Seattle Mariners – Page 2 – Field of Schemes

Friday roundup: Grading Mariners subsidies on a curve, Cobb County could close parks to pay off Braves debt, Beckham punts on another stadium deadline

June 8, 2018November 28, 2018 Neil deMause

Congratulations to the team that had never won the hockey thing winning it over the other team that had never won the hockey thing because it was a new team! And meanwhile:

Today was going to be the last day for David Beckham’s Miami MLS ownership group to make a $901,500 down payment to the county for three acres of land that would be needed to build a new stadium in Overtown, which the owners say they don’t want to do anymore, maybe, but really who knows? But anyway, now it’s not the last day because Mayor Carlos Gimenez agreed to waive the deadline because of the ongoing lawsuit over the county’s no-bid sale of the land, and you’re already losing interest, aren’t you? All you want to know is where is this team going to play already, and who will pay for it how and when will it happen? and the answer to all of that remains ¯_(ツ)_/¯.
Here’s an editorial from the Seattle Times saying that spending $177 million in public money on upgrades to the Mariners‘ stadium would be a good deal because it “supports smart investments in a beloved regional asset that will need more than basic maintenance as it ages beyond its teen years,” which doesn’t actually explain what “smart” or “need” mean or why the public should be responsible for any of this. But also, the stadium is projected to “generate $3.1 billion in economic output” over the next 20 years, which doesn’t explain what “economic output” means or how this was calculated and then it acknowledges that “those numbers are high” but c’mon, just give the Mariners the money anyway, they have a difficult teenager to deal with, don’t they deserve some help? There’s a helpful list of editorial board members at the end, in case you want to drive around Seattle and point and laugh at them.
And speaking of the Mariners, here’s a long article in FanGraphs lauding them for “essentially guaranteeing that taxpayers will realize at least some profit from the initial stadium construction investment,” which is even too rose-colored for the Seattle Times editorial board. Seriously, if we’re going to be showering sports team owners for only asking for $177 million to upgrade their buildings that they got the public to pay more than $400 million for in the first place, I think maybe it’s time to give up on moral relativism altogether.
The Oakland A’s may be getting one of those “get out of full environmental review free” cards that are all the rage in California, which is potentially problematic, but probably not as problematic as having no idea where a stadium will go or how much the A’s owners will pay for the land, so let’s cross one bridge at a time.
Akron is demolishing part of the Rubber Bowl because it’s falling down and has been condemned, which is understandable, but it’s still worth taking a moment to remember that our nation once had sports venues called things like the Rubber Bowl.
Now that the New York Islanders want to build a new arena next to Belmont Park, the New York Racing Association is proposing a renovating of the racetrack as well, on the apparent theory that hockey fans will wander over to watch horse racing, but only if the facility isn’t shabby compared to a shiny new arena. No indication yet how much the NYRA will be looking to spend or if any of it will be public money, but I’m sure that award-winning Newsday reporter Jim Baumbach will be on top of this soon. (That’s not sarcasm! For once.)
Cobb County is looking at closing parks if it can’t close its budget deficit, which would be a lot smaller if not for all the tax money that’s going to pay for the new Atlanta Braves stadium.
St. Petersburg has hired architects to figure out what to do with the Tropicana Field site if the Tampa Bay Rays move out, which is good due diligence but doesn’t actually mean the Rays are any closer to moving out.
Rapid City, South Dakota residents voted overwhelmingly to spend $130 million on a new arena, three years after voting overwhelmingly not to spend $180 million on a new arena. I bet FanGraphs will think this is a sign of tremendous progress.
And finally, enjoy this article about a Philadelphia Flyers executive who recalls being at his then 18-year-old arena and thinking, “I was kind of out, walking around the arena, and it just sort of started to feel tired.” Arenas got mid-life crises!

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Friday roundup: The news media are collectively losing their goddamn minds edition

June 1, 2018 Neil deMause

It’s a full slate this week, so let’s do this!

