Category: Milwaukee Brewers

The Wisconsin state legislature voted on around half a billion dollars in public subsidies for renovations to the Milwaukee Brewers‘ stadium last night, and if you’re looking for signs that the fix is in, you’ve got plenty of evidence. The latest iteration of the funding package passed 69-27, winning supermajorities of both assembly Republicans (46-16) and Democrats (23-11). Gov. Tony Evers, who previously opposed the legislature’s version of the plan in favor of his own $360 million subsidy proposal, now says, “We’ve got to get it done. I’m ready to support it as is.” And Milwaukee’s Democratic mayor and Milwaukee County’s Democratic county executive now back the plan as well.

The key to getting these Democrats on board, it appears, was last week’s tweak to cut Milwaukee County’s contribution from $5 million a year to $2.5 million a year (about $73 million in total present value to about $37 million), while the city would still put in $2.5 million a year but would be able to credit it against a state fee for administrating local sales taxes. (More on that in a minute.) Wisconsin Rep. Christine Sinicki, D-Milwaukee, said after voting for the revised stadium subsidy bill: “I said from the start, if there was not a fix on the Milwaukee issue I could not support this bill. I am very pleased with the amendment.”

The legislation is a bit of a mishmash of different funding streams, some up front and some paid out over three decades, but my best estimate previously was that it would amount to $507 million in public funds. Trimming the county contribution by just over $36 million would reduce the taxpayer price tag to $471 million, but with more of the share falling on the state budget instead of the city and county, that seems to have been enough to allay some Democrats’ hesitance.

(The state sales tax administrative fee credit thing is weird — the state is taking out 1.75% of proceeds from a new city sales tax surcharge, and the new bill would siphon off any of that money that isn’t needed for actual administration and give it to the Brewers, raising the question of what happens if that doesn’t cover the full $2.5 million a year. But whether you consider this city money or state money, it’s definitely money that otherwise would stay in some public treasury.)

[UPDATE/CLARIFICATION: WisPolitics reports that the state will be charging the city an additional 1% in administrative fees — other local governments will only pay 0.75% — until such time as the Brewers stadium contribution is paid off. So whether this is truly a state or city cost depends on which counterfactual you use, go and argue this amongst yourselves if you so choose.]

Brewers owner Mark Attanasio, meanwhile, would put in $100 million toward renovations, meaning he’d be on the hook for less than one-fifth of the costs while reaping all of the revenue benefits. He would, however, extend his stadium lease from 2030 to 2050 and stop spreading anonymous rumors that the team could move to Nashville, and that was apparently enough for the assembly to consider it $471 million in tax money well spent: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said, “It’s simple math. If the Brewers leave, dollars follow,” which, yeah, gotta say, not as much as you think.

Those not thinking this would be money well spent, meanwhile, include most Wisconsin voters, who as previously reported here told pollsters last month that they oppose “tax money being used to pay for improvements to the Brewers baseball stadium, sometimes called a stadium subsidy” by a 55-29% margin. The poll was done by a group opposed to the subsidy, and including that “sometimes called a stadium subsidy” clause could certainly have nudged a few people into the “oppose” camp, but that’s still a pretty hefty margin. Guess regular Wisconsinites don’t appreciate what a bargain they’re getting by only spending $471 million instead of $507 million on the local rich guy’s new concessions concourses and upgraded scoreboard, somebody needs to assemblysplain anchoring at them.

NOTE: I’ll be part of a town hall on the Brewers subsidy plan, hosted by Wisconsin state senator Chris Larson, tonight at 5:30 pm CT. Sign up for the Zoom session here if you want to check it out.

 

Milwaukee Brewers subsidy bill author Rep. Rob Brooks has spoken out about his plans to get Democratic support for a $600 million stadium renovation package — according to WTMJ, the official news station of gritting your teeth too hard — and it’s getting weird, man:

He says he recognizes 200 million dollars is a lot of money, but the return on investment for Milwaukee is major.

“If you talk to any advertising agency, I don’t know how you can have a better bang for your buck than whenever the Milwaukee Brewers appear on TV or on ESPN,” says Brooks.

So run that by me again: Brooks thinks that the mere presence of the Brewers is worth $200 million in advertising for the city of Milwaukee? Because, presumably, people see that the city of Milwaukee exists, and loves beer so much that every game features a mascot sliding into a giant beer mug, and think, “Load up the station wagon and cancel that vacation to Duluth, we’re headed to this Mil-wauk-ee place!” On those grounds, the city of Milwaukee should have coughed up several hundred million dollars to keep Laverne & Shirley on the air, or at least the opening credits.

There is actually a metric shit-ton of evidence that keeping a sports team in town has no measurable effect on the local economy, which you think would be observable if it were really worth more than $200 million in TV ad buys. But no time for that, Brooks is still talking:

“As a fiscal conservative, would I like to see it funded differently? Sure, but that is not the reality of how professional sports are funded in this state. We have a team that is being heavily recruited by cities like Nashville and Las Vegas who just spend 1.6 billion dollars to build a stadium in hopes that somebody comes.”

Wait, what? Las Vegas didn’t just “spend 1.6 billion dollars to build a stadium in hopes that somebody comes”; it agreed to spend $600 million toward a $1.6 billion stadium for the Oakland A’s, in particular. It’s certainly possible that if A’s owner John Fisher’s move to Vegas falls through, Las Vegas could offer a stadium deal to Brewers owner Mark Attanasio, and that Attanasio would then think that was a better deal than staying in Milwaukee even though his team is selling more tickets per game there than would even fit in a Vegas stadium, but, okay, maybe “certainly possible” is a little strong, but there might be a version of the multiverse somewhere where it could happen. As for Nashville “heavily recruiting” the Brewers, that was just an unsourced rumor that Attanasio could look to move the team; now somehow it’s transmogrified into Nashville offering cash money to get the Brewers to move purple monkey dishwasher?

There is one small snippet of news buried in WTMJ’s article, which is that Democratic State Sen. Chris Larson says he doesn’t want the city of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County to have to put in any money, but also argued that Milwaukee would get $193 million in tax revenue from the Brewers under this deal — [citation needed] — while turning over $202.5 million in tax money, suggesting that a compromise is possible. Brooks replied that “I anticipate and hope that we can reduce the local contribution with the deal we are working on back down to the 135 million dollar mark.”

That’s still a lot more than zero, but it seems like the attempt here at least will be to whittle down the subsidy from $600 million to a bit less than $600 million, or maybe “$600 million but a different $600 million,” and hope to peel off enough Democratic support that Gov. Tony Evers won’t veto it after the legislature blocked Evers from giving $360 million to the Brewers. This whole two-party system thing is really working out great, isn’t it?

We now have a bill — somewhere, I can’t actually find it on the Wisconsin Senate or Assembly websites — and some further details of the proposed Milwaukee Brewers stadium subsidy that was first leaked yesterday. Per the Associated Press:

Under the proposal, the state would give the team $60.8 million next fiscal year and up to $20 million each year after that through 2045-46. The city of Milwaukee would contribute a total of $202 million and Milwaukee County would kick in $135 million by 2050.

This lets us do some real math that we couldn’t based on yesterday’s story:

• $60.8 million right away plus $20 million a year for 22 years comes to $324 million in present value from the state.
• $202 million spread over 27 years comes to $110 million in present value from the city.
• $135 million spread over 27 years comes to $73 million in present value from the county.

That’s $507 million, roughly, worth of public money that would be going toward spiffing up the Brewers’ 22-year-old stadium, or pretty close to the $520 million estimated yesterday. Brewers owner Mark Attanasio, meanwhile, would commit to putting in $100 million — whether in present dollars or over time, nobody’s saying — and promise to keep the team through 2050 in Milwaukee, which the AP makes sure to note is baseball’s “smallest market,” something that’s true only until the Oakland A’s move to Las Vegas.

Handing over half a billion dollars to the local rich sports dude just to keep him from moving to an unspecified city he hasn’t even threatened to move to is always going to be a tough sell, so how did state legislators try to sell it?

Wisconsin Rep. Robert Brooks, R-Saukville, said the Brewers would need to stay in Milwaukee until at least 2050 under the proposal. The majority of state funds would come from income taxes from Brewers players and employees, as well as from visiting players.

“Our deal raises no taxes,” Brooks said.

Oh, jeez, this again. We’ve recently seen Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt try one evasive maneuver to claim that imposing a new tax that replaces an expiring old tax of the same size isn’t a tax increase; now we’re getting the corollary, which is that it’s not raising taxes if you’re using taxes that would be collected anyway. The argument here is that without the Brewers, there would be no MLB money being paid to players, who wouldn’t pay state income taxes, so really this is free money that we may as well give back to the team.

This is the Casino Night Fallacy, just as it was when then-Gov. Scott Walker tried the same gambit to explain away the $220 million he was giving to the Milwaukee Bucks owners for their new arena. And just as then, the whole argument falls apart when you take into account that a lot of the money going into the pockets of Milwaukee athletes would go into the pockets of Milwaukee waiters or movie theater projectionists or bowling alley pin washers if the teams weren’t there.

More to come once we have actual bill language to look at, not to mention once it’s clear whether the county and city will have to approve the plan. (Both county and city officials have already begun lambasting the stadium funding proposal, which is no doubt partly because they don’t like being stuck with $183 million in costs and partly because they’re Democrats and the state legislative leadership is Republican.) But it is clear that we have yet another half-billion-dollar-plus MLB subsidy plan in the works, to go along with the Las Vegas A’s and Baltimore Orioles and Tampa Bay Rays and likely the Kansas City Royals. It’s a good time to be a rich dude with a baseball team and an “I ❤ Nashville” pin.

There’s a new Milwaukee Brewers stadium renovation subsidy bill in the works in the Wisconsin state legislature, one that could be released early this week, according to “multiple sources within state and local government,” reports CBS 58. And unlike the previous proposals that would have included about $360 million in state money plus about $70 million from Milwaukee County, this one would include:

• $400 million from the state, though it’s unclear whether that’s a lump sum right now like Gov. Tony Evers proposed or tax kickbacks over time like assembly speaker Robin Vos countered with.
• $5 million per year for 27 years from Milwaukee County, which amounts to about $73 million in present value.
• $2.5 million per year for 27 years from the city of Milwaukee, which amounts to about $47 million in present value.
• Between $100 and $125 million from Brewers owner Mark Attanasio.

Assuming that the state and Brewers payments would be in 2023 dollars — CBS 58 didn’t deign to spell that out — this would amount to a total of at least $620 million in spending to upgrade a 22-year-old stadium, with $520 million of it coming from taxpayers. In exchange, the report implies that the Brewers would extend their lease from 2030 to 2050, which would mean $26 million in public outlay per year of additional lease, which would be one of the most expensive lease extensions in history, though it’s a record that’s increasingly made to be broken.

In related news, a new poll shows that Milwaukee County residents hate the idea of giving tax money to Attanasio, with 56% opposed to using any public dollars for stadium renovations. Of those polled, 29% said they would be more supportive if it were the only way to keep the Brewers from leaving Milwaukee, as MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has vaguely threatened, and 59% said they would be more supportive if state money were used in addition to county money, though in neither case did they indicate whether “more supportive” means they’d be okay with it or just hate it marginally less.

Pushing for the bill is the Home Crew Coalition, a group of local business leaders and Republican officials that has been running radio ads in support of the deal, even before the specifics of the deal have been finalized. Coalition chair Omar Shaikh, whose website describes him as a “restaurateur + developer,” told CBS 58 for its on-air segment: “What if we lose them, right? We’re trying to be a tier one city, we can’t lose a Major League Baseball team. And then what happens to the facility if the Brewers go? Not saying that that’s going to happen, but I think they’re a fabric of our community.”

Not saying that’s going to happen, that’s not a threat, oh, no, no, no, we’re your buddies, we want to look after you. Just 700,000 bob a week, and we’ll make sure nobody will set fire to any baseball players. We’ll have to wait for the actual bill to be introduced before we see whether any Wisconsin legislators object that this entire premise is silly and very badly written.

The Milwaukee Brewers stadium subsidy story so far:

• Feb. 2022: Team owner Mark Attanasio commissions a study of upgrades he’d like to his then-21-year-old stadium through 2040, when he has an option to extend his lease through, though he’s only required to stay until 2030.
• June 2022: Milwaukee County supervisor Peter Burgelis suggests developing the area around the stadium and kicking back the resulting property taxes to Attanasio for stadium upgrades.
• Feb. 2023: Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, sitting on a $6.6 billion state budget surplus, proposes giving $290 million of it to Attanasio, on top of $70 million left over in a stadium reserve fund, for a total of $360 million. In exchange, the Brewers would extend their lease until 2043.
• March-April 2023: Wisconsin assembly speaker Robin Vos, who is a Republican while Evers is a Democrat, says nuh-uh, no using the state budget surplus — but kicking back around $360 million in sales and income taxes would be just fine.
• May 2023: MLB commissioner Rob Manfred pretty much threatened that the Brewers would be moved if they didn’t get stadium renovation money, albeit in Rob Manfredese.
• May 2023: The Milwaukee County Board passed a resolution unanimously opposing using any county funds for the Brewers.
• June 2023: A “bipartisan group of Wisconsin legislative leaders” was said to be considering Vos’s spend now, pay for it later through tax kickbacks plan.
• August 2023: Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said he was exploring the idea of diverting money from a 0.4% sales tax hike from transit and public parks to paying down pension debts, which would free up pension funding to be used for Brewers stadium spending. This would increase the total subsidy to a present value of around $430 million.
• August 2023: Newspapers start reporting unsourced rumors that the Brewers could move to Nashville or Charlotte.
• August 2023: Southeast Wisconsin Professional Baseball Park District chair Tim Sheehy endorses the sales-tax diversion scheme.

That’s where things stand now: Everybody in the state of Wisconsin, it seems, wants to funnel around $400 million in public money to the Brewers’ near-billionaire owner in exchange for a mere 13-year lease renewal, they just can’t agree on which $400 million. And as Urban Milwaukee’s Bruce Murphy reports, the ultimate decision may come down to which elected officials can strongarm the others into getting their way:

Milwaukee Alderman Bob Bauman says he is hearing that “it’s going to be crammed down our throats” by the Legislature regardless of how the Common Council or county board votes. “The funding would just be taken out of our state shared revenue.”

That may not be as easy to do as it sounds. Such a dictate would destroy the relationship that Republican legislators have recently cemented with Crowley and Johnson. It would also be opposed by Democratic legislators, and the Republicans may need some of their votes, because the gerrymandered Assembly has many radical conservatives who may oppose any subsidy. (The Koch-financed Americans for Prosperity group opposes any “bailout” for the Brewers.)

That’s a lot of horse trading and vote counting, and Murphy still isn’t done: Evers, he notes, can always veto any plan Vos and the legislature comes up with and propose another dip into the next state budget surplus next year.

All this sounds like a recipe for gridlock, and that’s indeed where things stand now. But counting on political infighting to ward off a massive giveaway of public money is seldom a good strategy — Attanasio still has that expiring lease as a hammer (even if moving from a 20-something-year-old stadium in Milwaukee to a similar-sized market like Nashville with no stadium at all isn’t really much of a threat) and lobbyists who can knock politician heads together until they agree on which pool of public funds to tap. And, of course, it’s only 2023, so there’s plenty of time before the Brewers’ lease expires, even if maybe not an infinite number of massive budget surpluses in the state’s future.

And if nothing else, the throwdown among legislators has successfully shifted the Brewers debate from “Should we give $400 million to the local wealthy sports owner?” to “Which $400 million should we give to the local wealthy sports owner?” Check out, for example, this radio conversation among the owner of the La Crosse Loggers amateur team, an economist from the pro-business Tax Foundation, and the local radio guy on the subject of how to “solve the Brewers stadium” situation, which discusses every possible source of revenue except the Brewers themselves. (Loggers owner Dan Kapanke says that’s off the table because Attanasio doesn’t own the stadium, which is yet another reason why sports team owners try to make sure they don’t own their buildings, just all the revenues that come from them.)

Host Rick Solem does suggest that it might be cheaper for a state to just buy its teams and avoid these constant subsidy demands every couple of decades, at which point Tax Foundation economist Adam Hoffer points out that leagues would never allow that because it would preclude them getting constant subsidies. “That makes sense,” replies Solem, before going on to suggest selling the stadium to the Brewers for a dollar, which is similarly shot down on the grounds that Attanasio wouldn’t like that, since it wouldn’t end up with him pocketing $400 million. Strangely, when you go into a discussion with the premise “How can we make a rich guy richer without it costing him anything?,” the solutions on tap seldom end up being good for the general public.