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Commanders stadium plan is somehow even worse for DC taxpayers than we thought

access_time personNeil deMause

I now have a copy of the term sheet for the proposed Washington Commanders stadium, so we can answer some of the remaining questions from yesterday’s preliminary estimate of the costs and benefits of Mayor Muriel Bowser’s plan. As you’ll recall, the total public cost stood then at around $1.5 billion, with no idea of what if anything D.C. taxpayers would get in return.

Now we have more details, and hoo boy:

  • First off, the $500 million in city money for “horizontal construction, meaning roads, sidewalks, etc. around the stadium” turns out to actually mean a whole lot of other things as well: “pedestrian circulation, open space, plazas, stairs, ramps, landscaping, sidewalks, curbs, gutter, roadways, and other site improvements,” plus “foundations, slabs on grade, piles, pile caps, concrete, stairs, excavation, below grade mechanical, electrical and plumbing materials and equipment, below-grade elevators, and horizontal surfaces and finishes that are below the average site ground level” and other stuff. This is being described by the plan’s proponents as tax money going to pay for “infrastructure,” but items like “foundations” and “stairs” sound like straight-up “structure.”
  • The stadium would be owned by the city, meaning Commanders owner Josh Harris would indeed get that $429 million property tax break that Geoff Propheter estimated yesterday.
  • In exchange for getting development rights to the bulk of 180 acres of public land, Harris would pay all of $1 a year in rent for the next 30 years for the stadium, and for the next 28 years for the surrounding development. If we use the average price per acre in D.C. of $6.6 million, then this free land is worth close to $1 billion, even before accounting for the full property tax exemption it would receive.
  • While D.C. would pay for a large chunk of the costs, it would get 0% of stadium revenues: The team would receive all “stadium operating revenues, including from naming rights, sponsorship, advertising (both interior and exterior), premium seating, ticket proceeds, merchandise, food and beverage, and parking for both NFL and non-NFL events.”
  • That’s not to say that nobody in the public sphere gets anything: The mayor and D.C. council would receive the use of two free luxury suites, something that sure doesn’t smell like a quid pro quo or anything.
  • Some good news: Harris would be responsible for keeping both the stadium and the garages in state-of-the-art shape, so at least D.C. wouldn’t be on the hook for those upgrades.
  • Coupled with some more bad news: Parking and personal seat license sales would both be exempt from sales tax, and sales taxes on anything else sold at the stadium would get poured into an “RFK Campus Reinvestment Fund” to be used to pay off construction costs and for future “maintenance and repairs and capital expenses,” so D.C. could be on the hook for some upgrades after all.
  • “The District recognizes the public value in providing spaces for women’s sports and is discussing with TeamCo whether such an opportunity can be provided for professional women’s soccer at the Project.” Cool! Who would pay for that, and would it get the same tax and rent breaks as the rest of the deal? The term sheet doesn’t say.

That all adds up to … I dunno, $2.5 billion in public subsidies? $3 billion? It would surely set a new record for the most taxpayer money poured into a single stadium in the history of the U.S. if not the known universe, in any case.

Whatever the final tally, the main takeaway is: Josh Harris gets to pay only $1 a year in rent for a huge tax-free swath of public land, while keeping all revenues from the stadium and other development he builds there, even as the district pays to build everything from parking garages to the stadium’s foundation. And the council — where Ward 3 representative Matthew Frumin has now declared himself “could be for it, could be against it,” leaving the overall body leaning slightly no but with several potential swing votes — only has until July 15 to vote it up or down in one indigestible lump, as the term sheet includes a clause declaring that if the council “materially changes” the terms, then the whole agreement is null and void. Mayor Bowser clearly wants to railroad this thing through before anyone takes a closer look — which makes sense, because on closer look this thing is a dumpster fire.

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Are the Buffalo Sabres moving to Greensboro now? An investimagation

access_time personNeil deMause

The Sabres may be moving out of Buffalo!

Sabres might move, as Erie County’s lease with KeyBank Center expires and city can’t afford upkeep and renovations

The Sabres aren’t moving out of Buffalo!

The Buffalo Sabres have no intention of leaving Buffalo.

“I don’t even think that’s a reasonable expectation,” Sabres COO Pete Guelli said.

The Sabres aren’t moving out of Buffalo, but that doesn’t mean they won’t demand public money to get them to sign a new lease to keep them from moving out of Buffalo!

“Our goal is to kind of sit down with the county to stay in the city and work out a solution that’s best for everybody.”

