That Virginia bill to create a football authority to build a Washington Commanders stadium isn’t just authorizing legislation, it turns out — last night it also got financing details during a senate committee hearing, and the numbers are jaw-dropping: $1 billion in state money toward a $3 billion stadium, to be paid off from “a projected $3 billion dollars in tax revenue from the new stadium” over 30 years.
The first question to ask, obviously: Would this be actual new tax revenue, or money kicked back from existing taxes in a stadium district (a TIF), or what? WUSA-TV, which appears to be the only news outlet that was paying attention to last night’s state senate finance and appropriations committee hearing, cited bill sponsor Sen. Richard Saslaw (D-Fairfax) as promising that borrowing $1 billion for a stadium “does not create a penny of debt.” (Yup, he said that.) WUSA also cited George Mason University business professor and former Commanders exec George Perry as saying this “doesn’t appear” to be taxpayer funding, though in an accompanying video Perry also warned that a football stadium open only a handful of days a year shouldn’t necessarily be expected to spark a ton of surrounding development, so who the hell knows, man.
The bill’s financing plan doesn’t look to have been posted to the senate committee’s website yet, despite a promise there that “presentation materials are posted to our Web page at the beginning of each meeting,” so this one news report is really all we have to go on so far. Further updates on Monday, I hope; in the meantime, settle in from the sticker shock over maybe the biggest NFL stadium subsidy proposal in history with some other news from the week that was:
- The Arizona Board of Regents approved the plan for the Arizona Coyotes to rent Arizona State University’s 5,000-seat arena for the next three seasons, though the team will have to start the 2022-23 season on an extended road trip since the arena won’t be open until December. Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo will have to spend $20 million to build a new outbuilding with separate locker rooms for the NHL team, and will pay an undisclosed rent on the arena.
- NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said “the bottom line on it is we have to get a new [Bills] stadium in Buffalo,” and MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said there’s a “sense of urgency” for a new Tampa Bay Rays stadium because not having one “hampers the ability of the business to operate,” and NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said “the sooner people figure out how to get a new [Calgary Flames] arena, the better it’ll be,” everybody drink!
- Check out what $50 million in renovations (half paid for by public tax dollars) to the Carolina Panthers‘ stadium to accommodate the new Charlotte F.C. MLS team buys you: If you had “new locker room with a giant team logo on the ceiling and a special room just for the soccer players to store their stinky cleats in,” you’re a winner!
- The Baltimore Sun editorial board is fine with spending $1.2 billion on Baltimore Ravens and Orioles stadium upgrades because spending state lottery revenue is “not a taxpayer bailout” (yup, they said that), but wants the state legislature to get more details on what exactly the renovations would look like and cost before cutting a check. Yay, bare minimum of democracy!
- Lexington, Kentucky, already home to the indie-minors Atlantic League baseball team the Lexington Legends, is going to get a second team in the same league that will play in the same stadium while the Legends are on the road, and it will be called the Kentucky Wild Health Genomes after a local genomics-based medical clinic. I have lots of questions and I’m sure you do, too, but suffice to say that putting your corporate name in the actual team name and not just the stadium name (the genome people are doing that as well) will make it an awful lot harder for those of us who don’t bother using corporate-branded stadium names to not mention their company. Though I suppose we could always say “Lexington Atlantic League Baseball Team” — no, wait, that’s not specific enough, pretty sneaky, sis!
- If you would like a “Pay For Your Own Damn Stadium” sticker, the Center for Economic Accountability has got you covered. If you would rather have a billion dollars in cash, please buy an NFL team and then contact your local state legislature.