The proposed $180 million (or so) in public subsidies for upgrades to the Seattle Mariners‘ stadium would go to pay for such things as “new artwork, more club-level seating and a 175-seat brewpub that’s open to the outside with special access to the park for ticket holders and Diamond Club patrons,” according to Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat. He focuses on the brewpub, but at that price tag, I’m more worried about what artwork they’re considering.
If you’ve been wanting to read an article that argues that a 76-year-old stadium is “old, a remnant from another era,” by comparing it unfavorably to a 106-year-old stadium, Bill Reynolds of the Providence Journal has you covered. Then he throws in a threat that the Pawtucket Red Sox could move to Worcester without a stadium at the end, either because he knew his main argument that McCoy Stadium is too old, not like Fenway, which is the good kind of old was kind of weird, or because he hadn’t written all the way to the bottom of the page yet.
If you’ve been wanting an article about how small the carbon footprint is of modern stadiums without taking into account the carbon footprint of building another new stadium every 20 years, Ken Belson of the New York Times has you covered, because of course he does.
And if you’ve been wanting an article arguing that Calgary shouldn’t foot the bill for a new Flames arena, This magazine has you covered, which is kind of cool because I wrote an article for This about how the SkyDome was a money suck for Toronto way back in 1999, though I think the only surviving online version of it is this strangely formatted one on some vestigial backwater of my own website.
Actual Associated Press headline from this week about the old and new Milwaukee Bucks arenas: “Bradley Center closure to eliminate 650 jobs; new arena to support 620 jobs.” I can’t tell if this is intentional or unintentional irony, but at least it’s honest.
The Buffalo Bills owners may not be super-psyched about building a new stadium, but everyone else seems to want them to, including not just NFL commissioner Roger Goodell but also the Buffalo News, which editorialized that “it has to get done eventually to secure the long-term viability of the Bills in Western New York.” Because otherwise the team could move, like the owners have absolutely not threatened to do in any way! Feel the urgency, already, people!
Russia has built a bunch of soccer stadiums nobody really needs for the World Cup, just like Brazil did before them, but when it was Brazil the New York Times didn’t include a discussion of what Immanuel Kant would think of it.
Finally, a news story that’s not about the news coverage itself! Nashville is proposing to swap out which state fairgrounds land would be handed over to Nashville S.C. for new private development alongside a new soccer stadium for land that would be kept as fairgrounds, while one city councilmember thinks maybe it’s kind of a dumb idea to give a pro soccer team’s owners free land and they shouldn’t do that at all. Three guesses which proposal is more likely to get voted on next Tuesday.
The Atlanta Falcons‘s broken retractable roof may finally be in operation tomorrow for an Atlanta United match. So if you wanted a reason to watch an Atlanta United match other than the fact that the team is in first place, yeah, you’re apparently like most U.S. soccer fans.
A Suffolk County legislative committee has endorsed building a $1.1 billion arena complex in Ronkonkoma, almost certainly because somebody told them, “Nah, that seems more like a Shelbyville idea.”
MLS commissioner Don Garber took time out during his announcement that F.C. Cincinnati would be the league’s 9,813th team (all numbers approximate) to throw shade at the proposed Detroit expansion team for proposing to play in a football stadium, ew, instead of a soccer-only stadium. “They can talk about what those ideas might be, but they were really front runners when they were looking at the jail site,” sighed the commissioner, gazing off wistfully into the distance (all narrative descriptions approximate).
The Pawtucket Red Sox owners haven’t yet said whether they’ll back House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello’s new stadium financing plan, either because they’re afraid they’ll somehow be on the hook for paying for their own stadium or just because they’re just playing hard to get.
And finally, here’s a $70 million high school football stadium in Texas whose opening has been delayed because its concrete is cracking, because it’s been a few years since we had one of those. Happy June, everybody!

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Mariners owners seek $180 million in publicly funded upgrades as part of lease renewal

May 25, 2018 Neil deMause

When the Seattle Mariners owners announced on Wednesday that they’d agreed to a 25-year lease extension on Safeco Field without demanding any new public subsidies, I thought, “That’s nice, I’ll address it in the Friday roundup.” And here it is Friday, but now this is getting its own item, because it turns out the Mariners are actually looking for public money for stadium upgrades — $180 million of it, in fact:

The proposal announced Wednesday by King County Council Executive Dow Constantine would come from a “hotel-motel” lodging tax that previously helped pay for construction of the Kingdome. It currently is paying off debt for the construction of CenturyLink Field, where the Seahawks and Sounders play their games. The CenturyLink Field debt is scheduled to be paid off by 2020.

Constantine wants 12 percent of that tax’s revenue given to the Public Facilities District (PFD) boards that manage both Safeco Field and the ShoWare Center in Kent, something Upthegrove says is ridiculous given more pressing priorities within the region.

“We all love the Mariners and they’re a part of our life but we have to remember this is a private, for profit business,” [King County councilmember Dave] Upthegrove, who chairs the council’s budget committee, said in an interview Thursday. “And a large one. It’s a billion-dollar company that can afford to and can and should pay their own expenses. Because if they don’t then we end up using public funds that need to go to other more pressing priorities.”

There are a lot of moving parts to this lease deal — the Mariners owners would also put in $120 million toward future upgrades, which are estimated at $545 million over the next 30 years for some reason even though the stadium only cost $517 million to build in the first place, and they would also kick in $175 million in ticket and parking taxes collected by the team, the latter of which supercedes parking taxes the city would normally get to charge (and collect). And the Seattle Times reports that the lease deal “is not contingent upon the hotel-motel tax revenue.” So it’s probably a bit overly definitive to write “Mariners owners seek $180 million in public upgrades as part of lease renewal” … enh, it’s Friday, if you can’t oversimplify headlines on a Friday, when can you do it? If things are clearer after the weekend, look for an update then.

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Kingdome debt finally due to be paid off this year, 15 years after Kingdome ceased to exist

March 31, 2015 Neil deMause

If you like stadium schadenfreude, you’ll love this: Seattle is about to pay off the last of its debt on the Kingdome, 15 years after the building was imploded:

Back in 1994, tiles fell from building’s roof, prompting an emergency closure and multimillion dollar fix. It was financed on a 20-year debt payment structure and was set to expire at the end of 2015.

King County Budget Director Dwight Dively confirmed Wednesday the county has collected enough money through hotel and motel taxes to pay off the debt nine months early.

If you’re asking yourself, Wait, how can paying off a stadium that’s been gone a decade and a half be “nine months early”?, well, that’s how bonds work: It’s buy now, pay later, and intentionally so. Everyone knew in 1994, or if not then shortly thereafter, that the Kingdome probably wasn’t going to be around at the end of the debt payments, but it was decided that rather than pay for the whole repair cost in one lump sum, it would make more sense to pay it off over time, so that what King County did.

Neither system is any worse, really, any more than taking out a mortgage to buy a home is any better or worse than paying cash, which is why I’ve previously disparaged “taxpayers are still paying off that pile of rubble!” stories as missing the point. The problem isn’t when the payments are made, but how many of them: Seattle taxpayers have now paid for building the Kingdome ($67 million), repairing the Kingdome ($51 million), demolishing the Kingdome ($10 million), and most of building Safeco Field (about $400 million). That’s a sizable slab of dough, regardless of which structures were still standing when the payments were made.

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Why your national pastime sucks

August 14, 2009 Neil deMause

I came to Deadspin’s latest installment of its excellent “Why Your Stadium Sucks” series because it mentions our book (remember the book? if you like the website, you’ll love the book), but stayed for the excellent reader comment on his experience at the Seattle Mariners‘ Safeco Field, which concludes:

These journeys really impressed upon me that professional sports in the US really is no longer about anything going on on the field. It’s really just a corporate beer garden designed as an alternative to some big budget action film, or theme park or shopping mall or some sort of mindless “family” entertainment in which the goal is to placate your offspring with as much food as they can ingest and to acquire some more cheap, shiny stuff from China that no one really needs.

For my own take on Safeco, see this oldie but goodie.

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