No news worth reporting yesterday, but I instead spent my morning recording this interview about the Oakland A’s potential move to Las Vegas, which covered a lot of ground in just half an hour. Tune in to hear what Brodie Brazil and I discussed, or just to see what’s on my living room wall behind the other end of the sofa from where I usually sit for Zoom interviews!
And a few other things of note happened this week, let’s get to them:
- The newly formed Coalition to Stop the Arena at Potomac Yard rallied yesterday at the site of the proposed $2 billion Washington Capitals and Wizards arena, with former Alexandria vice-mayor Andrew Macdonald saying, “We don’t need an arena to thrive,” and local resident Shannon Curtis saying the project would “create a traffic boondoggle.” In related news, apparently the Potomac Yard Metro station was set for possible closure until this project was proposed because nobody was using it, but now, as discussed before, it would need expansion to handle arena-sized crowds. Hmm, maybe that should be included in the already-$1.5 billion public price tag? Just a crazy notion.
- People in Southeast D.C., which is home to the new arena where the Washington Mystics play but which may lose the team to the current Capitals and Wizards arena if those teams relocate from D.C. to Virginia, are equally steamed about the whole thing. “I can’t stress enough that we’re not leaving; there’s still a commitment to the neighborhood,” promised Caps/Wizards senior VP John Thompson III, saying the team owners would work with the city to “bring other events” to the neighborhood “to help fill the void” — which sure sounds like leaving, though I guess keeping the arena open and every once in a while holding a concert there or something is technically just “moving out and promising to visit.”
- As if Kansas City Royals owner John Sherman didn’t have enough prospective stadium sites to play off against each other, now the owners of the old Kansas City Star printing plant site want back in the game. (No details on who would pay for a stadium at that location.) Meanwhile, residents packed the first public meeting by Jackson County yesterday on the Royals’ plans, with KMBC reporting that “many voiced their concern about continuing a tax when they didn’t know where the stadium would be or any specifics about how it would benefit low-wage earners.” The local food and retail workers union also demanded that the project include a community benefits agreement to require that stadium jobs be union, which is already part of the tax extension proposal, and anyway CBAs often don’t work out that well for many reasons. But sure, better-paying jobs are better than worse-paying jobs, can’t get if you don’t ask.
- The owners of the new Oakland Ballers minor-league baseball team say they signed a deal to rent out the Oakland Coliseum to host one game this summer, but A’s execs blocked them by enforcing their exclusive right to play baseball at the stadium. (Yes, the stadium that A’s owner John Fisher is trying to get out of as fast as possible. Irony is not his strong suit.) A fan group spokesperson said he figures it’s because Fisher was in “a position of embarrassment” because “I think we would have outdrawn them,” which is maybe wishful thinking but also maybe not.
- Wondering how the biggest sports subsidy deals compare to the biggest non-sports subsidy deals? Check out good Jobs First’s list of the top megadeals of 2023, headed by Ford getting $1.7 billion from Michigan for an electric car battery plant and Volkswagen getting $1.3 billion from South Carolina for its own EV battery plant. Nothing against electric car batteries any more than against sports, but at 6,500 jobs combined, that’s nearly half a million dollars per job, which is a sports-level awful ratio — good job, car companies, even if not good jobs!