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For everyone else reading this via any and all communications media, here’s what all has been happening in stadium and arena news this week:
- Plans by Tennessee Titans owners the Adams family to demand $300 million in state sales-tax kickbacks to help fund a $600 million renovation of their 23-year-old stadium have hit a snag, which is that the projected cost is now expected to be nearly double that — thanks to things like “antiquated” windows and a concrete structural frame that “needs” to be replaced with steel, people sure didn’t know how to build things to last in 1999! Since the Titans have a dread state-of-the-art clause in their lease requiring the city of Nashville to keep the stadium in the same condition as other NFL facilities, which presumably includes the latest in window technology, Mayor John Cooper says he plans to “closely review whether a new stadium would be a better long-term financial decision.” Since the Titans’ lease expires in 2028, Cooper might also want to closely review whether a better financial decision would be to just inform the Adamses that if they want to stay in town they will not be offered a promise of continual publicly funded upgrades, but Axios Nashville, which reported this “scoop” (you can tell because it says “Scoop” right in the headline), doesn’t seem to have bothered to ask about that, guess “local coverage worthy of readers’ time” doesn’t include followup questions!
- The Oakland city council voted 6-2 to approve the final environmental impact report for a new Oakland A’s stadium at Howard Terminal, after a meeting that included construction workers demanding approval so that they can be hired to help build the thing. This isn’t actually the final vote that everyone is waiting on — that would be the final financing plan, which could cost taxpayers a billion dollars and still has about a half-billion-dollar hole in where the money would be raised, and which will be voted on someday, eventually.
- The Arizona Coyotes are officially moving for at least the next three years to Arizona State University’s new 5,000-seat arena (which looks like this currently, if you were wondering), but team CEO Xavier Gutierrez says he doesn’t expect a “material financial impact” because of “how difficult our current situation has been financially.” Yes, the Coyotes have been losing money, largely thanks to nobody showing up to games, but it’s hard to see how spending $20 million on new NHL-only locker rooms won’t have at least a $20 million financial impact, you know?
- The new owners of the USL’s Austin Bold F.C. are considering a move to Fort Worth now that Austin has its own MLS team, and are eyeing the construction of a 10,000-seat stadium to make it happen. The city would “support” construction of the stadium, and no total or public price tag has been provided, so in the meantime let’s just gaze upon this rendering and wonder what’s going on with that poorly synchronized flag display on the field, let alone why one entire end of the grandstand wouldn’t have a view of the game:
- We already covered at the time the sad story of how the city of Anaheim responded to the 2018 expiration of Los Angeles Angels owner Arte Moreno’s lease opt-out clause by just handing him a lease extension with a new opt-out clause that allowed him to continue his stadium subsidy demands, but if you want a longer recap in full gruesome detail, the Orange County Register has that for you.
- Glendale, Arizona city manager Kevin Phelps is “very upset” that baseball spring training is being delayed by MLB owners’ lockout of players in a labor contract dispute, since he was counting on a stream of tourists to boost the local economy. Don’t worry, Kevin, spring training visitors don’t seem to provide any measurable economic boost anyway, so … yay?
- Buffalo News columnist Rod Watson says New York state and local elected officials are being held “hostage” by Bills team owners and succumbing to “Stockholm syndrome” because they … aren’t insisting on building a new publicly funded stadium in Buffalo instead of in the suburbs. Keep on speaking truth to power, Buffalo News.
