roughly half of US citizens don’t pay income taxes” meme is misleading in a lot of ways: it only refers to federal taxes, not state; it doesn’t include payroll taxes, which everyone who works pays, regardless of income; and, of course, it doesn’t include things like sales taxes, which are disproportionately paid by people who don’t owe as much in income taxes, and which are a disproportionately big share of state and local budgets.
Also, I don’t see any evidence that “half the people don’t care how the money is spent / wasted because it’s not coming out of their pocket.” How much you pay in income taxes has nothing to do with how much you use local services like schools, roads, etc., and that’s where public sports spending has an impact.
Serious question: where does the District of Columbia get all this money for stadiums?
D.C. has a $20 billion annual budget, so it has plenty of headroom to spend billions on stadiums, so long as it cuts billions in other spending.
Ohhhhhh, its federally funded. Duh.
Nope.
60% of the funds comes from taxing its own residents and businesses.
Much of the federal money it gets is money that every state gets, Medicaid, etc.
And despite having zero representation in congress, DC residents already pay more in federal income taxes per capita than residents of any other jurisdiction.
https://dcfpi.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Revenue-Primer-2016-FINAL-VERSION.pdf
Republicans are hell-bent on wrecking DC’s government to make sure it looks like the nightmare of urban blight because something something “bureaucrats shouldn’t be allowed to vote” or something.
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/overturning-dcs-tax-law-would-infringe-on-common-state-tax-practices-and-threaten-the-districts-budget-and-fiscal-autonomy/
I literally did not think the District was big enough to create that many billions from taxing its residents and businesses. I learned something today, thank you.
Recently, you posted something about how the bill for the marlins stadium is coming due.
And on cue, the Miami Herald published an article about how there are budget issues, but didn’t note anything about stadium debt (journalism at its finest).
So cuts must be made! And here we have rubber meeting road (maybe literally because transportation is in the cross hairs)
It’s behind a paywall but was republished here https://www.caribbeannationalweekly.com/posts/miami-dade-mayor-to-unveil-budget-proposal-as-county-faces-173-million-revenue-gap
It’s just a reminder that all of this public financing does actually have an impact at some point.
Florida, like much of America, is just one gigantic real estate hustle with a pyramid scheme for an economy. Orlando is the compacted mush making up the very bottom tier of that pyramid.
And while I’m here… let’s say for the sake of argument that this supposed “Dreamers” “ownership group” does have more than $2 billion set aside for an MLB franchise. What happens to that theoretical pool of money if/when they don’t acquire a franchise in one form or another?
Does all that money just go back into the ether from whence it came (assuming it existed in the first place)?
Do the prospective owners try to acquire another team in another sport? (There’s an NBA team in the same city that could probably use an ownership set that’s more attentive, charismatic, and frankly less evil.)
Do they just use all or parts of that money to keep buying influence, politicians and/or entire political parties at the local, state, and federal levels?
You always have to assume some level of back-channel dealings (if not outright money laundering) in any project of this magnitude in Orlando, and really the state of Florida as a whole — but realistically, we won’t see what that whole operation is about until the Rays stadium saga reaches some form of a conclusion.
“Florida, like much of America, is just one gigantic real estate hustle with a pyramid scheme for an economy.”
You say that like there’s something wrong with it…
I think if that property tax referendum passes it might finally be the nudge that’s get my family out of this god forsaken swamp of a state.
Morbidly curious to see how this could impact stadium fundings asks though
Oof, that Herald-Tribune article deserves a ranking on the list of tortured sports metaphors. “Just as negotiations on a financing plan for a new $2.3 billion Tampa Bay Rays stadium are aimed at starting a game-winning rally, the team, city and county were thrown a nasty curveball in the proposed reduction in property taxes.” Especially that “game-winning rally” bit. Did they reach across the strait and pull that one out of Gitmo?
I’m pleased to see Federal officials finally realize that the wildfire smoke is a stealthy act of war perpetrated on the United States by the neighbors to the… I’m gonna say west?… Canada.
Now maybe we can focus on the armada of diseased and possibly french speaking mosquitos that they send without the appropriate paperwork/visas across our inviolate and beloved borders.
That is a great idea. Thank you.
Orlando’s only hope to obtain a MLB team is if the Rays move there. There’s no way MLB is going to expand into another Florida city when they’ve already got 2 teams that have always been at the bottom of attendance every year. The economics of building a $2 billion+ stadium in Tampa are bad enough. The idea that the money people in Orlando think an even higher investment is beneficial to them doesn’t make sense to me. They’d also be dealing with a brand new fan base. There are few current fans that would drive I-4 from Tampa/St. Petersburg to attend games, especially weekday games.
Considering Orlando is the largest city in America to not have baseball at any level and how it failed spectacularly when they DID have the minor league Orlando Rays (yes they played at the infamous Wide World of Sports boondoggle) and how baseball only seems to work in the minors up in the Panhandle, I fail to see how moving the Rays inland would work.
Back in Illinois, a state politician has found another site for a new government-funded palace for the Chicago Bears. It’s the former U.S. Steel works on the South Side adjacent to the lakefront.
https://www.fox32chicago.com/news/bears-stadium-search-new-chicago-location-floated-possible-option