But as you may remember, New York state and Erie County gave the Bills and Pegula Sports a combined $800 million for the new stadium, and multiple sources have told 2 On Your Side that renovations at KeyBank Center could range between 75 and 200 million dollars.

Will the organization be able to make those types of renovations, especially if it’s in that ballpark? Will the organization need assistance from New York State to do that?

“I don’t have that answer yet either. I think the partnership that we set up here at the stadium has been beneficial to everybody involved, so I wouldn’t rule it out.”

WTF is actually going on here: Earlier this week, Erie County executive Mark Poloncarz, one of the architects of the Bills stadium deal that gave the Pegulas (who own the Sabres as well) $250 million in county money along with $750 million in state money, declared that he wants to end the county’s lease on the Sabres arena, which is owned by the city of Buffalo but leased to the county and then subleased to the Pegulas. (I think. The Spectrum News article linked above says, “Erie County owns KeyBank Center, leasing it from the City of Buffalo,” which is nonsensical; Wikipedia and this article both say Erie County owns the arena; I’m still working on getting hold of a copy of the actual lease.)

The Sabres’ lease, which automatically renews this fall for another five years unless the Pegulas opt out, requires the team owners to pay for all interior upgrades, while the county pays for all exterior improvements. And the arena needs up to $200 million in renovations, look, it says right here in this graphic:

Interior renovations? Exterior renovations? Renovations that are needed to keep the place from falling down, renovations that are needed so the Pegulas can charge more money for luxury suites? Who knows! WGRZ had to make that “ripped piece of paper” graphic, no time to waste on more research!

As for Sabres COO Guelli, I watched the WGRZ interview with him so you don’t have to, and he said:

“That’s not our intention to go anywhere.”

And also:

“That’s where things are not quite as simple. Because basically we would have to walk away from the lease, the way it’s currently structured…

“We’re not looking for [the city and county] to contribute beyond their means.”…

Will the organization need assistance from New York State to do that?

“I don’t have that answer yet either. I think the partnership that we set up here at the stadium has been beneficial to everybody involved, so I wouldn’t rule it out.”

So basically: The Sabres’ lease is expiring, and a key bargaining point will be who will pay for what future renovations. The team COO says the Pegulas aren’t threatening to move, but are threatening to “walk away” from their lease and … go skate on frozen-over Lake Erie? Refuse to leave or sign a lease and become squatters? The exact details are left to your imagination, which is how non-threat threats always work: If you spell out exactly what you’re threatening to do, people start asking whether it’s feasible or ethical or a violation of basic human rights. But if you just allude to how you wouldn’t want anything to happen to the team, then nobody raises any pesky questions. At least, not if they know what’s good for them, isn’t that right, Dino?

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Ohio house passes $600m subsidy for Browns stadium even as owner says team would stay without it

access_time personNeil deMause

As expected the last time I wrote an “I expected” lede, the Ohio state house has approved $600 million in tax subsidies for a new Cleveland Browns stadium in Brook Park that would cost a total of $2.4 billion and also require another $600 million in city and county money. The final version of the bill tweaked the terms very slightly — Browns owner Jimmy Haslam would pre-pay $50 million of his share instead of $38.5 million — but it’s still basically the same plan that Cleveland city and Cuyahoga County officials all hate.

The main person whose disdain for the plan matters, though, is Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, who could veto it if he wants, though he’s hedged so far on whether he’ll actually go that far. The state senate needs to weigh in, too, and could make more changes if it wants.

All of this sounds very reasonable on the surface — democracy in action! — until you step back and consider the big picture of what’s going on here:

So what we have is one of the most expensive public stadium subsidy proposals in history, to induce a team that wouldn’t leave anyway to move a few miles south, to escape a building that is younger than Elle Fanning and which was just renovated and the team owner has said could be renovated again. And yet it looks like the main roadblock will be if the governor throws a hissy fit because it would require spending the wrong $600 million. We don’t get the checks and balances we want, and maybe not even the ones we deserve, unless we have all been very, very bad indeed.

 

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Do the Whitecaps really want a new stadium, or just a cheaper BC Place lease?

access_time personNeil deMause

Add the Vancouver Whitecaps to the list of teams looking to build a new stadium, maybe, possibly, if the price is right:

The Major League Soccer club is in talks with the City of Vancouver about the construction of a stadium at the PNE fairgrounds site, said Whitecaps CEO and sporting director Axel Schuster.

“The club’s ownership has always been clear on their goal of constructing a purpose-built stadium and the importance of a suitable venue to both fan experience and financial performance for any professional sports franchise,” said Schuster in a statement on Friday.

The talks are in the early stages and Schuster did not disclose any other details, but said the club is looking forward to continuing its “constructive engagement” with the city.

The Whitecaps are currently renters at the province-owned B.C. Place, where the CFL’s B.C. Lions are the primary tenant, so surely they wouldn’t mind a stadium of their own. Whether they would welcome the construction debt that would come with it is another story: Schuster didn’t reveal anything about how much a new stadium would cost or whether that “constructive engagement” — interesting choice of that term, by the way — would include seeking public subsidies, something that is significantly less common in Canada than the U.S., though by no means unheard of.

Meanwhile, Schuster added that he’s simultaneously talking with B.C. Place operator PavCo about continuing on under a “different type of lease” after their current one expires later this year. If the Whitecaps owners are just trying to get a better deal by warning they might consider building a stadium on their own, more power to them; if they’re trying to leverage one branch of government against the other, though, the city and the province might want to consider getting together on this to tell the team they’re not going to bid against themselves.

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WTH is up with that “Bengals should move to Chicago” story?

access_time personNeil deMause

It’s always fun when you get to see how stupidity breaks out in real time, and so it was with the story growing over the last few days that the Cincinnati Bengals ownership could respond to the looming expiration of their lease by moving, and in particular by moving to Chicago. This, it turned out, was less a rumor — a rumor needs to be spread by multiple people — than conjecture, or maybe just a looming deadline and the desperation of one man, NBC Sports’ Mike Florio:

With the [Chicago] Bears getting nowhere when it comes to finagling taxpayer funding for a new stadium, the solution could come from having a second team play there.

Instantly, the inventory of games would double, from 10 to 20. It would become much easier for the Bears (and possibly the other team, unless it’s just a tenant) to pay for the building with minimal public assistance.

Enter the Bengals. They’re less than three months away from the final countdown to the expiration of their lease at Paycor Stadium. During the league meetings this week, executive V.P. Katie Blackburn said the quiet thing out loud — after 2025, the Bengals can go wherever they want to go.

It’s easy to come up with a list of cities that currently have no NFL teams. But the best outcome for the Bengals, and the Bears, could be to partner up in a new Chicagoland stadium. Lakefront or Arlington Heights. Wherever. The revenue from 20 NFL games each year, along with everything else that could be hosted in a fixed-roof building, should be able to pay for the building.

It’s hard to know where to even begin. Yes, splitting the costs of a $2 billion or so stadium between two teams would make it somewhat more affordable — but there’s little sign that the revenue from 20 NFL games a year plus “everything else” that could be hosted there would pay for a new building. After all, the Bears and Bengals each play 20 combined home games a year (including preseason) right now, so those revenues would have to rise by about $7 million per game — that’s $100 more per ticket sold, in a future Chicago where the two teams were fighting for the same fan dollars — just to break even.

Still, it was off to the news cycle races, as the Cincinnati Enquirer and multiple other outlets repeated Florio’s suggestion without asking anyone if it made any sense; something called Motorcycle Sports even chimed in, calling it a “bold idea.” USA Today’s Bengals Wire at least called it the “worst possible take,” though in doing so the site still managed to amplify Florio’s fantasy by sending clicks its way. (I realize I’m doing the same here; fact-checking bad reporting is always tricky to do without giving more air to the original misinformation, what whatcha gonna do.)

None of which matters for the idea of the Bengals moving to Chicago, because there is zero sign that either the Bengals or Bears owners would ever consider it. But it does help cement the idea in people’s heads that the Bengals might move somewhere, which is exactly what Bengals VP Katie Blackburn was hoping to do last week by saying, “We could, I guess, go wherever we wanted after this year if we didn’t pick the option up. So, you know, we’ll see.” (A statement, incidentally, that was called “a powerful, loaded comment“ by one Mike Florio.) That option is to extend the Bengals’ legendarily lucrative lease for five years, something the Bengals owners are mulling doing unless Hamilton County coughs up a sweet enough renovation deal to entice them to sign a new lease with fewer holographic replay system guarantees. Threatening to move the team at the same time as you’re threatening to stay and extend your sweetheart lease is … I think “bold idea” sums it up pretty well, don’t you?

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Somebody is insisting people want to buy minority A’s shares at top value to fund Vegas stadium, wonder who?

access_time personNeil deMause

Sacramento A’s owner John Fisher has reportedly updated his figure for how much additional money he needs, or at least wants, to complete his new Las Vegas stadium, and it now stands at $550 million:

John Fisher, managing partner of the Oakland A’s, is offering new shares in his Major League Baseball team at a $2 billion valuation, according to two sources with knowledge of the offering.

The Fisher family, which owns more than 95% of the Athletics, also known as the A’s, is looking to raise $550 million to finance a $1.75 billion, 30,000-seat domed ballpark in Las Vegas, according to the sources. In recent weeks, the A’s have had several investors that have been vetted by MLB who are willing to put in more than $200 million combined at an enterprise value of $2 billion, according to these sources.

That’s a lot to attribute to unnamed sources, but journalism these days, whatcha gonna do. If the reports are true, then Fisher is trying to sell off almost 30% of his ownership of the A’s to raise stadium money, so long as buyers are willing to do so at a price that assumes the entire team is worth $2 billion, which is 67% higher than Forbes’ $1.2 billion estimate. (Forbes isn’t always right with its value estimates, but it’s not usually quite that wrong.) And he’s found at least a handful of suckers willing to do so, according to sources, who are surely not Fisher cronies trying to drive up the sale price of minority shares by getting news articles saying “All the other rich kids are doing it!”

As for carving up your team’s stock to finance a stadium, there’s nothing wrong with it per se, though it does mean that Fisher would be left with only about 70% of the revenues he was counting on to pay off his share of the estimated $1.75 billion stadium cost — which even after accounting for about $600 million in state subsidies and that hoped-for $550 million in investor cash would still leave him on the hook for $600 million plus any cost overruns. It is so very difficult these days to tell legitimate business plans from shadow plays — you can watch a whole documentary about that — so we’re just going to have to wait and see whether somebody actually pays for the bulldozers or if the A’s stadium goes on the pile of Vegas sports projects that turned out to exist only in the minds, and press releases, of the people promoting them.

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Browns owners pull out all the LOLarguments in demanding $600m in stadium cash from Ohio

access_time personNeil deMause

The Cleveland Browns owners the Haslam Sports Group sent their chief administrative officer and general counsel Ted Tywang to testify before the Ohio arts, athletics and tourism committee yesterday in favor of their $1.2 billion stadium subsidy demand ($600 million of it from the state, the rest from the city of Brook Park and Cuyahoga County), and it was everything you would expect it to be, and more. Tywang delivered all the greatest hits of the stadium playbook; let’s take them one at a time:

“This would be one of the largest economic development projects in Northeast Ohio History, and even in the state of Ohio.”

This is the glass-half-full way of saying our stadium will be very expensive. I can’t wait to hear Tywang explain why it would be a good idea for Ohio to build a space elevator.

“This idea of cash collateral doesn’t really exist in sports facility funding. This would be kind of the first time, as far as we know, that an upfront payment has been done,” Tywang said. “It is $38 million, which is the present value of $150 million at the back end of the lease.”

The $38 million figure refers to a “refundable deposit” that the Haslams would put in up front, which 1) isn’t really much of a sign of a firm commitment if it’s refundable, and 2) isn’t by any stretch of the imagination “the first time” that a team owner would put up the first chunk of cash for a stadium. As for “the present value of $150 million at the back end of the lease,” that seems to just be a way of making the number sound larger for anchoring purposes — sure, $38 million today would be worth $150 million after 30 years of 5% interest, but that doesn’t make it anything other than $38 million today.

“I would think about it not as, this $600 million could go somewhere else, because there’s going to be a return for the state, that $1.3 billion. Yes, it’s over time, but those can be used for other needs that the state deems appropriate.”

Here we have the argument that state taxpayers spending $600 million to move the Browns from one Ohio city to a neighboring one would somehow create a humongous increase in state tax revenues, which has already been shown to be the work of one LOLconsultant with a B.A. in architecture, asked and answered, moving on.

“There are no existing revenues that we’re taking. It’s not like we’re taking from a health and human services budget at the state or at the local level for our ask. It is only revenues that are generated by the project that wouldn’t exist but for this private investment.”

Casino Night Fallacy, everybody drink!

“We think in a market like Cleveland and Northeast Ohio that the project is only viable through a public-private partnership. So the $600 million is really critical.”

Translation: Either “this is a money-losing project without subsidies, the only reason we’re doing it is to get our hands on the state cash” or “we’re going to make money on this either way, but with an extra $600 million in subsidies we would turn $600 million more in profit,” further research needed.

Ranking member Dontavius Jarrells (D-Columbus), who described himself as “a recovering Browns fan”, asked if the project would just shift economic development from downtown Cleveland, not generate new activity. Tywang said the stadium is a game-changer.

“There’s so much else great that’s happening downtown that I think it’s frankly disrespectful when people imply that we’re going to cripple downtown when we leave,” Tywang said. “We want this to be complementary, not competitive.”

“It’s disrespectful to suggest that people can’t spend money in two places at the same time” is some next-level BS, props to Tywang for this one, give that guy a raise.

And what did Ohio legislators think of all this? News5 Cleveland asked some, and:

“It’s essentially escrowing money that would grow over time so that the Browns can kind of put their money where their mouth is,” [House Finance Chair Brian] Stewart told me.

Senate Minority Leader Nickie Antonio (D-Lakewood) said the tax changes are the much better option.

“It would solve these kinds of issues so every couple of years we don’t have some sports franchise, entity coming to the legislature with their hand out saying ‘you have to give us some money so that we can stay in the community,'” she said.

Yes, funneling all the taxes paid in and around stadiums to the sports franchise owners would “solve” the problem of how to pay for an endless stream of new stadiums, but much in the same way that bank robberies could be solved by leaving the bank door unlocked. There are still a lot of hurdles before the Haslams’ plan can become reality — it will have to clear both houses of the legislature plus the city and county, and Cuyahoga County reps are in particular hopping mad at being asked to help fund moving the Browns out of Cleveland proper — but going just by vibes from yesterday’s hearing, the level of debate is not going to be pretty.

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A’s sell fans right to get on line for tickets at Vegas vaporstadium

access_time personNeil deMause

“A’s Tell Las Vegas Baseball Fans They Can Spend $19.01 To Secure Priority Access To Buy Season Tickets At Planned Stadium On Strip” is a perfectly cromulent headline; so is “A’s Open Ticket Deposits for Las Vegas Stadium That Doesn’t Exist Yet.” Choices! It’s all about choices.

For A’s fans, or Las Vegas baseball fans, or just fans of baseball who want to visit Las Vegas a whole lot, the choice is whether to spend $19.01 (because the A’s were created in 1901?) to get on a “priority list” for tickets at the team’s new Las Vegas stadium, if there are ever tickets, if there ever is a stadium. Front Office Sports describes this as a “deposit,” but there’s no indication on the team website that you can apply the $19.01 toward the price of tickets if you buy them or get it back if you don’t, so this appears to actually be one of those “fan club membership” type deals that let you get in on the presale before the general public.

And, you know, John Fisher needs all the money he can get, so another, say, 30,000 payments of $19.01 each would raise … okay, $570,300 isn’t all that much, but every dollar counts! Plus there’s nothing stopping Fisher from accepting more season ticket “priority list” members than seats exist, maybe this is the new market inefficiency! Gotta be lots of people who want to see Aaron Judge or whoever hit home runs!

In other pretending-the-A’s-are-moving-t0-Vegas news, the team has announced its games will be broadcast on a Las Vegas radio station this year, in addition to in Sacramento and the Bay Area, and also recently filed a permit to clear and grade the proposed stadium site. Whether all this is in actual preparation for a Nevada move or just an elaborate shadow play intended to entice some “investors” to come out of the woodwork and give Fisher a pile of money for no good reason remains unknowable, maybe even to Fisher himself — groundbreaking or it didn’t happen at this point, so might want to save yourself $19.01 for now.

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Friday roundup: D-Backs tax kickback plan rushes ahead despite questions, Utah bill would let a hundred stadiums bloom

access_time personNeil deMause

Springtime is always a busy time for stadium and arena shenanigans, if only because it’s budget season for most states and cities. But still! Buncha bullet points today, is what I’m saying, and expect a lot more next week, and so on and so on until legislators break for the summer or come to their senses, whichever comes first (you know damn well which will come first):

  • An Arizona state legislative analysis says because Diamondbacks players pay $3.5 million a year in state income tax, that would over more than a quarter of the tax kickbacks team execs want for stadium renovations — asked and answered, move to strike. Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, meanwhile, says the state analysis doesn’t look at actual economic data but rather projections like calculating every fan buys two beers (first, assume a spherical fan). No worries, though, the bill still has to go through — oh, welp, looks like it already passed the state house and just needs to clear the senate, and House Democratic Leader Rep. Oscar De Los Santos has expressed “alarm” and said “we should not be rushing through this legislative process,” guess there’s no time to worry like the present.
  • Utah state senator Scott Sandall, figuring one MLB stadium with no team to play in it and no way to pay for it isn’t enough for a growing state, introduced a bill to let Salt Lake City’s stadium district build multiple stadiums as small as 18,000 seats for any sport, “to be proactive, just for the future,” not because he has any particular sports teams in mind that could use an 18,000-seat stadium or anything.
  • Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas is supporting a new Missouri state bill to raise money for Royals and/or Chiefs stadiums by providing … okay, Lucas didn’t say exactly how much money or from where, and the bill itself isn’t posted on the Missouri senate website yet, but Lucas says it’ll help Kansas City “host FIFA World Cup games,” please nobody tell him that it’s going to be decades before the U.S. gets another World Cup after 2026, I don’t want to spoil his day.
  • The proposed Cleveland Browns stadium in Brook Park is set to lead to the creation of a new Circle K gas station, maybe, if government bureaucrats don’t get in the way with their red tape about “residents” being “concerned,” can you believe those guys?
  • Phoenix Suns co-owner Justin Ishbia has pulled out of bidding for the Minnesota Twins and is instead upping his minority stake in the Chicago White Sox, which certainly can be read as positioning himself to become majority owner once 89-year-old Jerry Reinsdorf gives up either control or this mortal coil. Whether he would go ahead with with Reinsdorf’s current stadium plans, let alone rebranding the team as the Chicacago White Sox, remains to be seen.
  • The MLB cable empire keeps on crumbling, and at least one small-market owner, the Milwaukee Brewers‘ Mark Attanasio, says he wants a TV revenue sharing model more like the NFL’s where all the money is shared equally. This is worth watching since it would have a major impact on where teams could relocate to (Green Bay would suddenly be a viable MLB market), plus all sort of other things like how long the 2027 baseball lockout is likely to last.
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A’s Sacramento digs still work in progress as fans question sky-high ticket prices

access_time personNeil deMause

The outside world got a sneak peak at the Athletics‘ new temporary home in Sacramento, thanks to the San Francisco Giants, who held a fan fest there this weekend. (The River Cats, the Giants’ AAA team, make their regular home there.) How it’s going: Okay, kinda, considering?

On Saturday, the field looked like an excavation site: not a blade of grass in sight, littered with bulldozers and what appeared to be the framework for new plumbing being installed over the dirt.

The scoreboard in center field has also been stripped to its bare bones.

Or, in a thousand-words equivalent:

That doesn’t look all that great, but there are still two months to go before the regular season starts, so plenty of time to finish the drainage, lay down sod, build a new scoreboard, and anything else that need to go on behind the scenes, right? Right?

“It’s crazy,” Giants outfielder Heliot Ramos said, staring out from a second-level suite overlooking the field he treaded for parts of two seasons. The grass had been torn up. A John Deere tractor was positioned in left field. The scoreboard, the batter’s eye and parts of the outfield wall were missing.

“I thought it was going to be pretty much (done), but not even close. They’d better be close. The season’s about to start soon.”

Anything else, yes, you in the back, Giants second baseman Tyler Fitzgerald?

Fitzgerald also hoped aloud that there will be a connector between the clubhouses, which are located behind the outfield fences, and the dugouts. As it stands, players have to walk down the lines or through the stands to go between – which may pose an issue for big leaguers.

Meanwhile, the few A’s fans at the Giants fest were excited to have games in their area, though decidedly less excited about the cost: Team execs have taken advantage of the Sacramento ballpark’s tiny 14,000-seat capacity to send ticket prices through the roof, with season tickets going for $100 a game and the cheapest single-game seats at $54. (For $37, you can sit on the outfield lawn.) Sacramento A’s fan — that is, A’s fan from Sacramento, they are officially not the Sacramento A’s, though the San Francisco Chronicle is having none of it — Anthony Huerta called the prices “pretty extreme” and “almost insulting” before proposing a possible built-in solution:

“Once summer hits and it gets really hot, I don’t think people will actually want to come out here and experience that,” he said.

The A’s in Sacramento: Unaffordable or unbearably hot, take your pick! At least maybe you’ll get to see your favorite player walk by on the way to get something from his locker — and who can put a price on that?

 

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