What is the deal with these five-day workweeks? Why isn’t Juliet Schor president by now? Four days work for five days pay! Sorry, where was I? Oh, right, sports stadium scams siphoning off public money to rich dudes, same thing as every day, Pinky:
- Cleveland Guardians owner Paul Dolan has officially extended the team’s lease through 2036 as part of a deal to provide $285 million in public funding toward a $435 million renovation of their 28-year-old stadium, two months after the Cleveland city council approved the annual tax subsidies. (Dolan was probably looking for a pen that worked.) Cleveland and Cuyahoga County can extend the lease for another five years by agreeing to pay for another $112.5 million in upgrades; getting your city landlord to pay you to play is truly the wave of the future, or the present, or whatever we’re living in these days.
- Arizona Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo is reportedly in talks to play home games temporarily at Arizona State University’s new arena, which only holds 5,000 people, which, sure, cue up your favorite “that’s more fans than the Coyotes have anyway” jokes. “We would be glad to help the Coyotes by providing a temporary home while their new arena is built just a couple of miles away,” said ASU CFO Morgan Olsen, which is maybe getting the cart a little before the horse given that the current Tempe city council lost interest in providing $200 million toward an arena once Meruelo was revealed to have been failing to pay his city taxes in Glendale, managing to get his team evicted from there. Could the Coyotes’ saga end up with them stuck in a tiny temporary home for years while continuing to repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot over new arena plans? Probably not, but it would definitely be on-brand.
- Greenville Triumph owner Joe Erwin wants a new $38.6 million soccer stadium, and are offering to pay, let’s see, they’ll “donate land they already own in the area” and “plan to bring upwards of a million dollars of equipment over from [their] temporary pitch.” The owner of the USL League One club is selling the stadium as multipurpose, enthusing, “We can play lacrosse on that field, American football on that field, rugby on that field. Heck, we can play ultimate frisbee on the field.” In my experience, USL League One teams can barely play soccer, but it’s nice to have self-confidence.
- Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee says he’d be willing to talk about making a “significant investment” to host a Super Bowl in Nashville, and is “engaged in talks” about public funding for NASCAR, and thinks it would be “awesome” for and MLB team to come to Nashville but says that would take “partnerships.” He didn’t mention spending state sales tax money on Tennessee Titans stadium upgrades this time, but maybe that’d be part of the Super Bowl “investment”? Either way, move over, Glenn Youngkin, there’s a new contender for the crown of Governor Most Eager to Give Public Money to the Local Sports Team and/or Other Corporations.
- Buffalo’s Investigative Post looks at how a Buffalo Bills stadium could be made to help the community it’s built in, and lands on the idea of community benefits agreements, which can “ensure the public receives some return on its investment.” Or, you know, not, as is often the case, especially in New York state.
- The Tampa Bay Times is conducting a reader survey of where the Rays should build a new stadium and who should pay for it, which is going to be unscientific as hell — I just filled it out, in hopes that this would let me see the results so far, but no dice — but that’s modern journalism for you. At least team owner Stu Sternberg will be happy that the local paper is still flogging his new-stadium dreams, rather than moving on to some other news or issues that might also be able to use public money.