Holy moley, all the news this week! No time for clever repartee, let’s dive right in:
- The Cleveland Indians owners are “well along” on a lease extension beyond the expiration of their current deal in 2023, says Gateway Board Chairman Ken Silliman, in exchange for stadium upgrades that according to WKYC-TV will be “in the tens of millions, if not more,” which will be paid for by … whoops, looks like WKYC’s reporter forgot to ask about that, though they did note that Silliman mentioned the possibility of selling development rights around the stadium and using the proceeds for the Indians when this last came up over a year ago. Keep an eye on this one.
- Speaking of land development deals, remember that one that Boston Red Sox owner John Henry was seeking back in February to build a ton of skyscrapers near Fenway Park and tae over a public street? Well, he and his partners officially submitted them to Boston this week, though they made sure to note that they weren’t proposing to build a “sports theme park” and that “the Project should feel like the neighborhood is enveloping the ballpark, and not that the ballpark is spreading its influence into the neighborhood.” There’s no lease extension in play here since the Sox own Fenway Park, and no public money (that we know of), so this one would just be the city doing a favor for a local billionaire by approving his massive redevelopment plans, which is standard operating procedure — whether you consider that more or less egregious than handing out special favors to sports teams is between you and your economic belief system.
- And speaking further of the same thing, lots of Nevada legislators say they wouldn’t want to spend public money on a new baseball stadium to lure the Oakland A’s to Las Vegas, but providing free land and development rights? Mmmaybe.
- Not to be left out, Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan has followed up the collapse of his Lot J redevelopment plans by seeking a $441 million development project that would include a new practice stadium, which would include $93 million in public cash, plus maybe a discounted land price, it’s really hard to tell from reading the term sheet. Anyway, it’s another data point that the Los Angeles Angels land-rights subsidy model is the new game in town, for Big Four sports owners, anyway.
- Meanwhile, in minor-league baseball, Reading Fightin Phils general manager Scott Hunsicker says the team’s owners “have no intention of ever leaving Reading” but also if their stadium doesn’t get about $15 million for bigger locker rooms and other sundries, “Major League Baseball could terminate our license here in Reading and Major League Baseball could at that point give the license to somebody else, somebody in another city,” maybe a city that just lost its team like Williamsport, State College or Trenton. Yep, minor league contraction is working its subsidy-grubbing magic just like it was planned to.
- The Pensacola Blue Wahoos are only set to get $2 million in public cash for their MLB-mandated upgrades, but same deal as the Fightin Phils. Every penny (or 200 million pennies) counts!
- Not to be left out, the Los Angeles Angels are getting $40.9 million in public money for upgrades to their minor-league stadium in Tempe, Arizona, in exchange for extending their lease for 13 years, through 2035. No more details from the Arizona Republic about where Tempe will get the cash, but there is a bunch of stuff about how the stadium was originally built by the short-lived Seattle Pilots, so that’s kind of interesting, I guess?
- The Toronto Blue Jays are playing temporarily in Buffalo while Canada works to vaccinate enough citizens to be able to reopen, which led WGRZ-TV to ask: Could Buffalo get a permanent MLB team? Their answer: No, almost certainly not, Buffalo barely has 250,000 people, what are you even saying? No wonder the Bills are moving to Greensboro.
- When Cobb County wanted an extra $2 million to cover expenses related to this summer’s MLB All-Star Game — back before the game got moved to Denver after Georgia passed its new voting restriction law — county finance director Bill Volckmann claimed the expense would generate between $37 million and $190 million in economic impact, without providing any methodology at all for how those figures were calculated. Here is economist Victor Matheson pointing and laughing at him.
- The USFL Is coming back! With original team names! But not necessarily original cities! No, I don’t know how that works, but the league is partly owned by Fox Sports, so expect the games to be aired out of order and then the season to be canceled right when people are starting to get interested.
- Also MLS is planning to launch a league for its franchises’ B teams, which currently mostly play in the USL, which you might think would put a damper on the USL expanding by as many as 35 teams, but that’s not how Ponzi schemes work.
- Note to Cleveland.com reporter Steven Litt: Please do not use “gain yardage” to refer to progress by the local sports team owner in getting public money, it conflates rooting for the team with rooting for the owner, I covered this more than 20 years ago, seriously.