pro rugby – Field of Schemes

Friday roundup: Raiders stadium runs short of tax dollars, Falcons owner makes film about how great Megatron’s Butthole is, and a Ricketts cries poor (again)

November 27, 2020November 27, 2020 Neil deMause

Well, that was certainly something to wake up to on a post-Thanksgiving Friday morning. Not sure how many U.S. readers are checking the internet today, but if that’s you and you’re looking for some non-Canadian stadium and arena news for your troubles, we have that too:

I’ve often cautioned against judging stadium deals based on whether projected tax revenues come in ahead of or behind projections, because either way taxpayers are on the hook for the same amount of cost, but still and all it can’t be good news that Clark County has had to dip into a reserve fund for $11.55 million to pay Las Vegas Raiders stadium costs because hotel tax receipts are through the floor. (The Raiders’ $750 million stadium subsidy is technically being paid for by the state, but with a tax surcharge on Clark County hotels, and anyway Clark County is the borrower of last resort if the tax money doesn’t come through, which right now it isn’t. Also, I still can’t type “Clark County” without thinking of this guy.)
There’s new documentary airing Monday on Georgia Public Broadcasting about the construction and impact on surrounding communities of the Atlanta Falcons‘ new stadium (aka Megatron’s Butthole), and if the program’s title — “Rising Up: A Westside Story” — doesn’t give you a hint about where this is headed, then the fact that it was commissioned by Falcons owner Arthur Blank should get you the rest of the way there. “He wanted to document attempting to fulfill a couple of his dreams for the city of Atlanta, which were to build the greatest sports and entertainment complex in the world and to try to lift the Westside out of poverty and to make the benefits of the stadium expand across Northside Drive to the folks in those neighborhoods,” Falcons stadium czar Mike Egan tells the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and what’s the point of doing a solid for your city by accepting around $700 million in tax money if you can’t make a self-aggrandizing TV show about it?
Chicago Cubs owner Tom Ricketts says he might have to slash player payroll despite getting federal historic tax credits for his renovations of Wrigley Field to make it less historic and more like an upscale private bar, explaining, “I wish I could get tax credits and give them to baseball players, but I can’t.” Um, that’s exactly what you could do, Tom! Perhaps you meant to say, I wish I could get tax credits and give them to baseball players, but I’ve already decided to use them to pay myself back for my own profit-generating stadium renovations, despite being part of a billionaire family that could cover the cost ourselves if we wanted?
The Kansas City Star asked Royals owner John Sherman what he thought of building a new stadium downtown, and Sherman replied, “Over the next 10 years, we’ll be evaluating different ideas,” and the Star ran with the headline “Royals Owner Does Not Rule Out Downtown Ballpark” because for some reason the Kansas City news media are the world’s biggest downtown Royals stadium stans.
The Charlotte Business Journal has noted that ticket prices rose an average of 37% at the six most recent NFL stadiums that opened, and suggests that this is a thing that could happen as well to Carolina Panthers tickets if that team gets a new stadium, and yup, checks out.
The city of Baltimore is seeking proposals to renovate its downtown arena, because surely the middle of a pandemic is the best time to evaluate whether to spend money on upgrading a sports venue that no actual sports teams play at. “Other arenas will have to rethink and retrofit themselves to be state-of-the-art to get people to feel comfortable post-COVID,” said Baltimore Development Corp. president Colin Tarbert, managing to keep a straight face while saying it. “This is a great opportunity to start fresh.”
The new state-funded Long Island Railroad station for the new New York Islanders arena is under construction, but no one knows how many fans will be able to get to it without changing trains or who will pay for shuttle buses to get them from the train station to the arena. Details!
In case you’re wondering, I asked a couple of Brooklyn elected officials what they thought about New York City paying to upgrade Staten Island’s baseball stadium in part so it could steal Brooklyn’s rugby team, but neither of them got back to me with a statement before the holiday. Stay tuned next week for more gripping developments!

Share this post:

Staten Island official endorses spending $5m on empty baseball stadium to steal rugby team from Brooklyn

November 23, 2020December 10, 2020 Neil deMause

As I reported here a week and a half ago, New York City is set to spend $5.1 million on upgrades to the Staten Island Yankees‘ home stadium even as the Staten Island Yankees may cease to exist, or at least will certainly no longer be a Yankees affiliate. This weekend the New York Post took notice of this, and got Staten Island borough president James Oddo to say he thinks throwing public money at an increasingly empty stadium is a great idea:

Borough President James Oddo said it’s about time the city steps up to the plate and invests in the ballpark with vistas of the downtown skyline, adding that the Yankees’ decision two weeks ago to drop the “Baby Bombers” as part of Major League Baseball’s minor-league consolidation “needs to serve as a wake-up call.”

“This is a moment of time where we have to extract something more than the status quo,” he told The Post. “You have this great stadium that’s underused, and we have to make it a bigger part of the Island’s community than it’s been.

“It was a major investment in tax dollars to build, yet the stadium is dormant for the overwhelming majority of the year.”

