Category: Las Vegas arenas (all 572 of them)

Friday roundup: A’s looking to Texas as stadium model, Wild want more TIF money for arena,

access_time personNeil deMause

I hope everyone who celebrated yesterday had a good holiday and gave thanks to those we owe gratitude to. We now return to our regularly scheduled hellscape.

  • Oakland A’s execs are reportedly looking to the Texas Rangers‘ Globe Life Field as a model for their Las Vegas stadium, which is raising anew questions about how to fit a retractable-roofed stadium on a nine-acre site. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that the Rangers stadium “sits on 13 acres,” but sports economist J.C. Bradbury points out that it’s really 18 acres once you count the space needed to open the roof. Globe Life Field is also pretty much universally reviled as butt-ugly, with sportswriter Jeff Passan saying after it opened during the 2020 COVID postseason that it “looks like what would happen if a Costco and a barn had a baby,” but I guess it’ll be too hot in Las Vegas for anyone to spend much time looking at the outside of it anyway, and people inside will be too distracted by watching the butt-ugly A’s baseball, so maybe this will work out just fine!
  • Minnesota Wild owner Craig Leipold is reportedly kicking the tires on public subsidies for upgrades to his 25-year-old arena, though no specific numbers have been revealed. Leipold has hired a former state official, Jim Schowalter, as a state lobbyist on “capital bonding” and “sports facilities,” and St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter says, “We are committed to working with the Wild to envision and ensure the arena’s long-term success,” so I think we can all tell which direction this is heading. St. Paul already got approval to extend its tax increment financing district until 2023, which could provide another ten years of tax kickbacks to funnel toward buying Leipold a glass wall or whatever it is he wants on top of the reduced rent he negotiated back in 2019.
  • As if having three possible stadium sites in Kansas City and North Kansas City isn’t enough, Jackson County legislator Manny Abarca is now warning that the Royals could move across the state line to Kansas, and take the Chiefs with them, if they don’t get a pile of public cash in Missouri. “We have heard from direct sources that there are serious considerations for a move to the Kansas side,” says Abarca, and … sorry, what are “direct sources,” exactly? Does that just mean people he talked to directly, not things he heard secondhand? Wouldn’t secondhand news still be from a “direct source,” since someone would have to tell him about it directly even if they heard it from someone else? I also want to ask whether Royals and Chiefs fans would really rather spend over $1 billion in tax money on stadiums just to avoid having to cross state lines to see games, but we may never get to that if we’re too busy with this direct source business.
  • The $4 billion Las Vegas arena proposed by Jackie Robinson (not that one) way back in 2013 may finally be almost dead, with Clark County sticking to a November 30 deadline for Robinson to show he actually has $4 billion. This will leave Vegas with only 87 arenas (approx.), one hopes it isn’t too much of a blow to the local economy.
  • And finally, one last Vegas note: The A’s should stay in Oakland, according to actor Paul Giamatti, the son of former MLB commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti — wait, that guy is the son of that guy? How did I not know this, or did I know it and then somehow forget it? I need to go think about this, enjoy your weekend and see you Monday!
Share this post:

Friday roundup: Philly paper mysteriously pulls article about 76ers arena being called human-rights violation

access_time personNeil deMause

So this was originally going to be a minor bullet point in the Friday roundup: An international human rights organization called The Shift had declared the Philadelphia 76ers‘ arena plans to be “inconsistent with international human rights law” and called on team owner Josh Harris to work with Chinatown residents to “help realize, rather than interfere with, that community’s human rights.” Okay, sure, international human rights law is a bit of an odd legal footing to appeal to, but if anybody’s authorized to do so it’s an international human rights organization, so that’s worth a small note.

Until this happened:

That’s right: Click on the original link on the Inquirer site and it 404s, though the article still shows up in the Inquirer’s own search results. (I had previously saved the article to Instapaper, and you can find a PDF of that here.) Debbie Wei of Asian Americans United, one of the Philadelphia groups strongly opposed to the arena, says she believes the article was taken down at the request of “the billionaires,” but I haven’t been able to get any more details yet from her.

It’s extraordinarily unusual for a news outlet to outright pull a story without even an editorial note stating why it was removed. It actually goes against most journalism ethics policies, which is that stories should be corrected, but not outright deleted. (The Inquirer does have a committee to de-index older stories that may be unintentionally harmful, but even then the stories remain searchable on the Inquirer site, just not on search engines like Google.)

