It was an oddly slow Election Day for sports-related votes — the big Oklahoma City vote on the latest MAPS sales-tax surcharge that would provide public money for a USL soccer stadium isn’t until December 10 — but there were a couple of notable items:
- Boise, Idaho residents, facing a demand for a $50 million soccer stadium to lure a USL franchise, voted to require a public vote before the city can participate in any sports stadium project that costs more than $5 million in public or private money. (They also voted for a similar requirement for any library project costing more than $25 million.) That sounds like it should be airtight enough to avoid the legal pitfalls that befell Seattle’s similar Initiative 91 when it turned out to be unclear what a public “investment” meant — tax breaks? only direct cash? — but then again, since I-91 did its job fine in terms of preventing major sports giveaways, maybe it’s the spirit of the thing that counts.
- The mayor of Charlotte and all the city council incumbents up for re-election got re-elected, and since the current city council has been largely willing to listen to Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper’s ask for $100-200 million in stadium improvement to bring an MLS team to town, that’s probably good news for that project. Or bad news for anyone who thinks that $200 million (or more!) to upgrade an existing football stadium for soccer is kinda crazy.