Category: Baltimore USL team

Friday roundup: Everyone’s building soccer stadiums, no one’s sure how to pay for them

access_time personNeil deMause

This was a rough week for anyone in the U.S. who is an immigrant or looks like they might be, is trans, might ever need an abortion, is Palestinian, is a federal government employee, is a local government employee, is an employee of anything that depends on international trade, lives near sea level or in places that get hot or are at risk of hurricanes, likes democracy, or cares about a relative, friend, or neighbor who does. Not that it would have been an amazing week for most of those people if the presidential election results had gone another way, but a whole lot of folks are somewhere on the spectrum from anxious to terrified right now, so if you need to check in with each other right now before getting back to life as we know it, that’s not only reasonable, it’s a fine tradition.

And now, whenever you’re ready, back to sports stadium and arena life as we know it:

  • The owners of Sacramento Republic F.C., who now include the Wilton Rancheria Native American tribe by are still led by minority owner Kevin Nagle, announced plans for a new stadium, and almost none of the news coverage bothered to provide details of how it would be paid for, even those that reported on how it was announced to the tune of “Don’t Stop Believin’.” Finally, way at the bottom of a KCRA-TV report, we learn that the city of Sacramento is expected to put up $92 million in infrastructure money from property taxes on 220 acres surrounding the stadium, plus provide free police, fire, EMS, traffic, and other services for the next ten years. The city council is set to vote on the plan Tuesday, so that leaves three whole days to gather feedback, two of which are weekend days and the third is a holiday when city offices are closed, this is fine.
  • Bridgeport is considering a minor-league soccer stadium that would cost at least $75 million and which would likely include public funds, and Baltimore is considering a minor-league soccer stadium with no known price tag or details on how to pay for it, and Fort Wayne is considering a minor-league soccer stadium that is promised will be “100% privately financed” but we’ve heard that before.
  • Cleveland and Cuyahogo County are continuing to look for ways to fill their budget gap for paying for future upgrades for the Guardians and Cavaliers, and county executive Chris Ronayne says options are “not yet concrete” because “it’s a conversation that’s probably also going to have to include the public.” Signal Cleveland speculates that this could include going back to voters to approve another tax increase, unless Clevelanders go back to drinking and smoking at their old rates, which might not be as likely as you would think.
  • Nearly 95% of campaign donations by U.S. sports team owners went to Republican candidates or causes, according to a Guardian review of donor filings, which, duh, Charles Barkley could have told you that.
  • How are Inglewood business owners around the Los Angeles Rams‘ new stadium and Los Angeles Clippers‘ new arena loving all the new foot traffic? Not so much! “One of my lowest sales days was on Super Bowl Sunday” because of street closures, said a local bakery owner at a press conference this week. “I literally made under $600 for the day. I had to send employees home, and you’re just looking around like, ‘What in the world?'” Checks out!
  • Did a major news site just run an item reporting wild economic impact projections for a proposed Buffalo soccer stadium without saying who conducted the study, while the byline partly credits a City Hall press release? Sure did! Please give to support your independent nonprofit or collectively owned news media, we might just be needing them the next year or four.
Share this post:

Friday roundup: NYC approves $780m NYCFC stadium in Queens, still doesn’t know what it’ll cost the public

access_time personNeil deMause

I keep meaning to find a place to mention it, and here is as good as any: sports economists J.C. Bradbury, Dennis Coates, and Brad Humphreys have taken up the task of updating Judith Grant Long’s epic database of stadium and arena deals, and the results are online as a CSV file. There are likely still going to be some debates about specific figures — the Buffalo Bills stadium is listed with an $850 million public cost, for example, because that’s what the New York Times said, but that leaves out state and county money set aside for future maintenance and upgrades — but it’s still a hugely useful resource for getting ballpark estimates (sorry) of both total and taxpayer costs. Bookmark it now, or just click the “Data” tab here anytime to find it!

That’s enough about that, let’s get to the news, oh the news, so very much the news:

  • The New York city council approved NYC F.C.‘s plan to build a Queens stadium across the street from the Mets‘ stadium, which is expected to cost $780 million and open in 2027. While construction costs are being covered by the team’s owners, Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner and Manchester City owner Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, it’s still unknown exactly how much the city will be giving up in property-tax breaks and discounted rent (the city Independent Budget Office estimated $516 million) or how much the city will be spending on infrastructure for the project (which includes housing and other stuff too, so it’d be tricky to determine exactly how much of infrastructure costs should be charged to the stadium). Ah well, plenty of time to figure that out after the agreements are all signed! Queens councilmember Shekar Krishnan cast the only dissenting vote, declaring, “We are not facing a stadium crisis in this city. We are facing a housing crisis, an inequality crisis and a climate crisis. Now we’re looking at a proposal that gives away public land worth hundreds of millions of dollars in public financing for a commercial soccer stadium. What is the benefit for the people of New York City?” You mean the joy of visiting Naming Rights Sponsor Stadium isn’t enough?
  • Patrick Tuohey of the Show-Me Institute wants to know what happened to the 2022 Populous study of the Kansas City Royals‘ stadium that projected it would cost more to repair than replace, thanks to “concrete cancer,” since it’s been taken down from the KC Ballpark District website. Good news and bad news, Patrick: The report is still there on the Wayback Machine, but it provides no sourcing at all for its figures. It does print them in very large type, though, and how could anything in a 48-point font be wrong?
  • Jackson County legislator Sean Smith polled his constituents about why they voted how they did on the Royals and Chiefs stadium tax surcharge referendum last week, and determined it’s because nobody listened to their concerns and engaged in too much “fear-based campaigning” by threatening the teams would leave. Smith didn’t release any detailed results of his survey, though, so it’s left as an exercise for the reader to imagine what the public’s concerns were, exactly.
  • Adding insult to injury department: Workers for the Oakland A’s weren’t told by team management that the franchise was relocating to Sacramento next year and that they would all be laid off as a result, they saw it on the TV news. “Thank you for ruining our lives,” said one A’s bartender only identified by CBS Sports as Tony. (Also, the layoffs have reportedly already begun, because John Fisher has clearly determined you don’t need concessions workers when you’ve so effectively alienated your fans that no one will come to your games.)
  • The Atlanta Braves claim that a new survey found their stadium-in-the-middle-of-suburban-nowhere ranks 13th out of 30 teams in “walkability,” and we don’t even need to debate whether it’s a dumb survey because it turns out 13th actually means 21st because it turns out the dumb survey people don’t know how to break ties.
  • “Can Minor League Baseball Survive Its Real Estate Problems?” asks the New York Times, but those problems were created by MLB when it bought and contracted the minor leagues and then forced cities to scramble to upgrade stadiums to avoid being left without a chair when the music stopped. Try to keep up, New York Times! Even without a sports department!
  • D.C. United wants to build a stadium for a minor-league affiliate in Baltimore, and the Baltimore Banner article on how “there hasn’t been enough information shared about the project” doesn’t even try to ask how much it would cost or who would pay for it, this has not been a great week for journalism. Here are some tips, guys, start with those!
Share this post:

Friday roundup: A modest economic impact reporting proposal, plus two, three, many vaporstadiums

access_time personNeil deMause

I was out sick yesterday, but fortunately nothing incredibly stupid happened with the $1.5 billion Virginia arena subsidy plan for the Washington Capitals and Wizards for the first time all week, so my services weren’t needed. (Other than the whole thing remaining incredibly stupid, but that’ll still be true today, and next week, and next month, and…)

Other things, though, kept happening, and my Decemberween gift to you is to present them all, neatly wrapped and suitable for pointing and laughing:

  • Veteran sports business reporter Alan Snel’s LVSportsBiz.com has announced a new policy of not reporting economic impact claims without also including how the numbers were calculated, and while that may sound like a simple matter of reporting out all the details, it becomes much funnier when you realize that this means Snel just isn’t going to report any numbers that don’t show their math. On a Las Vegas Raiders announcement of the economic impact of their team, Snel reported that he’s waiting on Raiders officials to grant “an interview about how the economic impact number was determined before we publish that number”; about a similar UFC impact report, he wrote that “LVSportsBiz.com will publish these numbers when UFC and Applied Analysis explain how they determined these economic figures.” I truly hope this will lead to stories like “A’s Claim New Stadium Will Create Some Damn Number of Jobs, So Far As We Know They Pulled It Out of Their Ass,” which honestly would be some of the most accurate reporting out there.
  • And speaking of goofy economic impact numbers: A new roof for Montreal’s Olympic Stadium, which already cost $1 billion in 1976 loonies, may or may not cost $750 million, but if it does it’s okay, says Quebec Tourism Minister Caroline Proulx, because then Taylor Swift might say “Joli toit!” and play five nights there and bring $350 million in spending that totally would be from out-of-towners who would all fly to Montreal because Taylor Swift never plays near them. [citation needed]
  • Not saying that a stadium district project called “Project Smoke” sounds like a grift, but when the guy presenting it is a Nashville pediatrician who pled guilty to billing fraud and people at the meeting were reportedly saying, “Have you Googled this guy? Can you believe this?”, it’s definitely not a good thing. Though it could make a good Avengers 5 plot to replace the one about Kang now that Jonathan Majors has been fired.
  • “Baltimore is not on the verge of landing a pro outdoor soccer team,” begins a Baltimore Sun article about the Maryland Stadium Authority commissioning a site study for a stadium for this team that, it bears repeating, does not exist and likely will not exist soon. The study cost $50,000, which is not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things, but is maybe around $50,000 more than needs to be spent identifying places to build a stadium that likely won’t ever be built.
  • The Jackson County legislature on Monday put off a decision on whether to put a sales-tax increase for Kansas City Royals and Chiefs stadium projects on the April 2024 ballot, then the measure’s sponsor, county chair DaRon McGee, introduced a “corrected measure” that would specify that the sales tax wouldn’t take effect until the teams negotiated 40-year leases, agreed to community benefits agreements, and chose an acceptable site. We’ll see if that makes county executive Frank White hate it any less, but it is at least better than voting to collect a giant pile of money for the local sports teams and then negotiate the details later, we’ve seen how that works out.
  • Philadelphia’s law department has now denied more than 100 public records requests for information about the proposed 76ers arena, which is a lot! Activist and journalist Faye Anderson said one of her few requests was approved shows that city officials and other involved parties have been meeting weekly for more than a year on the project, but she can’t get any information about what they’ve been talking about. “What were they saying behind closed doors?” she asked. “What were they saying when they thought those conversations, those records, would never see the light of day?” An appeal has been filed with the state Office of Open Records, so we may find out next month, or later, or never.
Share this post:

Plague of minor-league soccer stadium subsidy demands reaches pandemic proportions

access_time personNeil deMause

Oh hey, USL press release about the ill-fated Pawtucket soccer stadium project, which utterly fails to mention either the metastasizing public costs or the fact that Rhode Island voters now oppose funding it by a 44-35% margin. Anything else in there of actual interest?

Tidewater Landing becomes one of five current stadium projects that are under construction in the USL Championship and USL League One, including one for a future USL Championship club in Des Moines, Iowa. There are another 11 stadium projects approved or in development across USL Championship and League One, following clubs such as Colorado Springs Switchbacks FC, Louisville City FC, Monterey Bay F.C., and Chattanooga Red Wolves SC, whose new homes have opened in recent years.

So, five stadiums under construction (or at least having had a groundbreaking, which lets Pawtucket qualify even though funding hasn’t gotten final approval) and 11 others “in development” — that’s rather a lot, even for a league that currently sports 38 teams across two levels in an attempt to take over the U.S. soccer world by sheer volume. The press release doesn’t specify which cities the USL is currently getting or seeking stadiums in, so with the help of the Field of Schemes archives and Reddit, let’s attempt a rundown in rough order of approvalness:

That’s 19 potential projects, though only maybe ten of them could be considered in progress, and for some of those you’d have to squint really hard. John Mozena of the Center for Economic Accountability, the people behind those excellent stickers, has a Twitter thread about this whole kerfuffle, in which he points out that sports stadiums, thanks to being closed and empty most of the time, have less economic impact than your typical supermarket or chain food store:

If there’s a silver lining to all this, it’s that most of the USL stadium campaigns appear to be spinning their wheels to various degrees. If there’s whatever is the opposite of a silver lining, it’s that none of the potential team owners are giving up, because why stop grabbing for that brass subsidy ring if you can maybe get tens of millions of dollars if you get lucky? Not sure if the USL qualifies as a Ponzi scheme yet, but it’s certainly striving to head in that direction.

Share this post:

Friday roundup: The minor-league stadium shakedown will continue unabated into our glorious future (plus: FIRE!)

access_time personNeil deMause

This was a short week but it felt long to me, though at least nobody interrogated my cat about whether I would be resigning, so there’s that. Anyway, we have a big stack of Other News ahead of us, so let’s dive in:

Share this post:

Pawtucket soccer developers announce plans to seek Trump tax breaks for stadiums in Baltimore, Cleveland, and more

access_time personNeil deMause

The story of the $45 million Pawtucket minor-league soccer stadium seeking upwards of $70 million in tax breaks and the story that the United Soccer League is seeking to leverage Trump’s Opportunity Zone tax-break districts for more stadiums just had a baby, and it is this:

Fortuitous Partners Brett Johnson and Berke Bakay announced that they are looking to do developments in Baltimore, Cleveland, and other cities around the country…

Johnson during the interview said that Fortuitous Partners is also looking at Baltimore, MD; Cleveland, OH; and other cities for their opportunity zone driven sports complex model.

Opportunity zones, as I’ve written before, sound simple but get fiendishly complex in their details. On the surface, they’re just like other tax-subsidized districts like “enterprise zones” and “empowerment zones,” where developers get a tax break for building in “disadvantaged” areas, which is theoretically supposed to help the disadvantaged residents. (A report by Good Jobs First notes that the results of those earlier subsidy zones have been “not encouraging,” with little in the way of new economic activity and even less in the way of new jobs for locals.)

But the tax break that an opportunity zone earns a developer is a weird one: You get exempted from paying capital gains tax, but only on businesses that are owned by a “qualified opportunity fund,” meaning developers (or soccer teams) would likely need to set up a new shell corporation to own whatever it was they wanted to dodge taxes on. How that works, and what the IRS will let investors get away with, is still being figured out — the Trump administration implemented opportunity zones without really figuring out first how they would work, which is kind of turning into its brand — but clearly these Fortuitous folks think they know how to do it, or at least are trying to get dibs on lots of opportunity zone land for soccer stadiums and then will figure out the details later. Baltimore and Cleveland journalists, you might want to get on this, if there are any of you left.

Share this post: