This was quite a week, bringing with it New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s proposal of $1 billion (at least) in public money for a Buffalo Bills stadium and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s proposal of $500 million (at least) in public money for a Tennessee Titans stadium and Kansas City Chiefs president Mark Donovan’s floating of a possible bidding war between Missouri and Kansas to give umpteen gazlllion dollars (at least) to his team for a new stadium. For readers who are visiting this site for the first time as a result, first of all, welcome, and second, this is our weekly rundown of all the other news that happened while we were goggling at the even bigger news. Please breathe deeply, and we shall begin:
- Speaking of that Bills stadium, it probably isn’t getting passed by today’s budget deadline, as legislators are still debating both that proposed expenditure and scaling back bail reform. State Assembly Republican Leader Will Barclay decried the “Democrats’ dysfunction [that] has resulted in little more than needless gridlock,” which, good work, criticizing members of the opposing party for actually wanting to discuss things before voting on them is definitely a way to reduce dysfunction.
- Also speaking of that Bills stadium, USA Today checked in with a couple more sports economists who weren’t part of Tuesday’s press conference, and got some choice quotes: Kennesaw State’s J.C. Bradbury said, “I think it just goes to show that policy decisions don’t seem to be tied to actual knowledge,” while University of San Francisco’s Nola Agha said, “It’s like saying the bakery down the street receives $100,000 a year from the city government, just so they can bake croissants every morning.” Add in Smith College’s Andy Zimbalist’s New York Daily News op-ed saying, “If the people of Erie County and New York State … believe that retaining the Bills will provide hefty economic benefits, then buyer beware,” and West Virginia University’s Brad Humphreys’ retweets, and it’s pretty much a clean sweep of every single economist who’s studied these things.
- And also also speaking of the Bills stadium, Hochul’s proposed memorandum of understanding is out, and it includes an item that the announced “ironclad” deal to keep the team in Buffalo for 30 years would actually allow the team owners to skip town for lower and lower penalties starting in year 15. They really don’t make iron cladding like they used to.
- Okay, moving on from the Bills: Arena developer Oak View Group says it wants to build a new $1 billion arena in Las Vegas that could host an NBA expansion team, because none of Vegas’ six other arenas could possibly be used for that. No public funding has been mentioned so far, so it’s possible this is just part of a land rush to grab prominence in the Vegas arena market; though given that another Vegas arena project announced its groundbreaking in 2014 and still hasn’t actually been built, it’s also possible this is just hot air.
- Despite the New Orleans Pelicans‘ lease on their 23-year-old arena expiring in 2024, definitely aren’t looking for a new arena until “the future,” says owner Gayle Benson, adding, “I don’t want anyone to think we’re using that as any type of leverage over the state of Louisiana.” She definitely doesn’t want state legislators thinking that, who would do a thing like that?
- Cincinnati USA Convention and Visitors Bureau chair Jeff Berding says, “It’s time we have a modern arena in Cincinnati.” Berding is also co-CEO of F.C. Cincinnati, who already got a giant pile of public money for their own new stadium, maybe it’s not such a big mystery why these things keep happening.
- Wait, Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melnyk died? Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melnyk died! Now it will be up to his college-age daughters, Anna and Olivia Melnyk, our sympathies to them, to decide whether to carry forward with his never-ending arena subsidy demands, our sympathies to them on that as well.
- A Virginia state senator told WUSA-TV anonymously that legislation to spend as much as a billion dollars on a Washington Commanders stadium is moving slowly because “public reaction to this project has been underwhelming” and “the team lacks gravity,” and mostly it makes me wonder what about the Virginia legislature requires members to demand anonymity so they can “speak freely.” Anyway, team owner/accused toxic workplace enabler Dan Snyder has turned over direct control of the team to his wife, Tanya Snyder, that should take care of everything.
- The Toronto Blue Jays are moving ahead with a “significant renovation” of the SkyDome or whatever it’s called these days, promising to “modernize the fan experience.” No public money request was attached to the announcement, or price tag on the renovations at all, but team president Mark Shapiro did say that the renovations are “probably for the next 10 or 15 years but we’ll probably still have a stadium issue,” so this ain’t over by any means.
- A Nebraska bill would increase the amount on sales tax kickbacks to the state’s arenas and convention centers because, and I swear this is not an April Fools joke, they have hosted such important economic and cultural events as “a recent concert by the legendary Elton John, the U.S. Olympic Swim Trials and the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meetings.” No economists were consulted by the Omaha World-Herald for this story, though it’s always possible they were laughing too hard to comment coherently.