It was indeed a major investment to build — $71 million in city dollars, in part thanks to environmental cleanup costs at the site near the Staten Island Ferry terminal — but what would the value be in throwing another $5.1 million on the fire? According to “officials,” says the Post, “the pro rugby franchise Rugby United New York has expressed interest in playing there once it’s reconfigured.”

If you’re not familiar with Rugby United New York, that makes you and most of the population of New York City. The team has played a season and a half so far, with announced attendance settling in at under 2,000 per game following the franchise’s home opener, playing at the Brooklyn Cyclones‘ home stadium in Coney Island. So the primary announced goal of the city rehabbing the Staten Island stadium, apparently, would be to add artificial turf in order to move a team in an extremely minor sports league from one city borough to another.

This is dumb enough, apparently, to even draw opposition from Fansided’s Staten Island Yankees blogger, who writes that spending money on a stadium after its main tenant has left “makes no sense,” and that the prospect of a rugby team is “kind of bleak” and “a tough sell.” Which is maybe what you’d expect from a minor-league baseball blogger suddenly faced with the prospect of not having a team to write about, but it’s also completely accurate. Unfortunately, the New York City Economic Development Corporation is spending this money out of its own budget, so it isn’t likely we’ll get any city council hearings — which is a shame, as I’d love to hear what Brooklyn elected officials think about this move.

Share this post:

Friday roundup: Utah may build stadium for rugby (and the children!), Suns build big-ass kitchen, plus more robots than you can shake a stick at

October 2, 2020 Neil deMause

Happy October! We seem to have now reached the uncanny valley of the epidemic, where some things are returning to almost normal — or even hyper-normal, as in the case of the baseball postseason having expanded to include so many teams I keep expecting the Sugar Land Skeeters to show up — while other things remain sadly unchanged. I guess if there’s a silver lining it’s that the resumption of some normal things hasn’t caused the pandemic to worsen perceptibly (yet), but that’s what people were saying about the Netherlands back in June and that didn’t work out well at all. Just wear your masks, people, and don’t take them off to eat or talk on the phone or talk to the president, and let’s hope for the best.

The owners of the Utah Warriors pro rugby team want to built a 10,000-seat stadium for (duh) rugby and also maybe another pro sports team and also provide “not only the high school kids but also community leaders, citizens within this community a venue where they can do something unique and fun and interesting but not have to look at a three-quarters empty stadium and not really be able to have that experience because of it.” (Typical attendance at Warriors games: about 3,000, which, true enough, would only be a seven-tenths empty stadium!) No word yet about specific financing plans other than “investors” will help pay for it, because what savvy money manager can resist the lure of pro rugby?
More on what the Phoenix Suns are building with their $168 million in public renovation money in addition to new furniture: a two-story kitchen! If that doesn’t foster downtown development and economic growth, I don’t know what will.
If you were wondering whether MLB is still moving ahead with plans to kill 40 minor-league teams, hell yeah they are. Some teams will be replaced by teams of college players who won’t have to be paid, though, so fans can now enjoy crappier baseball and witnessing the growth of the exposure economy all at once! It’s educational!
The New York Islanders have announced they’re definitely playing next season at the Nassau Coliseum despite the Coliseum not actually having an operator at present, that won’t be a problem, surely.
San Diego’s ballot proposal to lift height limits on waterfront development to allow for a new sports arena: necessary to revitalize a community or power grab by developers, you make the call!
There have been so many articles about NFL teams buying virus-fighting robots to disinfect their stadiums, even though you’re extremely less likely to get sick from touching a stadium than by sitting near a live breathing person. But people love robots, and journalists especially love writing articles about robots, and sports teams love journalists writing articles about them doing good things for fans (with robots!), so robot stories it is!
The University of Florida is having trouble selling out even a reduced-capacity stadium for its home football opener tomorrow, and its coach has been pleading with fans to turn out, which maybe is not the best public health policy? Or the best fan relations policy, if fans are staying home because they don’t want to risk getting themselves and their families sick?
This is not a good headline, given that the Los Angeles Angels weren’t moving anywhere and the city of Anaheim isn’t actually getting $320 million.
This is a good headline. And a good article.

Share this post:

Friday roundup: Jacksonville mayor says “whatever Jaguars want” on stadium renovations, that’s it, I’m done, I can’t even finish this headline

April 19, 2019April 19, 2019 Neil deMause

Running late on the roundup this week — I just published two new articles on the wastefulness of film tax credits and New York’s probably fruitless attempts to fight off sea level rise, plus I have another major writing deadline today — so let’s get to it:

Jacksonville Jaguars president Mark Lamping declared that the team’s stadium is “a candidate for major renovations,” which led Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry to respond with this remarkable statement: “I am not the expert on entertainment and sports stadiums, so whatever the organization thinks is going to be best for that district — for fans and best for taxpayers.” That’s not exactly grammatical English, but it seems to imply I don’t know nothing ’bout no sports stadiums, these guys are the experts so I guess let’s give them what they want, which is incredible even on the very low bar set by American mayors.
Wondering how the Golden State Warriors owners are going to pay back the cost of their $1 billion San Francisco arena opening in the fall? How about luxury suites that rent for $2 million a year? That’s $50,000 to watch a single Warriors game with a bunch of your friends, plus a “video wall” so you can watch the game on TV if you don’t want to look at the actual court, and a butler to bring you wine from your personal wine cellar during the game. In case you were wondering: Yes, rich people in the U.S. are officially too rich now.
David Beckham and Jorge Mas’s Inter Miami has hired Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez’s son as a lobbyist for their Melreese Park stadium project, but says since his dad is the county mayor and he’ll only be lobbying the city, this isn’t a conflict of interest at all. (Write your own Florida Man headlines.)
When the AAF went bankrupt this month, it stiffed its Phoenix franchise’s landlord, Arizona State University, on $1.2 million in rent. I swear, if I were a stadium operator dealing with a sports league that hadn’t played a game yet, I would demand payment in advance.
There’s a bill in the Texas legislature to allow other taxing jurisdictions to override city decisions to exempt buildings from property taxes, and Austin F.C. owner Anthony Precourt is mad because he doesn’t wanna pay property taxes: Precourt Sports Ventures President Dave Greeley told a state hearing Tuesday that the bill would “jeopardize the viability of Austin F.C.” Yeah, you don’t want to risk the team pulling up its barely-planted stakes and going back to Columbus … okay, it’s actually too late for that, but you don’t wanna make Tony mad, you won’t like him when he’s mad, okay?
Oakland’s maritime industry is upset that a new waterfront A’s stadium could interfere with their business, but Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf says it can all be worked out. I’m not enough of a maritime shipping expert to say who’s right, but suffice to say that we’ve seen from the Seattle arena experience that dockworkers are not someone you want to have as an enemy.
Speaking of Seattle, the Key Arena remodeling will now cost between $900 million and $930 million and won’t be completed until summer 2021, in case you had spring 2021 in the betting pool.
New rugby stadium opening in Houston! I bet the roller derby and ultimate frisbee leagues are wondering when it’s going to be their turn to get buildings designed just for their sports. (Over/under at this rate: 2025, right after the opening of the first Minecraft stadium.)

Share this post:

Friday roundup: Tons of news, but you’ll forget it all once you see that Houston is spending public money on a pro rugby stadium

February 9, 2018 Neil deMause

And in other news that doesn’t involve proposed Tampa Bay Rays stadium sites:

United Airlines is spending $69 million on naming rights to the Los Angeles Coliseum in advance of the 2028 Olympics, but IOC rules prohibit corporate names during the Olympics, oops. Hope you enjoy the most expensive college-football naming rights deal in history, United!
Hotel revenue fell 16% in San Diego last year after the Chargers left town, but went up 0.2% in St. Louis after the Rams left. I’m not honestly sure what if anything this means — you’d really have to look at hotel revenue on football weekends to do this right, and it doesn’t look like this study did — but feel free to speculate wildly.
Did I mention the Yahoo Finance article yet that compares the Amazon HQ2 chase to the competition to host the Super Bowl, and cites me saying that while Amazon will bring more jobs, “that said, there’s almost no way it’s worth the kind of money that cities are talking about”? Well, now I have, enjoy!
AL.com has recalculated the public costs of a proposed University of Alabama-Birmingham football stadium and come up with a total of $18.2 million a year — $10.7 million from a bunch of county taxes, $3.5 million from a new car rental tax surcharge, $1 million from other county funds, and $3 million from city funds — not the $15.7 million I had previously reported. UAB and a naming rights sponsor and other private contributors, meanwhile, would only put in $4 million a year, and only for the first ten years. Out of his goddamn mind, I tell you.
Norman Oder of Atlantic Yards Report filed a Freedom of Information Law request to see the competing bids for the Belmont Park site that eventually got awarded to the New York Islanders, and was shot down on the grounds that it would “impair present or imminent contract awards.” Wait, wasn’t the contract already awarded? Will it be okay to ask again once it’s too late to do anything about it?
The WNBA’s Chicago Sky are moving to the new DePaul basketball arena that the city of Chicago helped pay for, which I guess is marginally good for Chicago in that it gets to steal a tiny sliver of economic activity from Rosemont, screw those guys, right? (Actually, Rosemont is apparently a gated community, so maybe screw those guys.)
A New Orleans Pelicans game was delayed because the arena roof leaked. No one is demanding that a new arena be built just yet that I’ve heard, but given that the current one is 19 whole years old, it’s gotta to be a matter of time, even if this one does have a fire fountain.
The Pittsburgh Pirates are threatening to sue the city-county sports authority over who’ll pay how much for $10 million in improvements to their stadium, because apparently the people who write these stadium leases are idiots.
If you enjoy this site but were thinking, “Wouldn’t this be better as a YouTube video with lots of animated charts?”, Vox has got you covered.
The Houston city council has approved spending $3.2 million in tax dollars on a pro rugby stadium for the Houston SaberCats, who are a pro rugby team that is going to play in a pro rugby league, which councilmember Jack Christie calls “a beautiful example of public-private partnerships that we ought to look at in the future, because as far as I have heard, there’s not been one city tax dollar used for this development.” I’m done. Have a good weekend.

Share this post: