Welp, that’s another year in the books. In 2023 we saw the Baltimore Orioles and Ravens owners finalizing more than $600 million each in renovation subsidies, with the O’s on track to get hundreds of millions more in development subsidies; the Milwaukee Brewers pushing $435 million in renovation subsidies through the state legisltature; Nashville approving a record $1.26 billion subsidy for a new Tennessee Titans stadium; Alexandria, Virginia and St. Petersburg, Florida each proposing to break that record with new sports venues that could come with $1.5 billion public price tags for the Washington Capitals and Wizards and Tampa Bay Rays respectively; Kansas City Royals owner John Sherman kicking the tires on every possible location across two states to see who’s most likely to cough up tax dollars for a new stadium; the Chicago Bears owners kicking even more tires in even more places; Tempe, Arizona overwhelmingly voting down $500 million for a new Arizona Coyotes arena while Oklahoma City overwhelmingly voted in favor of $850 million for a new Thunder arena; and, of course, the Oakland A’s announcing their move to Las Vegas in exchange for $600 million in tax money, unless the Nevada teachers union wins its lawsuit or referendum or A’s owner John Fisher decides paying for even two-thirds of a stadium is too rich for his blood.
That’s not a great year, there, at least not if you were hoping that this site could celebrate its 25th anniversary with any signs of the great stadium swindle slowing down. Oh, we got to poke fun at Jeremy Aguero for being a lobbyist in economist’s clothing, but pointing and laughing gets unsatisfying after a while. Here’s hoping for a 2024 that involves delivering fewer sacks of tax money to billionaires, though I wouldn’t get your hopes up all that much. And hey, Field of Schemes supports dark mode now (click the little crescent moon at bottom right to try it out), and there’s a new set of fridge magnets for subscribers — sometimes you’ve just got to celebrate the one amazing victory but as often as not not.
Here’s a smattering of year-end news for everyone, thanks as always for reading and donating:
- Everyone was talking for a minute about that Associated Press article about how there’s lots of public money going into stadiums and arenas for private sports teams, but honestly it was kind of scattershot and not anything you didn’t already know if you regularly read this website, or honestly even if you read that first paragraph above. There are some nice enough quotes from economist Rob Baade (“It’s not as if the concrete is falling down and people are in grave danger if they attend a game”) and J.C. Bradbury (“When you ask economists should we fund sports stadiums, they can’t say ‘no’ fast enough”), but if you want to skip the entire thing, you have my permission.
- The British Columbia “crown corporation” (what they call quasi-public government agencies in Canada) that owns B.C. Place says it needs upgrades to host the 2026 men’s World Cup after getting $514 million in upgrades to host the women’s World Cup in 2015. No price tag yet, but the stadium owner warned that without renovations Vancouver “wouldn’t have been able to attract Taylor Swift” — hey, that’s Montreal’s line!
- It’s now been 25 days since the A’s owners canceled a planned reveal of new stadium designs on the grounds that two Nevada state troopers had been shot several days earlier, I’m sure it will no longer be too soon any year now.
- Indy Eleven‘s stadium is being built on a literal graveyard, this should go well.