Category: Louisville City F.C.

Friday roundup: “Unbelievable” Utah Olympics projections, Cavs crony capitalism, and stadium vapordistricts

access_time personNeil deMause

It’s Friday, I’ve been testing negative for two days, time to see what we all missed this week while we were busy making other plans:

  • “Second Winter Olympics could spark $6.6B in economic output for Utah, new report finds” reported a headline at KSL-TV, and “could” and “output” are doing an awful lot of work there. (Number of actual economists consulted for the KSL story: zero.) “These numbers are just so unbelievable,” said Salt Lake City Olympic committee COO Brett Hopkins, and yep, can’t argue with that!
  • The guy who negotiated massive tax kickbacks for Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert for the city is getting hired by Gilbert as the team’s CFO, this is fine.
  • The owners of Racing Louisville and Louisville City FC promised to build a new development around their new soccer stadium after it opened in 2019 with the help of city funding, but haven’t actually done so. “There’s good soccer going on, and I was for soccer,” city councilmember Robin Engel said at a hearing last month. “You know, we throw these TIFs around anymore these days like it’s chump change.”
  • Boston Magazine has a good oral history of how the 1999 All-Star Game hosted at Fenway Park helped save the ballpark from a planned demolition and replacement by a fake replica, though it kind of elides the main point, which is “Save Fenway Park activists put up a huge stink and then the new guy who bought the Red Sox decided he liked Fenway anyway. Also Save Fenway isn’t “defunct” as the article says, but the group’s Erika Tarlin does get a decent amount of screen time.
  • Whoever ends up the new mayor of Arlington Heights this fall, it’ll likely be someone who supports building a Chicago Bears stadium there, keep that in mind the next time you ask why people don’t just vote elected officials out of office when they back stadium deals.
  • If you always wanted a restroom sign from Pawtucket’s soon-to-be-demolished McCoy Stadium, now’s your chance.
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Friday roundup: Ravens lease extension would be priciest ever, Royals could be right behind

access_time personNeil deMause

Four full-length posts in three work days already this week, and still there’s more news that got left out! Guess 2023 isn’t going to lack for sports subsidy shenanigans after an eventful 2022, even if the U.S. House spends the entire year trying to figure out how to swear its members in.

While we all wait for noon to tune back in to C-SPAN, some bullet points to keep us occupied:

  • Did I neglect to mention in yesterday’s report on the Baltimore Ravens lease extension that at 15 years in exchange for $600 million in renovation money, the $40 million a year cost makes it the most expensive sports team lease extension in history, blowing past the New Orleans Saints‘ $30 million a year and the Indiana Pacers‘ $24 million a year? To make up for that, you can hear (and watch a slightly blurry) me expound on it at length to WNST’s Nestor Aparicio. (In other Ravens news, my request to the Maryland Stadium Authority for an actual copy of the team’s new lease was met with a reply of “Thank you for contacting the Maryland Stadium Authority. This email acknowledges receipt of your public information act request,” so it may be a while before we get to see that.)
  • The Kansas City Star editorial board, after stumping for a new downtown stadium for the Royals, now warns “there is much we don’t know about the plan.” You mean who would pay for the possibly $1-billion-plus in construction costs that Royals owner John Sherman doesn’t want to cover? Yes, that, but mostly the team needs to vow to stay put for 30 years or else “voters will rightly reject any tax for the ballpark.” That would be, as you know if you didn’t skip past the bullet point just above and can do simple math, one of the priciest lease per-year lease extensions in sports history, but the Star editors are apparently all about defining success downwards.
  • Louisville City F.C. got a bunch of money from the city for a new soccer stadium in 2017, with promises that new development around the stadium would generate enough new property taxes to make it a win-win. You can probably guess how this is going, but in case you’re a rose-colored-glasses wearer who somehow stumbled onto this site, here’s a WDRB article with lots of photos of the stadium surrounded by nothing but empty lots, plus team co-owner Tim Mulloy talking vaguely about how “we’re sitting on a couple of opportunities right now that we’re very excited about.”
  • City leaders in Augusta, Georgia want to build a new arena for concerts (and, I guess, a minor-league hockey or basketball team if the city ever gets one again) and pay for it with a 0.5% sales tax hike, which Mayor Pro-Tem Brandon Garrett says is a great idea because it “takes much of the burden off of property tax owners and puts the burden on sales tax.” That’ll be great news for the 53% of Augusta households that are homeowners, and somewhat less good news for the 100% of Augusta households that pay sales tax; guess Garrett hasn’t learned about tax regressivity during his formative time as a billboard sales manager.

 

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Friday roundup: Election Day could have big consequences for Rays, Blue Jackets, Clippers

access_time personNeil deMause

Happy last week before Election Day! Unsurprisingly, we lead off with a bunch of vote-related news:

  • Tampa Bay Rays president Brian Auld says he’s confident team execs will be able to meet a December 31 deadline for stadium funding without having to ask for an extension, even though right now there’s currently a $300 million funding gap. Frequent FoS commenter Scott Myers has theorized that the Rays ownership is hoping Hillsborough County voters will pass a 1% sales tax hike for transportation on Tuesday, which would free up other public money to pay for transportation improvements for a Rays stadium; that doesn’t seem like it’d provide $300 million, but every hundred million dollars counts, so everybody watch the ballot results carefully. (Which you should be doing anyway. And voting!)
  • The Columbus Blue Jackets owners, who have been criticized for being the main beneficiaries of a proposed 7% ticket tax in the city because their arena would get the lion’s share of the proceeds, surprised everybody this week by coming out against the tax, saying it “would materially harm our business.” Maybe this is reverse psychology to get residents to vote for the bill, since they’ll no longer think it’s a sop to the hockey team? Okay, probably not.
  • Madison Square Garden has given $700,000 to the campaign of the chief challenger to Inglewood Mayor James Butts in an effort to block plans for a new Los Angeles Clippers arena that could compete for concerts with MSG’s Forum, and the Clippers have fought back with $375,000 in spending to support Butts’ campaign. Poor grass.
  • In non-electoral news, the University of Connecticut is building a $45 million hockey arena on campus even though its team will continue to play most of its games in Hartford’s XL Center, just because its new NCAA conference requires an on-campus arena. (It also requires that the arena have at least 4,000 seats, but UConn got a waiver to only build 2,500 seats.) Since UConn is a public university, this technically means that public money will go into the project (though the university says it can pay for it from its own reserves), but mostly it’s bizarre to see an entire arena being built just to meet a technicality — what do you think the carbon footprint will be for this?
  • Transit experts are worried that the 2020 Olympics will overwhelm Tokyo’s already-crowded subway system, though they may not be anticipating how much the Olympics tend to cause anyone not interested in the Olympics to stay the hell out of town. The government has been encouraging local businesses to stagger work hours and open satellite offices to accommodate Games traffic, since “everybody call in sick for three weeks” would be anathema to Japanese work culture.
  • Opponents to Nashville SC‘s stadium plans are seeking a court injunction to block construction of a new expo center to replace the one that would be torn down to make way for the soccer stadium on the grounds that it would interfere with parking for a flea market, which is a first in my book.
  • Louisville is officially not bidding for an MLS franchise (yet), which unofficially makes it the only city in the whole U.S. of A. that isn’t. How is MLS ever going to meet its dream of a franchise for every individual person in North America if these keeps up?

That’s all for this week — go vote! And try to fight your way past the journalism extinction event to educate yourself about all those downballot races and initiatives and such, since as we cover here every week, they can have huge consequences.

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Friday roundup: New soccer stadiums, yet another Vegas arena, Falcons roof still not done

access_time personNeil deMause

Happy fifth anniversary of Hurricane Sandy, everybody! While you get ready to go to your anniversary parties and dress up as, um, hurricanes, and you know what, this riff isn’t going anywhere, let’s get to the news:

  • Had you forgotten about former UNLV basketball star Jackie Robinson’s $1.4 billion retractable-roofed-arena-plus-hotel-plus-other-stuff project just because Las Vegas already has one new arena, he hasn’t — and now says it’s a $2.7 billion project that will include a 63-story hotel, a conference center, a 24-lane bowling alley, and a wedding chapel. No construction has begun yet, but Robinson says it will all be completed by 2020, or else maybe by then it will cost $5.2 billion and include a space elevator.
  • Chris Hansen is trying a new gambit to turn attention away from Oak View Group’s KeyArena renovation plan and toward his SoDo new-arena plan, and it involves declaring the OVG plan a “public” and not a “private” process, which would require a longer environmental review process, and if your eyes are glazing over already I don’t blame you, skip to the next item, it’s got juicy if unproven allegations of political corruption in it.
  • New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon has given Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s 2017 re-election campaign a $65,000 donation that’s twice as large as all other donations he’s previously given the governor combined, and with Wilpon in the midst of looking to get approval from the state for a new soccer stadium Islanders arena (sorry, had a brain fart on this one while typing) next to Belmont Park racetrack … well, you connect the dots. (Or don’t: An Empire State Development spokesperson snapped, “Participation in the political process has zero bearing on any of this and any of these ‘sources’ with questions are free to contact us instead of trafficking in conspiracy theories.”) Bigger question: Fred Wilpon has $65,000 to spare?
  • The Atlanta Falcons‘ retractable roof is now set to finally work by March 2018. Probably.
  • Nashville held a hearing on its proposed $75 million soccer stadium subsidy deal, and if you guessed that a self-proclaimed soccer mom said it would be a “feather in our cap” while a non-soccer-fan local resident said “you’re asking me to help fund a quarter-of-a-billion-dollar project for another sports team that most likely will not benefit me,” then you’re right on the money.
  • The prospective NASL team San Diego 1904 F.C. is planning a stadium that will cost only $15 million because it will be built modularly elsewhere and shipped to the stadium site in Oceanside, but at least they didn’t skimp on the searchlight renderings.
  • The chair of Rhode Island’s senate finance committee says he’ll put a halt to the Pawtucket Red Sox‘ $38 million stadium subsidy request if the team owners don’t provide more financial information. It sounds like this is over the team’s internal finances, and could be resolved with a non-disclosure agreement, but still, it’s something to keep an eye on, since projects have succeeded or fallen over pettier things.
  • Louisville approved $30 million in bonds to help pay for a new Louisville City F.C. soccer stadium, in exchange for which the team will repay $14.5 million over 10 years, which comes to about $11 million in present value, so the city will only lose $19 million on the deal, unless there’s still plans for as much as $35 million in state property-tax kickbacks via a TIF, in which case this is really a $54 million subsidy for a minor-league soccer stadium. Maybe they should go with one of those modular dealies instead? Just a thought.
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Friday roundup: A’s pollution woes, Falcons roof woes, Hansen email woes, and more!

access_time personNeil deMause

Whole lot of news leftovers this week, so let’s get right to it:

  • It’s not certain yet how serious the environmental cleanup issues at the Oakland A’s proposed Peralta Community College stadium site are, but anytime you have the phrases “the amount of hazardous materials in the ground is unclear” and “two possible groundwater plumes impacted by carcinogens” in one article, that’s not a good sign. Meanwhile, local residents are concerned about gentrification and traffic and all the other things that local residents would be concerned about.
  • There’s another new poll in Calgary, and this time it’s Naheed Nenshi who’s leading Bill Smith by double digits, instead of the other way around. This poll’s methodology is even dodgier than the last one — it was of people who signed up for an online survey — so pretty much all we can say definitely at this point is no one knows. Though it does seem pretty clear from yet another poll that whoever Calgarians are voting for on Monday, it won’t be because of their position on a Flames arena.
  • The Atlanta Falcons‘ retractable roof won’t be retracting this season, and may even not be ready for the start of next season. These things are hard, man.
  • Nevada is preparing to sell $200 million in bonds (to be repaid by a state gas tax) to fund highway improvements for the new Las Vegas Raiders stadium, though Gov. Brian Sandoval says the state would have to make the improvements anyway. Eventually. But then he said, “I just don’t want us to do work that has to be undone,” so your guess is as good as mine here.
  • Pawtucket is preparing to scrape off future increases in property tax receipts for a 60- to 70-acre swath of downtown and hand them over to the Pawtucket Red Sox for a new stadium, an amount they expect to total at least $890,000 a year. Because downtown Pawtucket would never grow without a new baseball stadium, and there’s no chance of a shortfall that would cause Pawtucket to dip into its general fund, and nobody should think too hard about whether if minor-league baseball stadiums are really so great for development, this wouldn’t mean that property tax revenues should be expected to fall in the part of the city that the PawSox would be abandoning. Really, it’ll all be cool, man, you’ll see.
  • Somebody asked Tim Leiweke what he thinks of building a new stadium for the Tampa Bay Rays for some reason, and given that he’s a guy that is in the business of building new stadiums, it’s unsurprising that he thinks it’s a great idea. Though I am somewhat surprised that he employed the phrase “Every snowbird in Canada will want to watch the Toronto Blue Jays when they come and play,” given that having to depend on fans of road teams to fill the seats is already kind of a problem.
  • The study showing that spending $30 million in city money on a $30-million-or-so Louisville City F.C. stadium would pay off for the city turns out to have been funded by the soccer team, and city councilmembers are not happy. “There’s something there that someone doesn’t want us to find,” said councilmember Kevin Kramer. “I just don’t know what it is.” And College of the Holy Cross economics professor Victor Matheson chimed in, “I expect for-profit sports team owners to generate absurdly high economic estimate numbers in order to con gullible city council members into granting subsidies.” I don’t know where you could possibly be getting that idea, Victor!
  • Congress is considering a bill to eliminate the use of federally tax-exempt bonds for sports facilities, and … oh, wait, it’s the same bill that Cory Booker and James Lankford introduced back in June, and which hasn’t gotten a committee hearing yet in either the House or the Senate. It has four sponsors in the House, though, and two in the Senate, so only 263 more votes to go!
  • A Miami-Dade judge has dismissed a lawsuit charging that the sale of public land to David Beckham’s MLS franchise illegally evaded competitive bidding laws, then immediately suggested that the case will really be decided on appeal: “I found this to be an extremely challenging decision. Brighter minds than me will tell me whether I was right or wrong.” MLS maybe should be having backup plans for a different expansion franchise starting next season, just a thought.
  • The New York Times real estate section is doing what it does best, declaring the new Milwaukee Bucks arena to be “a pivotal point for a city that has struggled with a decline in industrial activity,” because cranes, dammit, okay? Maybe somebody should have called over to the Times sports section to fact-check this?
  • And last but not least, Chris Hansen is now saying that his SoDo arena plan missed a chance at reconsideration by the Seattle city council because the council’s emails requesting additional information got caught in his spam filter or something. If that’s not a sign that it’s time to knock off for the weekend, I don’t know what is.
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Louisville mayor wants to give $30m to minor-league soccer stadium that will cost maybe $30m

access_time personNeil deMause

Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer announced yesterday that he plans to sell $30 million of bonds to provide money for the city’s previously announced soccer stadium, and wait, what, Louisville announced public funding for a soccer stadium and I missed it? Well, look at that:

Mayor Greg Fischer announced Friday that the city wants to fork over $30 million to help local investors build a 10,000-seat stadium for the club in the Butchertown area…

“Soccer is a sport that is obviously attractive to everybody, but especially millennials and our international population as well,” Fischer said in his podcast Friday morning. “We want to compete for an MLS franchise at some point in time, and having a dedicated soccer stadium is required for that.”

The city money would go for land and infrastructure costs, not directly to construction (which will cost an estimated … actually, nobody seems to have estimated that yet, though previous estimates were in the $30-50 million range, and the overall development that would include the soccer stadium is projected at $200 million). And Louisville City FC, the USL team that will play there, will pay the city $14.5 million over 20 years in rent, which is a –6.5% return on investment.

There are oh so many questions here, as befits a plan that was announced via podcast:

  • Who’s going to pay maintenance and operating costs and cost overruns on this thing?
  • What does the Louisville Courier-Journal mean when it reports: “Leveraging the deal will involve the city applying for a mixed-use tax increment financing, or TIF district, with the state. If approved, Fischer’s office said the city will not commit any of its local property tax revenues to that TIF”? So it would just be redirected state tax money? Redirected from where, exactly? And seriously, nobody in Louisville has learned their lessons about the dangers of TIFs yet, despite the city pretty much being the poster child for the dangers of TIFs?
  • When Fischer says he wants to “compete for an MLS franchise,” does he realize that Louisville is one of the few cities in America that hasn’t yet applied for an MLS expansion franchise? Or is he just figuring he’ll get to jump the line once he has a shiny new stadium (maybe) or that MLS will eventually hand out enough teams that everybody who wants one will get one (even more likely).

On the one hand, $30 million for a soccer stadium complex is chicken feed when you have states coughing up $750 million for NFL stadiums. On the other, $30 million in subsidies for a minor-league (for now) soccer stadium that may only cost $30 million to build in the first place is kind of significant. Hopefully there are some Louisville city council hearings to come so we can learn more about this thing, or at least some more podcast episodes.

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Consultant reports that soccer stadium would lose around $40m, let’s go build one!

access_time personNeil deMause

With the race officially on to see which cities can land all the expansion franchises MLS is selling for $200 million a pop, Louisville welcomes to the world a study it commissioned on building a new stadium for Louisville City F.C., which currently plays in the USL but could join MLS as easily as anyone else, I guess. Anyway, the study was conducted by our old friends Convention, Sports & Leisure, the rent-a-consultants owned by the Dallas Cowboys and New York Yankees, and as usual, their recommendation is build build build:

In January, Louisville Metro Government paid Minnesota-based firm Conventions, Sport and Leisure International $75,000 to complete the study. The result calls for a 10,000-seat soccer-specific stadium to be built, primary for use Louisville City FC, by 2020…

CSL estimates a new stadium with its recommended specifications would cost between $30 million and $50 million, and the study assumed in its scenarios the city would fund the stadium through 20-year bonds to be repaid by private and public sources.

The funny bit is that unlike its usual handwavy economic studies, CSL at least gave a shot at doing a deeper dive into the numbers in this one, acknowledging that economic impact would be blunted by both leakage (money spent on soccer doesn’t recirculate locally if it goes to out-of-town owners and players) and what it calls “displacement,” better known as the substitution effect (entertainment dollars spent on soccer instead of on something else local isn’t a net gain) — though CSL doesn’t provide any details at all of how these were taken into account in its calculations. In any case, its cost-benefit analysis for the project is actually pretty dismal:

Screen Shot 2016-08-05 at 8.34.27 AMThat’s $2.7 million in new tax revenues over 20 years, which is an absolutely horrible return on a $30-50 million expense. Yet CSL still recommends that the public fund this money pit, on the grounds that — wait for it — it’s such a money pit that you can’t possibly expect any private businessperson to fund it:

The net income from operations will not be able to fund a material amount of stadium project costs, which is typical of most soccer-specific stadiums that have been built for teams in USL, NASL and other similar leagues. Historically, the development of soccer-specific stadiums has generally involved varying degrees of public-private partnerships.

The study then goes on to list a whole bunch of different ways to pay for a stadium on the public’s dime, including tax increment financing and EB-5 green-cards-for-investment deals and the Louisville general fund, because there’s no real way to build one of these things without dipping into that. Unless you might think about asking a team owner who’d be potentially plunking down $200 million for an MLS franchise to chip in another $50 million for a stadium — or for MLS to take only $150 million for the franchise so that the rest of the cash could go to build the stadium. You know, crazy talk.

Ultimately, when you hire someone like CSL to do a stadium study, you’re not getting an evaluation of whether building one is a good idea, so much as a long list of rationalizations for why it could be defensible, if you squint right. CSL got $75,000 for putting this together, which leads me to believe that I’m in the wrong line of work: I should charging cities a few grand to provide a link to this.

 

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