The whole thing is, frankly, bizarre, doubly so since the original article was fairly tame, with the statements from The Shift countered by statements from team spokesperson Nicole Gainor that The Shift’s letter “isn’t based on a clear understanding of how we are thoughtfully approaching this project.” I’ve reached out to the Inquirer for comment, but haven’t heard back yet; if I get any more information today, I’ll post an update here.

UPDATE: Just got this emailed statement from Gabriel Escobar, Inquirer editor and senior vice president: “The article that briefly appeared Thursday on Inquirer.com, in hindsight, required more context and more reporting. For those reasons, we decided to take it down while continuing to pursue the story.”

Meanwhile, on with the rest of the news:

  • The new Forbes NFL team value estimates came out this week, and there have been lots of headlines about how the Tennessee Titans‘ value jumped 26% after getting their new $1.2 billion stadium subsidy. Which, yes, it’s an indication of how stadiums let the rich get richer on the public dime, but some grains of salt do apply: The Forbes team value estimates are very handwavy and much less reliable than their team revenue estimates (which generally check out), and the average NFL team rose an estimated 14% in value next year, so it’s tough to say exactly how much more the Titans are worth now. If anything, it’s notable that even according to Forbes, the Titans only appreciated in value by $420 million more than they would have without the $1.2 billion handout, which implies that Nashville and team owner Amy Adams Strunk both would have been better off if the city had, say, written a half-billion-dollar check to Strunk and let them keep playing in their old stadium.
  • Add the Bronx Council for Environmental Quality to the list of Bronx groups who really hate Mayor Eric Adams’ idea to build a temporary cricket stadium atop public cricket fields in a public park to host the T20 Cricket World Cup: In a Bronx Times op-ed, the BCEQ wrote that it could take two years for the parkland to be fully restored, and “You can add the NYC/ICC proposal to the growing number of ‘mega-events’ that, according to sports economists, drive wedges between localities and global brand-building strategies and fail to deliver promised economic benefits.” At press time, the Bronx Times had not pulled the op-ed.
  • Just when you thought illegal helicopter registration was going to be the weirdest thing about the now-defunct Los Angeles Angels stadium land sale fiasco, now comes the news that the city of Anaheim can’t find the email where an Angels consultant laid out how Mayor Harry Sidhu and city council members were expected to rubber-stamp the deal, even though the FBI already has a copy. Please consider kicking the nonprofit Voice of OC some cash for keeping on top of these things, if only for the LOLAngels value.
  • The insane Jackie Robinson (not that one) Las Vegas arena for no tenant at all is maybe finally dead, after it blew past a county deadline on Wednesday. That only took, let’s see, ten years? Andy Warhol said you get 15 minutes, man, and you already played seven years in the NBA, quit hogging all the attention already.
  • The Las Vegas Raiders stadium has a leak in its roof, time to build a new one.
  • I forgot to link to the KSHB-TV story last week that interviewed me about the Kansas City Royals stadium situation (sample sound bite: “For this to create the kind of new spending that the Royals are claiming, it would be the first time in sports history that occurred”), but you can still check it out here, along with my living room wall art. (Diego Rivera and Jon Langford, if anyone’s curious.)
  • Finally, thanks to everyone who signed up as a Field of Schemes subscriber to get the brand new set of 25th anniversary fridge magnets! (Or, you know, to support the work this site has been doing for 25 damn years now. But I know it’s mostly the magnets.) If you want to get in on the swag, or just encourage me to spend more time on this apparently never-ending mission, sign up now!
Share this post:

Friday roundup: Coyotes suing Phoenix over arena suit, Bills agree to CBA with no oversight, and other adventures in fine print

access_time personNeil deMause

Lots going on this week, so let’s get right to it:

Share this post:

Friday roundup: Bengals naming rights deal called “(XXX)” and other titillating stadium commentary

access_time personNeil deMause

Well, that was certainly another week. Thanks to all who engaged in the spirited comment debates about Garth Brooks an Andy Zimbalist and other celebrity stadium experts, and thanks also to all who responded to my latest fundraising appeal — I look forward to a productive weekend of mailing out Cab-Hailing Lady art prints.

