It’s been a while since I’ve thanked everyone who makes this site possible through their generous donations, so: Thanks, everyone, who makes this site possible through your generous donations! I hope you are all still enjoying this journey through the world of sports venue shenanigans, if “enjoy” is the right word for it. Sometimes it feels more like a group therapy sessions for survivors of sports fandom (our own or other people’s or both), but there’s value in that too, right?
I’m going to take the fact that you’ve read this far as a “yes.” Let’s get on with the rest of the week’s news roundup:
- The Kansas City council approved spending $185 million on expansion of the Current‘s (checks calendar) two-year-old stadium yesterday, something that KMBC described as “$185 million in public financing,” which is absolutely wrong: This would be private debt, but repaid by the city, so private financing but public funding — these things matter. Fox4KC, meanwhile, reported that “the project will be funded by revenue generated by the stadium and surrounding development,” which is also wrong: It will be funded by sales taxes on spending in and around the stadium, most of which probably won’t be new to K.C. at all. This is no way to educate the electorate about stadium economics in advance of a public vote on a Royals stadium next spring, when it will very possibly be too late to matter anyway.
- Los Angeles County has issued an economic impact report on hosting the 2028 Olympics, far too late to be used to determine how much to spend on the event, but oh well. My eye was immediately caught by the prediction that “the 2028 Games could boost tourist spending by $1 billion above and beyond a typical summer,” a curious conclusion given that actual studies of past Olympics, including Atlanta 1996, Salt Lake City 2002, and London 2012, have found that spending overall doesn’t rise during an Olympics, in large part because locals flee town during the Games. From what I can tell from the county report — turning my laptop sideways to read it because the county doesn’t know how to rotate PDFs properly — consultants HR&A didn’t actually conduct an in-depth spending study, just plugging Olympic visitor numbers into the off-the-shelf IMPLAN software package, because “garbage in, garbage out” is how HR&A rolls.
- NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly says the league is talking to three different potential Atlanta expansion team ownership groups — because what did that fictitious Einstein guy know, anyway — plus also Austin and maybe Phoenix “with the right location” or maybe expansion “might not happen” at all, Bill Daly clearly got an A in playing hard to get at deputy commissioner school.
- The Brook Park city council has declared the area around the new Cleveland Browns stadium blighted, which Mayor Edward Orcutt says “gives us the opportunity to be able to maintain this site in the future,” another way of saying “lets us keep spending money on the stadium ad infinitum,” somebody clearly got an A in doubletalk at mayor school.
- Throw another $60 million on the fire for San Antonio taxpayer spending on a new Spurs arena, this time to acquire land for the project. This brings the public cost total to, you know what, I don’t feel up to mathing today, let’s just call it an even squillion dollars.
- Residents of Chicago’s Bridgeport’s neighborhood this week protested a proposed Amtrak maintenance facility that could be built there as part of a land swap for a new White Sox stadium, with local alderman Nicole Lee saying, “f the Sox move and we’re left with a 24/7 rail maintenance yard and an empty stadium, we’re done for here.” Team execs, meanwhile, are distancing themselves from minority owner Justin Ishbia’s stadium plan, issuing a statement saying only, “If the site proves viable, it would be added to the locations up for consideration for a new ballpark, along with The 78 and other options.”
- Judging from my inbox, a lot of you are really excited to see the latest renderings of a new Philadelphia 76ers and Flyers arena, so here, go to town. I’m mostly interested in whether they include fireworks (nope) and how they handle the question of which players’ jerseys fans will be wearing when the place finally opens in 2030 (one part guys currently on the team, one part guys like Charles Barkley, hey remember when he was a Sixer?).
Perhaps I’m nuts, but the White Sox current location has direct access to the interstate, 2 CTA lines (Red/Green), and a Metra line (Rock Island). If the Sox were to move, there would be almost 100 acres of shovel ready developable property (owned by the State of Illinois). If I were a local politician representing that site, I’d be salivating at the opportunity to transform that area and not get hung up on an Amtrak facility (which got 100+ years was already used as a rail yard).
I agree, but there are black and brown people nearby, which seems to scare some people away. My bet is the White Sox just move back across 35th Street to where they used to be. Building a new stadium facing slightly toward downtown.
And it’s also why Bridgeport is opposed to getting the Amtrak facility because they’d rather it be near those black and brown people they only encounter when going to 7-Eleven to pump gas than with them because “ew, public transportation… And GOVERNMENT transportation at that!”
I should address that I thought it was Bridgeview, and not Bridgeport. Because they also have an empty stadium, lol.
But, Bridgeport has to recognize that if Amtrak doesn’t get the yard that Union Pacific abandoned, there’s a chance it’ll be reopened by Norfolk Southern if the two freight companies complete the merger… So they’re going to get the diesel exhaust and nonstop rumbling either way, and I would rather Amtrak be on the site because I’m tired of freight companies letting shit rot.
Sox are averaging 24,000 fans per home game (1.8 million / 74 games) in a season where they are leading the division. Very few of those fans are spending money in the neighborhood. Replace the stadium and parking lots with thousands of residents who will be spending money throughout the year, and that seems like a great economic growth opportunity.
I do understand not wanting all the pollution that will come from having a giant train maintenance facility move in.
The White Sox could forgo their shared exclusive rights to Chicago. Cede it to the Cubs move to a tiny market like SLC and immediately upgrade both their market value by $1 billion and their operating revue by at least $150 million a year over the status quo. The Key is the Atlanta battery type district. Bad for the city, great for the club. The economics for owners have changed. They’ll change even further after the next CBA. Local/regional cable deal are gone except for maybe the Yankees and Dodgers. Everyone else will be poured into a single MLB streaming contract like MLS has with AppleTV. Some streaming service will overpay (see Joe Rogan and Spotify). It will be about driving subscriptions and preventing churn from there.
Whaaaaaa? They’d be worth $1B more outside of Chicago and up their profits by $150M a year?
Can you show your work?
Half of Chicago is worth more than any of the mentioned expansion cities.
The White Sox may not have a cultural footprint outside of Chicagoland but they have decades of supporters in one of the biggest cities in the world.
Why would you leave that to, I dunno, go to a market like Sacramento where the local newspaper laid off the entire sports department?
Chris Fusco is a Spanfeller for being a passive observer with the shitcanning of Joe Davidson.