Happy Friday, everybody — we’ve made it to the end of another week again, which seems to keep taking longer and longer, I blame the Moon.
And on to the news briefs, starting with a not-so-brief to cover what would get its own item if this were any other day of the week:
- The St. Petersburg city council took its first vote on the proposed Tampa Bay Rays stadium project yesterday — St. Pete is one of those cities where the council has to vote on things twice, just to be sure — and as expected, it narrowly passed, with five out of eight councilmembers in favor. The official city expense is $212.5 million in property-tax kickbacks on the stadium site plus $130 million in infrastructure spending, but this leaves out a ton of hidden subsidies that Rays owner Stuart Sternberg would be getting:
- About $300 million (present value) in future tax money from Pinellas County
- $320 million worth of future property-tax reductions from the city and county
- $700 million worth of land in exchange for payments worth just $80 million, making for a $620 million public gift
That comes to a public subsidy of roughly $1.6 billion, which would shatter the Tennessee Titans‘ record of $1.26 billion, at least until the next stadium project comes along. There’s still a final council vote to be taken on July 11, before which the city still needs to provide final documents — a local Sierra Club organizer called the process a “runaway train,” while Southern Poverty Law Center lawyers asked the city to “reconsider this rushed and chaotic timeline” — but the writing does seem to be on the wall. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said, “I think they’ve done a phenomenal job in Tampa Bay, competing, and I think enhanced revenue streams just provides flexibility that can only make things better,” which I think means he’s happy, my universal translator doesn’t do Manfredese.
- A consulting report for Washington, D.C. estimates that a new Commanders stadium in the district could create $1.26 billion in “yearly economic output,” and while I haven’t read the full document yet, economist J.C. Bradbury has the best response anyway: “I fear going into the details grants some legitimacy to the idea that there is some debate over the economic impact of stadiums. If the consultants feel the decades of economic research on the subject is in error, they are free to submit their challenges to peer review.” (The city also commissioned a second report on how to finance said stadium, but has no plans to release it, so you know it’s got to be juicy — fire off the FOIA requests!)
- Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles spoke yesterday about why she thinks a $650 million Carolina Panthers stadium renovation subsidy in exchange for just a 15-year lease extension would be good deal despite Charlotte residents apparently thinking otherwise, and one thing she said was: “This is an investment in our future. That’s why is strongly support what we’re doing with Tepper Sports. Yes, I wish we had the ability to do this on our own. But we have to partner with Tepper Sports and our hospitality industry.” We wish we could pay for the whole stadium renovation, but sadly we have to let the team owner who would benefit from it chip in is certainly a choice, let’s just say that.
- MLB is apparently requiring all teams’ new nonrelocation agreements to allow playoffs games at a neutral site, and Athletics stadium czar Dave Kaval says that’d be great for Las Vegas, which could be in line to host a neutral-site World Series if baseball ever decides to do like the NFL does with the Super Bowl. Given that it’s going to take decades for every team’s nonrelocation agreement to expire and be rewritten, and that Las Vegas could be uninhabitable by then, that’s maybe not the most convincing argument, but Kavals gonna Kaval, especially when he needs to distract from the mess that is the team’s Vegas stadium plans.
- R.J. Anderson wrote a super-long look at the public ownership model for pro sports teams for CBS Sports this week, and while I have some quibbles — in particular, it tends to conflate community ownership by fans (the Green Bay Packers, German soccer teams) with public ownerships by municipalities (several Canadian Football League teams and minor-league baseball teams) — it’s a good, in-depth overview. Whether either fan ownership or public ownership would necessarily put an end to stadium subsidy demands is an open question: The Packers did demand money to upgrade Lambeau Field, and sports leagues have leaned on municipally owned teams to build new stadiums. But as Anderson notes, at least fans and municipal officials have other priorities than just squeezing every last penny of profit out of teams, so there would be some benefits like cheaper tickets and fewer move threats, which would at least be a start.