But first, we have more news for the roundup to round up:

Share this post:

Friday roundup: Reds exec says team will only demand renovation money, threatens to move if fans ask for better players

access_time personNeil deMause

This has officially been the longest week ever. Scientists agree! And so does the news:

Share this post:

Friday roundup: Tempe floats $70m subsidy for Coyotes arena, California may have created an A’s slush fund, plus fresh vaportecture!

access_time personNeil deMause

It wouldn’t be a look back at this week without some more Oakland A’s news, but there’s lots of other news as well, including a brand-new subsidy scheme for one of sports’ most long-running arena sagas, so let’s get cracking:

  • It’s been, jeez, four years since there was last talk of the Arizona Coyotes owner seeking a new arena in Tempe — so long ago that the Coyotes have been sold twice since then, from Anthony LeBlanc to Andrew Barroway to Alex Meruelo. At the time, Arizona State University had just pulled out of a plan to go in on building a new arena with the help of state sales tax kickbacks, but now there’s a new scheme afoot: Meruelo and the city have been discussing a plan where Tempe would provide public land and $70 million in cash for an arena-based development at the northeast corner of Priest Drive and Rio Salado Parkway, which has now advanced to the request for proposals stage. A team spokesperson told the Phoenix Business Journal that “the Coyotes are highly interested in this development opportunity and will be responding to the City of Tempe’s request for proposal”; the city report on this that the PBJ (great acronym) links to goes to a 404 page, so more research will be needed into exactly what Tempe is offering here, but it’s definitely more than cheesy bread.
  • And speaking of the Oakland A’s and the city of Oakland’s plan to find somebody else to pay for the $352 million in roads and overpasses to let fans get to team owner John Fisher’s proposed stadium site, Politico found a potential sucker this week: California Gov. Gavin Newsom, it turns out, quietly approved $279.5 million in last month’s state budget for the Port of Oakland to use for “improvements that facilitate enhanced freight and passenger access and to promote the efficient and safe movement of goods and people,” something A’s president Dave Kaval called “pretty similar to what our project is.” With both the port’s director and Oakland officials indicating that state and federal dollars are how they intend to pay for a large chunk of Fisher’s subsidy ask, this seems a very likely slush fund — it’s kind of weird that it didn’t come up in Tuesday’s council hearing, but maybe nobody on the Oakland council reads Politico.
  • And speaking of Fisher, don’t miss this great feature by SF Gate’s Alex Coffey on his legacy as a billionaire family business scion, including being asked by his dad, Gap founder Don Fisher, to manage the family’s investments and replying that “I don’t wanna know anything about the investment business” and “I want to build businesses or build shopping centers or whatever it may be,” then when he finally did end up running it anyway led his family into investing in timber clearcutting, which resulted in massive public protests against Gap and his dad bemoaning how badly they’d “underestimated the kind of public scrutiny we would have with this investment.” Failson stories are the best stories.
  • After MLS announced plans to set up its own B league to compete with the USL, the USL has now struck back with plans to break loose from MLS, potentially switching to a European fall-through-spring schedule with promotion and relegation between its two tiers. This is bound to lead to an endless flamewar between pro/rel advocates and MLS defenders, which will be of great interest to soccer fans and nobody else, but more important: Now that there are effectively two competing soccer leagues in the U.S., each with their own massive expansion plans, cities would be absolutely insane to offer any stadium subsidies just to land a pro soccer team, since every municipality of any size is going to get one now regardless. Are you listening, cities? No? SHOULD I TYPE LOUDER?
  • Former UNLV basketball player Jackie Robinson is still missing $3 billion for his plan to build a $3 billion arena development in Las Vegas — actually the price tag has now apparently risen to $4 billion, and he says he has “bonds and investors” lined up, which isn’t the same as actually having $4 billion — but he does have a bunch of renderings, including one of what looks to be a basketball team implementing a full-court press under an open skylight with 15 minutes to go in the third quarter. I don’t know of any pro basketball leagues that play 60-minute games, but maybe Robinson plans to start one, which frankly would be one of the less crazy parts of this plan.
  • Atlanta is moving forward with plans for a $5 billion redevelopment of an area of parking lots and rail lines near the Falcons‘ stadium, and unlike that project, which received $700 million in public money, this one would only get, uh, $1.9 billion in tax kickbacks. Sports subsidies get all the headlines, especially on this site, but it’s worth the occasional reminder that plenty of other people are getting rich off the public purse as well.
  • If you need a reminder of the outsized power of wealthy sports team owners, give a read to this story of how former Arizona attorney general Grant Woods tweeted of the league-worst-record Arizona Diamondbacks that owner Ken Kendrick “needs to sell the team to someone who cares,” only to have Kendrick send an email calling him an “arrogant asshole” and threatening that Woods “should expect a very unfortunate outcome” if they were ever to meet. Kendrick cc’ed Woods’ law firm, which also represents the Diamondbacks, and they immediately fired Woods for “disparaging one of the firm’s most valued clients.” I sincerely hope this leads to an update of Kendrick’s Better Hate an Owner entry at Defector.
  • It’s “important that we all agree to end stadium proposals.” Seconded!
Share this post:

Friday roundup: Dolan vows price hikes if he loses MSG tax break, Palm Desert arena builder says city wants “handout,” and other sports owners doing the craziest things

access_time personNeil deMause

There’s a construction crew with jackhammers outside my window digging up the exact same patch of sidewalk they spent most of last year digging up, so if you think you’re getting a clever Friday roundup intro this week, you’ve got another think coming.

  • New York Knicks and Rangers owner James Dolan has warned that if whoever gets elected as New York’s new mayor this year repeals his teams’ $50-million-a-year property tax exemption for Madison Square Garden — something that isn’t actually in the mayor’s power, since it’s a state tax break, but anyway — he may have to raise ticket prices in response. This implies that Dolan is currently charging less for tickets than the market will bear out of gratitude for having some tax-break money rattling around in his pockets, which doesn’t sound like how a billionaire failson operates; the alternatives would either be that Dolan is bluffing, or that he’s so dumb that he would raise ticket prices to the point where it would lose him money out of misguided spite, either of which seems very James Dolan.
  • Officials in Palm Desert, California, say that before approving Tim Leiweke’s proposed minor-league hockey arena, they want to know who’ll pay for an estimated $5 million a year in added police and fire costs; Leiweke fired back that Palm Desert “just wants a handout and we’re not going to do that,” earning himself a dictionary entry next to this entry.
  • Major league stadium subsidy demands may have slowed somewhat during the pandemic, but minor-league schemes are making up for lost time, especially in baseball following MLB’s takeover and planned shrinkage move. Look, here’s Ryan Moore, the GM of the Myrtle Beach Pelicans, declaring that without $15 million in upgrade money, his team’s stadium “won’t last another 20 years as it stands.” When was it built? 1999. Moore didn’t specify whether the building was on borrowed time because it was mistakenly built out of papier-mâché or because if it’s not renovated, he would personally blow it up.
  • Of course, here’s a Columbus Dispatch article that calls the Columbus Crew stadium built in 1999 “historic,” so maybe time is just compressed right now, probably due to time dilation from a passing black hole.
  • The Clark County Commission has approved former UNLV basketball player Jackie Robinson’s plans to build a $3 billion sports arena complex on the Las Vegas Strip, despite Vegas already having more arenas than it can shake a stick at. Now all Robinson needs is $3 billion, and he’s all set!
  • I’m still waiting for an oral history of the collapse of the European Super League, but until then we’ll have to settle for the New York Times’ blow-by-blow, which features among other things Juventus president Andrea Agnelli repeatedly promising the head of UEFA that he was about to issue a statement condemning any breakaway attempt, then shutting off his phone, which is absolutely the image we should all take away from this fiasco.
  • New Charlotte F.C. stadium renovation renderings! Unfortunately, they’re pretty dull, though there’s some fairly odd mise en scène going on. Like, what’s up with this woman waiting at a stadium bar by contorting her limbs into as pretzely a shape as she can manage?
    And then there’s this father and child, or possibly kidnapper and attempted victim?
    Either way, the city of Charlotte is clearly getting a whole lot of new places for bros to buy beer for its $25 million in funding for this project, so that’s definitely money well spent.
Share this post:

Friday roundup: How to tell a dump of a stadium from a marvel, and why “stupid infrastructure” should become a term of art

access_time personNeil deMause

I have nothing introductory to say this week other than that I’m wondering if you kind FoS supporters would give me $2 million in 24 hours if I made more robots out of lacrosse masks. So on to the news:

Share this post:

Friday roundup: 49ers stadium squabble, Richmond nixes arena plan (for now), Mets’ $55m taxpayer-funded sofas off-limits to mere minor-leaguers because “status”

access_time personNeil deMause

A glacier in Antarctica just lost a chunk of ice bigger than Seattle twice the size of Washington, D.C. nearly the size of Atlanta almost as big as Las Vegas a third the size of Dublin, maybe it’s time to quit driving an SUV? Or maybe it’s just time to focus on some more human-scale disasters that involve small groups of people enriching themselves to the detriment of humanity:

Share this post: