Category: Denver Summit FC

Friday roundup: Denver mayor says he’ll fight to the death to give George Lucas’s wife $170m for a soccer stadium

access_time personNeil deMause

I had a birthday this week, and nothing says “Yes, you’ve been writing this blog since you were 32 years old and you’re apparently going to have to keep at it well into old age, you got a problem with that?” than becoming a Field of Schemes supporter! There are both one-time and recurring payment options, many of which give you the chance to get one of just ten remaining copies of this Vaportecture art print before they’re gone forever, so act now!

Or just keep on reading and commenting, honestly, that at least makes me feel like this entire project has been worth something, even if the central problem it has detailed shows no sign of slowing down. I remain inspired by the Straight Dope‘s tagline “Fighting Ignorance Since 1973 (It’s Taking Longer Than We Thought),” though the fact that the Straight Dope stopped publishing in 2018 without declaring victory over ignorance is sobering, admittedly.

Anyway, onward!

  • Denver Mayor Mike Johnston has heard the NWSL expansion Denver Summit owners’ threat to pursue a “parallel path” in unspecified neighboring cities at the same time as trying to win over a city council not crazy about handing them maybe $170 million in cash and tax breaks, and he knows just how to respond: by offering to do whatever it takes to get Summit co-owner (and Broncos co-owner, and wife of billionaire George Lucas) Mellody Hobson to build in his city. “Over my dead body will I let the Broncos stadium leave Denver,” said Johnston on Wednesday. “Over my dead body am I going to let the Summit stadium leave Denver. We want that site to be here.” Noooooo, that’s not at all how you haggle, you’re doing it all wrong! It remains to be seen whether the Denver city council will take up Johnston on his “dead body” offer.
  • Residents of Kansas’s Johnson County are “seething” over the possibility of the Kansas City Royals building a stadium there, according to the Kansas City Star, though the Star also reports that a poll found 53% of residents support the idea and 40% oppose it. But also 40% of respondents said the Royals should stay put at Kauffman Stadium vs. 26% who wanted them to move to Kansas, a good seethe is so hard to find these days.
  • How did New York Mets owner Steve Cohen take his plans to build a casino next to his stadium from distant longshot to likely winner? One part, two local anti-casino activists write in the New York Daily News, involved hiring two community board members (one now the councilmember-elect for the district) as consultants, while also holding fundraisers for the local state assemblymember. The main reason for Cohen’s success may still be that the state senator who was his main opponent also turned out to be the most disliked person in Albany, but throwing money around to local officials couldn’t have hurt, either.
  • Buffalo Bills fans appear to have given up and bought the hated personal seat licenses required to get tickets at the new publicly funded stadium scheduled to open next year, with nearly 90% of the PSLs reportedly having sold. All of the $250 million in proceeds so far will go toward paying Bills owner and superyacht captain Terry Pegula’s $1 billion in stadium expenses, none of it toward paying New York state and Erie County taxpayers’ $1 billion in stadium expenses, because standard business practice something something.
  • It’s still not clear where Athletics owner John Fisher will find the $1.4 billion he needs to build an entire ballpark in Las Vegas, but he’s certainly building something: Construction crews started pouring concrete for the lower deck this week. There’s been no word when he’ll hit the $100 million spending mark that will allow him to access $380 million in public money, let alone what he’ll do once that money runs out as well, but if nothing else Fisher is committing to the bit.
  • The owners of Sacramento Republic F.C. have only just started building their new soccer stadium, and they’re already seeking permission to expand it from 12,000 to 20,000 seats, just in case they ever want to.
  • Asked how new Tampa Bay Rays owner Patrick Zalupski is doing at coming up with plans for a new stadium, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred somehow managed to say, “With respect to the go-forward issue, Patrick and his group are hard at work getting the lay of the land in the Tampa Bay region to find out what their options are.” Language is always evolving, and Manfred is truly an inspiration in breaking new ground about where it will go in the future, or as he would say, the go-forward time.
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Denver NWSL owners threaten to move expansion team before it’s even started play after council delays stadium approval

access_time personNeil deMause

Back in May, the Denver city council voted 11-1 to approve spending $70 million for land and infrastructure for a new stadium for a new NWSL team — at the time unnamed, since dubbed the Denver Summit — with one catch: The council would need to re-vote on it in the fall. “It’s a dicey time,” said councilmember Paul Kashmann. “We may find things ease up over the next six months, or it may be doom and gloom — and we will have to make some very dire decisions.”

Six months later, Denver’s budget is fairly doomy and gloomy, and that was enough to cause the council last week to put off votes on four of the five stadium measures it’s considering. Council president Amanda Sandoval specifically pointed to such items as a possible pedestrian bridge to the stadium — sports team owners sure do love asking for pedestrian bridges — that currently has no set price tag, and is to be paid for by maybe asking the state for money or using local property tax funds or something, we’ll get back to you on that:

“How does that work if we don’t have the funding right now? Like, when does that come into play?” Council president [Amanda] Sandoval asked regarding the potential pedestrian bridge. “I’m just concerned that, like, we’re taking the cart before the horse.”

There was also this exchange between Sandoval and the team’s lawyer:

“The core agreement was in all of the documents that were sent to all council members last week,” said Andrea Austin of Greenberg Traurig, outside counsel for the group working on the development of the Summit’s stadium.

“Yeah, and parts of them are blank,” said Sandoval.

“Parts of the exhibit. The agreement itself is not blank,” Austin said.

“No, I want to see the funding, like the money is not here,” Sandoval said.

“The money is all in the funding agreement. What is not there are the specific allocations of how that is spent,” Austin said.

In fact, the proposed stadium project could be significantly worse for Denver than $70 million plus ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ for a pedestrian bridge. As covered here back in May, the council is also considering exempting the stadium land from property taxes, plus kicking back property taxes on the stadium itself and other nearby development — a subsidy that University of Colorado Denver sports economist Geoffrey Propheter at the time estimated would cost the public “definitely less than $300 million but definitely more than $175 million.” The Denver Urban Renewal Authority has since projected the TIF cost as $158 million through 2042, which would be more like $100 million in present value — even if that lower estimate is correct, city cash and tax breaks would end up covering the bulk of the team owners’ proposed $200 million stadium cost.

The team’s owners, who include Mellody Hobson, wife of billionaire filmmaker George Lucas, have naturally enough responded that if they have to go through a whole legislative process before cashing $170 million or more in taxpayer checks, maybe they’ll just take their soccer balls and go, you know, somewhere:

“Denver Summit FC ownership is committed to fulfilling our obligations to the league, our fans, our athletes and the community. That means we need to deliver a purpose-built stadium for women’s professional soccer – on time, ready for play in March of 2028. We have been planning for a permanent stadium at Santa Fe Yards in Denver’s urban core. Given the challenges we have faced in the Denver City Council process, we are currently pursuing a parallel path regarding the stadium site and engaging with other jurisdictions outside Denver. We will continue to engage in an open and honest dialogue with the Mayor, City Council and Community in Denver.”

The Summit are currently scheduled to start play in 2026 at the Broncos‘ stadium, so “need to deliver a purpose-built stadium” refers only to the team owners’ promise to the league that they’d get their own 14,500-seat stadium eventually. This seems like it shouldn’t really be Denver’s problem — “We should not be rushing a spending decision of this level because of agreements between private parties,” remarked councilmember Sarah Parady — but arbitrary deadlines and unspecified move threats are part of the standard stadium playbook, you just have to expect them and move on. The council has meetings all this week; it’ll be interesting to see if and how Sandoval and other members respond.

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How Denver’s $70m expense for an NWSL stadium could turn into $200m+ in tax money

access_time personNeil deMause

The Denver city council voted 11-1 yesterday to approve spending $70 million on land for a stadium for an NWSL women’s soccer team … sort of. The land purchase will move forward, but the stadium itself will face several additional votes in the fall after the council gets more details about the plans and about whether the economy has gone in the crapper by then:

“It’s a dicey time,” said Councilman Paul Kashmann, who voted yes. “We may find things ease up over the next six months, or it may be doom and gloom — and we will have to make some very dire decisions.”…

“We’d be investing in a large parcel that we wouldn’t otherwise be buying just to assist a private ownership group to have a place to build a private stadium,” said Councilwoman Sarah Parady, who voted no.

But this is really — stop me if you’ve heard this one before — a significantly pricier subsidy once you get into hidden tax breaks: a full property tax exemption on the stadium land, a TIF that would potentially kick back property taxes on the stadium itself to pay for the team’s costs, plus whatever tax money the TIF would divert from any surrounding development. University of Colorado Denver sports economist Geoffrey Propheter estimates the total public cost as “definitely less than $300 million but definitely more than $175 million,” which could end up covering the entirety of the as-yet-unnamed team owners’ $200 million cost of building the stadium, if you want to look at it that way. (The team is unnamed, that is, not the owners; the owners are very much named, as is the billionaire husband of one of them.)

So this is definitely something that Denver councilmembers might want more details on, yes. In the meantime, we’re left with just the vague shape of a stadium plan, plus vaportecture featuring a weirdly asymmetrical roof canopy and what appears to be a game underway between two seven-player teams wearing the same color kits. It’s a dicey time for everyone, renderers included.

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Let’s analyze that Colorado Sun article on Denver’s reluctance to copy KC’s women’s soccer “development boom”

access_time personNeil deMause

Probably the most important role that the media have to play in society is framing. Human beings are predisposed to understand the world in terms of stories, and storytelling is what news reports do: boil down a giant pile of facts and events and quotes and opinions into a coherent narrative, so that readers gain an understanding from it. Even things that might seem like they’re not stories — charts, listicles — really are, because they select which facts to bring to the fore and how to present them. One of the biggest challenges of journalism is deciding how to tell a story that’s both engaging and accurate.

Which brings us to today’s Colorado Sun headline and subhead:

Kansas City’s women’s sports stadium hit big. Can Denver’s National Women’s Soccer League home go bigger?
CPKC Stadium, America’s first women’s sports venue, has broken ticket records and launched a development boom in KC. Denver’s City Council isn’t sold on helping to fund a sequel.

That is very much a story right there, well summed up: Kansas City’s women’s soccer stadium has been a success; will Denver follow suit or decline to fund one? Our job not just as readers but as media critics is to determine: Does this article provide evidence to support this framing, or is it trying to sell a story that somebody else wants it to tell?

Some selected snippets:

Even with the team on the West Coast late on a Saturday night in April, 60 fans gathered at Friction Beer Co. to watch the women from KC take on the San Diego Waves.

“It’s 11 p.m. here in KC and there’s still a full bar watching the game,” said Monica Bradley, who was rocking the Current’s signature teal kit. She attended the stadium’s inaugural game last year.

That’s all well and good, but 60 fans going to a sports bar to watch a road game does not in itself a development boom make — if the Current didn’t exist, those same fans might be (and according to virtually all economic studies trying to measure spending impact of sports teams, would be) at the bar watching some other sport, or spending their money elsewhere. And in any event, even if “here’s a full sports bar, you can see it with your own eyes!” is a dramatic image, 60 people is a tiny drop in the bucket in an economy the size of Kansas City’s.

NWSL Denver is breaking records as it prepares for its 2026 debut. The owners paid a $110 million franchise fee, the highest in NWSL in history.

On April 7, the team surpassed 10,000 season ticket deposits, the most in NWSL history.

The narrative takes kind of a weird turn here, as NWSL Denver‘s owners paying a league-record franchise fee and having a ton of season ticket deposits is seemingly presented as reasons Denver should spend $70 million on land and infrastructure for a new stadium. As opposed to, say, reasons why owners Rob Cohen (not a billionaire) and Mellody Hobson (not a billionaire, but her husband George Lucas is) could afford to build a stadium without government aid.

Many paragraphs later, the Kansas City Current stadium is revealed to be “privately financed” (it actually got $6 million in state tax credits), but only because that team’s owners “did not need to invest in the amount of new infrastructure that [Denver’s] Santa Fe Yards will require.” (Only $20 million of the public’s $70 million is slated for cleanup; the rest is for buying the land, something the Current owners did out of their own pocket.)

The public-funding request pales in comparison to the public portion of the $168 million used to build Coors Field, which opened in 1995, and the $400 million spent on Empower Field at Mile High, which opened in 2001.

True, though also the soccer stadium would only have 14,500 seats while those other two are each over 50,000, so you’d expect it to be cheaper.

Cohen said Denver was awarded a team over other cities because of its promise of a stadium, and that the franchise is dependent on it….

No matter the economic situation or the cost, Cohen says, Denver NWSL players will get their own pitch.

“I can unequivocally tell you we won’t abandon this project because it’s important to our core values of what we’re trying to do, it’s important to what we believe and we made a commitment,” Cohen said.

So the arrival of the team is dependent on public funding for a new stadium, or isn’t? Or is this just “We will get this $70 million in taxpayer money by hook or by crook?” Narrative is getting muddy here.

Every major men’s sports franchise in Colorado has its own stadium.

Dear readers, I present to you the Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche.

Two of the Current’s owners, Chris and Angie Long, purchased 19.3 acres of the 78.6 acre riverfront from PortKC to create an entertainment district and build 1,000 apartments over 10 years. A $1 billion bond was issued by PortKC for the riverfront redevelopment which began in March 2024, and the city’s RideKC streetcar is being extended to the riverfront. No bond money went to the stadium project.

[Port KC Director of Communications] Meredith Hoenes credits the stadium and Current’s popularity for the growth spurt on the riverfront. “We love it. It’s a gem for Kansas City.”

Okay, hold up: The development “launched” by the Kansas City stadium was actually partly stuff built by the team’s owners and partly stuff built by the public port district? If you build a new streetcar line and find a developer to build apartments along it, it’s hard to credit a soccer stadium with only a 13-game home schedule as the catalyst that made it all happen. I mean, it’s easy for the communications director of the port district to credit it that way, but that’s literally her entire job to say things like that, she shouldn’t count as a development expert.

Denver City Council’s Platte River Committee votes on Wednesday.

The article does quote two of the council’s 13 members, Sarah Parady and Amanda Sandoval, as making skeptical statements about the money involved (“We are facing the collapse of global financial markets, and I don’t believe this stadium will ever be built” and “We’re being asked to invest $70 million in a time of economic hardship … and we’re the last person to get repaid from the TIF,” respectively). But that all jibes with the story being told: Kansas City has had a big success with its stadium, yet Denver’s city council is hesitant to follow in its footsteps. The facts that Denver is being asked to spend $70 million where K.C. did not, that the Denver team owners seemingly could afford to pay the costs themselves and may even have hinted that they will if necessary, and that K.C.’s “success” probably had little to do with the stadium — all that gets left on the cutting-room floor, because it doesn’t fit the narrative.

The last, and maybe most important, question to ask here is who’s determining the way this story was framed: Colorado Sun reporter — er, journalism student — Lincoln Roch? His editors? The sources, including Denver team president Jen Millet, who Roch relied on to explain the story to him? Those parts we can’t know, but we can guess, given what we know about who tends to get called for these articles — speaking of which, there’s a sports stadium expert right there in Denver who here plays the role of Sir Not-Appearing-In-This-Story, guess he’ll have to wait for the director’s cut.

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Friday roundup: Bengals want $350m in stadium money from Ohio, A’s still insist Vegas stadium is happening for real

access_time personNeil deMause

The spring legislative season is always exhausting, but at least we’re already up to … April 11, is that all that it is? At least we can hope that all the team owners lining up for stadium and arena money have already gotten their bills submitted, though plenty of subsidy demands have emerged this late or later: Today is in fact the second anniversary of the Maryland legislature approving $1.2 billion in public money for renovations for the Baltimore Orioles and Ravens (a number that would eventually grow to an unlimited number depending on how much in taxes comes in) essentially without warning, so it wouldn’t be that much of a shock to see a surprise demand emerge from out of nowhere.

And speak of the devil:

  • Hamilton County and Cincinnati Bengals owners the Brown family have declared that if the state of Ohio is set on giving $600 million in tax money to the Cleveland Browns for a new stadium, it should also give $350 million to the Bengals for renovations. The entire renovation plan would cost $830 million and would include a new scoreboard, suite upgrades, new roof canopy, new seating, and improved walkways, escalators, and elevators — which sounds like a lot for that work, honestly, unless the suite bathrooms would be getting diamond-encrusted faucets — and would presumably include county money as well, though officials didn’t specify how much. “Our lease ends before theirs,” griped Hamilton County commissioner Stephanie Summerow Dumas. “Just wondering why is there so much focus on the Browns.” (Hmm, can’t possibly imagine why.) No word on whether the Bengals owners would tear up that insane state-of-the-art clause in their lease as part of the deal, you would think that would be important to ask, I’m looking at you, Cincinnati Enquirer.
  • Newly appointed West Sacramento Athletics president Marc Badain has declared that the team is still on track for a June groundbreaking for its Las Vegas stadium, blaming “skeptics” and “negativity” for the idea that John Fisher may not be able to find $1.15 billion in construction costs on top of the $600 million he’s set to get from the state of Nevada. “There’s a lot of people that make a living out of questioning the success of sports venues and what they actually do for a community,” said Badain, and while on the one hand I feel seen, I do question his description of this as “making a living,” as well as questioning whether a groundbreaking actually means you’re going to build a stadium given that just about anyone with a few shovels can hold one — whoops, there I go with the skepticism again, Badain sure has me pegged!
  • The Denver city council has some skeptics about spending $70 million for land and infrastructure for a NWSL stadium, with councilmember Sarah Parady saying, “We are facing the collapse of global financial markets. … I think we’re gonna be sitting here in a year [and] we will have paid in our amount of money from our incredibly scarce dollars that we are going to need for so many fundamental needs in the city.” Also concerning is the estimated additional $80 million in property taxes the city would be giving up by agreeing to buy and own the land under the stadium, according to  University of Colorado-Denver economist Geoffrey Propheter, who is not only a local but also the expert in calculating such things.
  • Just a few months after $900 million in tax money was approved for upgrades to the Utah Jazz and Utah Hockey Club‘s Delta Center and the Salt Palace convention center, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox’s office abruptly expanded the project’s TIF district last Friday to also redirect taxes from two luxury hotels, an apartment tower, and parking facilities on an adjacent block, providing an additional $59 million in tax money kicked back to the developer, according to Propheter. (That developer would be Jazz and Hockey Club owner Ryan Smith — quelle coincidence!) Then on Tuesday the Salt Lake City council unanimously approved creating the embiggened tax district, with councilmember Victoria Petro bemoaning that “we had no options” but adding that “there is no decimal point here that has been taken with anything less than the gravest consideration,” assuming the gravest consideration can be applied in just two work days.
  • “Salt Lake Bees’ new stadium in Daybreak expected to bring economic impacts, growth to local businesses” was the headline on Utah’s ABC4 website on Tuesday, and if you’re wondering “expected by whom?” and your guess was the owner of a single local coffee shop, you’re a winner!
  • Bridgeport, Connecticut now has an idea for how to pay for a $75 million minor-league soccer stadium, and it’s a TIF district, surprise, surprise. Also the full cost would now be $100 million, and would involve additional state money as well, but who can put a price on being one of the umpteen million cities to have a team in one of the nation’s two warring sets of soccer leagues?
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Friday roundup: Oregon considers upping MLB expansion stadium ante to $800m, baseball owners twirl mustaches in glee

access_time personNeil deMause

This week’s vibes.

  • An Oregon state senator has introduced a bill to increase the state’s spending on a possible Portland MLB stadium from $150 million to $800 million, provided Portland gets an expansion team whenever MLB next expands. The source would still be funneling player income taxes to pay off stadium bonds, yet another Casino Night–style funding scheme that is both risky and not really free money, for reasons we’ve covered here before. (The increased figure would rely on rising player payrolls since the initial $150 million plan was approved more than 20 years ago.) The $800 million figure is apparently meant to compete with Utah’s proposed $900 million in property tax kickbacks for an MLB stadium in Salt Lake City; expansion city bidding war, activated!
  • Denver’s NWSL franchise is planning to build a 14,500-seat stadium, and “the ownership group is paying for the stadium in its entirety,” according to the Denver Post. Also according to the Denver Post, four paragraphs later, a tax increment financing district is already in place on the team’s proposed stadium site, meaning the team would recoup property taxes worth some number that the Denver Post didn’t deign to mention. The city would also be on the hook for buying $24 million worth of land for the stadium project, but Denver Mayor Mike Johnston says “the city would always own that public space and that could come back to us for repurposing in 50 years from now if the stadium were to move,” so really it’s an investment, see?
  • Will the Tampa Bay Rays draw more fans this season, despite playing in an 11,000-seat minor-league stadium, thanks to now being on the side of the bay where more people with more money live? Doesn’t look like it, based on the fact that opening day is one week away and hasn’t sold out yet. It doesn’t help that Rays management raised average ticket prices by 30% in response to the smaller capacity, which could complicate efforts to use the 2025 season to answer the age-old question, “Is it St. Petersburg, or is it just Florida?“
  • Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne says the financing plan for a new Cleveland Browns stadium would require average ticket prices to rise to $800 over 30 years in order for the math to work, while a Browns spokesperson says this isn’t true, and nobody’s showing their math, that’s no fun! (Yes, this website is predicated on the notion that math is fun. I’m sorry if you’re learning about this late.)
  • A Massachusetts judge heard arguments this week in a lawsuit charging that a new stadium for BOS Nation F.C. (soon to be renamed, finally) violates a state law requiring a two-thirds supermajority of the state legislature to approve any new uses of land taken for conservation purposes. The Boston mayor’s office insists that tearing down a public school stadium and rebuilding it as a pro women’s soccer stadium that public school students would still get to play in is really the same use — cue the Ship of Theseus debates!
  • The Eugene Emeralds are absolutely, positively moving out of Eugene after 70 years, uh, just as soon as they find somewhere else offering to build them a new stadium. Until then, they’ll still be playing in Eugene. But they’re gonna leave, just you watch! Don’t call their bluff, voters who rejected giving them $15 million last May!
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Friday roundup: Hamilton County hires guy who negotiated Rays deal for St. Pete to help with Bengals talks, this should go just great

access_time personNeil deMause

This has been a week, but it seems they all are these days. One glint of hope on the horizon: The second annual Sports Economics Conference has been scheduled for the University of Maryland, Baltimore County for April, which means I get to hang out with some of the smartest (and funniest) minds studying stadiums and other aspects of the sports business world, and you get more liveblogs like this.

Until then, the regular weekly news will have to suffice. Let’s open up the ol’ news bag and see what — oh dear oh dear, best to get started right away:

  • I have advocated before for local government to hire professional help in their negotiations with sports team owners over stadium construction and leases, so it’s potentially welcome news that Hamilton County, Ohio has hired David Abrams of Inner Circle Sports to help with its talks with Cincinnati Bengals execs — “potentially” because until now I had never heard of Abrams, or Inner Circle Sports, so it’s hard to say whether he’ll be bringing inside knowledge of how the opposite side of the table operates or just feed them the league line that pouring lots of public money into private projects is good, actually. I do see that Inner Circle was paid $1.25 million to work for St. Petersburg and Pinellas County on their stadium deal with the Tampa Bay Rays, and that couldn’t have turned out worse for the public despite the Rays owner having zero leverage, so maybe let’s hold our applause until we see the results here.
  • A Boston city council vote to block the demolition of White Stadium so it can undergo a $200 million rebuild, $100 million of which would be paid for by the city, mostly for the benefit of BOS Nation F.C., fell one vote short Wednesday when councilor Liz Breadon didn’t show up to the meeting, leaving the council deadlocked at 6-6. One of the “roughly three dozen” people who showed up to protest the stadium plan yesterday called the tie vote a “huge win,” which isn’t really how huge wins work; there’s still a lawsuit in progress that could block the plan, but it’s unclear if it will be heard in time to halt the demolition, which if it progresses would take off the table a cheaper rehab of the existing structure just for high school sports, as opponents are hoping for.
  • Speaking of the NWSL, Denver is getting a franchise! And a new stadium, maybe, the expansion team’s owners say they’re planning one, more details about things like cost and public cost later, don’t worry your pretty heads.
  • The first phase of renovation work on the Milwaukee Brewers‘ stadium that’s costing taxpayers close to $500 million has been approved, and it will include such things as a $10 million “public gathering space,” because there just aren’t enough places to publicly gather at a baseball game. There’s also plans for a future vote to spend $25 million on winterizing the stadium so concerts can be held there in the winter — something that would work a lot better if not for the fact that, as Holy Cross economist Victor Matheson points out, big stadium concert tours take place pretty much exclusively in the summer. See why I’m looking forward to this Baltimore conference? (Side note to newbies: Once you’ve read this site for long enough, you’ll recognize that for the sick burn that it is.)
  • New York Gov. Kathy Hochul watched the start of the Buffalo Bills‘ playoff loss at a Bills sports bar in Albany, because of course she did, and the Times is on it! “I am just going to bury my head in my hands for eight hours straight,” one fan said afterwards, presumably at the game result, but there are lots of other good ways to intepret that.
  • Season tickets to Salt Lake Bees games will jump from $9-18 to $17-47 when the team moves into its new stadium this year, thanks in large part to the team’s stadium capacity going from 15,400 to 8,000, and much of that being made up of luxury sections that can only be purchased on a season basis:
    (Salt Lake Bees) Daybreak Field suite layout.
    Truly, we are not far from that glorious future where sporting events will only have one seat, and it will be sold to the highest bidder.
  • I recently recorded an episode of the great Conversations With Sports Fans podcast, and if you want to hear me talk in great detail about being a New York Mets fan, as well as a sports fan in general in this current era, click that link back earlier in this sentence, you know the one.
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