Category: Tampa Bay Rays

Rays execs “anticipate” county officials will approve stadium bonds once Rob Manfred Manfredsplains at them

access_time personNeil deMause

Tampa Bay Rays co-president Matt Silverman is in statement-issuin’ mode again, and this time his statement is that the team’s stadium plans are going quite great, actually:

“We anticipate that the Pinellas County Commission will authorize the bonds at their next meeting,” Matt Silverman said in a statement Tuesday. “As we stated in our letter three weeks ago, we remain ready to work with all key stakeholders to fill the funding gap their delay has created.”

That is, needless to say, an interesting statement to state, given that at last count there was still a 4-3 majority on the commission opposed to authorizing the county’s stadium bonds. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred made the rounds of local elected officials on Monday, including phoning “no” voters Dave Eggers and Chris Latvala. It doesn’t sound like Silverman or other Rays execs have met with anyone on the commission, so it’s always possible that his statement was meant as “We anticipate that the Pinellas County Commission will authorize the bonds at their next meeting if they know what’s good for them, capisce?”

As for that bit about “stakeholders” needing to fill the “funding gap” created by the bonds being sold four months before the Rays’ own initial deadline for doing so — something Eggers aptly termed “coy” — Silverman wasn’t at all clear about how much money team execs are looking for or who they expect to pay for it. It’s still possible that Rays owner Stu Sternberg intends to compromise on “You guys agree to send us the $1 billion you promised us, and we’ll agree to pay for the cost overruns we just made up — er, I mean, suddenly discovered.” Though one could also read Silverman’s statement as implying that they’re hoping to win over the newly critical commission members just by the commissioner Manfredding at them and get additional public cash on top of that for their troubles. We’ll know more by the commission’s next scheduled vote a week from today, maybe.

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Rays owner, Pinellas County prepare to haggle over $1B stadium deal, but what’s on the table?

access_time personNeil deMause

On Thursday, as the St. Petersburg city council hearing on approving $287.5 million in Tampa Bay Rays stadium bonds toward a total $1 billion public subsidy was still underway, I asked this:

It's very clear at this point that the St. Pete council intends to vote 4-3 to approve city bonds for a Rays stadium. The big question: Then what? Will Stu Sternberg demand more money to fill the budget gap he's claiming? Will the county demand more money to flip one of its four opposed members?

— Field of Schemes (@fieldofschemes.bsky.social) 2024-12-05T21:55:04.676Z

On Saturday, the Tampa Bay Times provided some preliminary answers:

Representatives from the Rays and from St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch’s administration have met with commissioners this week to seek their votes. It’s still unclear whether the Rays remain on board. … Welch said Thursday that “significant issues” remain regarding the Rays’ stadium obligations, though the private sector could fill the funding gap.

Could it, though? Presumably any private investor would want some kind of tangible return on their investment — economic activity doesn’t feed the balance sheet — so that would have to be either something Rays owner Stu Sternberg would have to give up (naming rights, pouring rights, suites, etc.) that he could otherwise cash in on and pocket the money from, or something the city would have to give up. Unless this whole cost overrun claim is a dodge by Sternberg to counter demands from county commissioners for a better deal so they can end up compromising right where both sides started, in which case the Rays owner might be happy enough to find private money for it so long as he gets to keep his initial $1 billion.

As for what Pinellas County commissioners might compromise on:

[Commissioner Vince Nowicki] said he wants the deal renegotiated with more convention and meeting space, revenue sharing by the team and payouts each time land from the Gas Plant is sold.

That’s a fair modest ask, though “revenue sharing” could add up to a significant amount, depending on the details. But of course Nowicki is only one county commissioner, and Sternberg only needs to sway one of the four “no” votes to get his stadium bonds; anyone else likely to come cheaper?

“I don’t feel any pressure to approve something that I said was a bad idea the entire time,” [Commissioner Chris Latvala] texted the Times.

Nothing much to work with there. Who’s next?

[Commissioner Dave Eggers] said he was meeting with Rays officials this week with an “open mind,” [but] he said hewas not “overly optimistic.” [Chris] Scherer, a stadium deal skeptic who also is new to the board, has said he could be a swing vote. Neither Scherer nor Eggers could be reached for comment.

I could be wrong — I only know these four commissioners from what I saw of them at one webcast hearing — but after watching a whole lot of stadium haggling over the years, this feels like one that is going to be settled not on the basis of whether a $1 billion public stadium price tag is bad policy, but on how much in sweeteners the swingiest of the swing votes is willing to settle for at the negotiating table. That isn’t necessarily terrible — if the whole kerfuffle of the last two months ends up getting a smidge more for the public, it’s better than nothing. And ensuring that the Rays stay in town isn’t worthless, even if it’s probably close to worthless, especially considering Sternberg’s lack of other cities offering him a similar deal.

Still, if it turns out that Pinellas County residents voted in a commission majority opposed to handing over a pile of money to a local sports billionaire when the area is reeling from a devastating hurricane, all to end up handing over a slightly smaller pile of money and calling that victory, that’s not great, exactly. The county commission majority has the opportunity to play hardball and demand a significantly reworked deal, or even to scrap this plan entirely and tell Sternberg to go back to the drawing board. So far they’re playing it close to the vest what if anything they’ll settle for, but given that a one-vote majority is only as strong as its weakest member, it’s probably not worth getting your hopes too high.

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Friday roundup: Rays stadium back from dead, A’s Vegas stadium shambles forward

access_time personNeil deMause

In case you missed the live recap of yesterday’s St. Petersburg city council meeting, the council approved selling $287.5 million in bonds for a new stadium for the Tampa Bay Rays, reversing their vote of two weeks ago to hold off on the move. What happened is pretty straightforward: The two councilmembers who’d flipped to “no” votes two weeks ago flipped back to “yes” — while their stated excuse was that they were content that team execs were no longer calling the deal entirely dead, presumably it was more the recognition that this was likely now or never, as starting in January there would be two new anti-stadium-funding members of the council, and they didn’t want to be accused of dawdling too long like the Pinellas County Commission.

So what happens now? The county commission still has its slim 4-3 majority against selling its $312.5 million in stadium bonds unless Rays owner Stu Sternberg renegotiates the deal; at the same time, Sternberg and his top aides are insisting that they need the pot sweetened to cover the costs of the bond sale having been delayed, even though the original deal said it didn’t need to happen until next April. Historically, this usually leads to some serious haggling between team officials and whichever commission member they think they can flip — the only question is which one would be willing to flip for the cheapest price, and whether “okay, we won’t ask the county to pay for the cost overruns that we’re suddenly claiming exist” would count as a concession. (Okay, there’s also the question of when and if the St. Pete council will sign off on repairing the Tropicana Field roof so the Rays would have somewhere to play in 2026 and 2027, as they didn’t vote on that yesterday, but even if that’s delayed a bit, the team could presumably extend its stay at Tampa’s Steinbrenner Field into early 2026 without too much trouble.)

Or the county commission could decide to hold the line at its December 17 meeting and delay the bond sale again, or even reject it altogether, at which point, understates Mayor Ken Welch, “that sets us on a different path.” We’ll find out a week from Tuesday, but right now, the odds of Sternberg getting his $1 billion public subsidy deal or something close to it look a lot higher than they did a couple of days ago.

But enough about the Rays, already — other stuff happened this week, let’s get to it:

  • The Las Vegas Stadium Authority Board gave its final signoff to an Athletics stadium in Las Vegas after team owner John Fisher submitted a letter vowing that “members of my family and I are committing to contribute up to $1,100,000,000” to the project. The Associated Press called this clearing “the last major hurdle” for a Vegas stadium, which isn’t really true: The Clark County Commission still needs to hold its own vote, something A’s exec Sandy Dean said the team was in early stages of talks for; and, of course, Fisher still needs to actually figure out where to get that $1.1 billion — he claims he’s still looking for new private investors, but those seem unlikely to materialize at this late date, so he may need to decide on whether it’s worth committing a large chunk of his family’s wealth to building a very expensive stadium in what would be easily MLB’s smallest market. If he does, and if the county signs off, construction could start as early as next spring with a stadium opening in 2028, but those are still fairly major hurdles.
  • The Cleveland Browns hired a real estate consulting firm, as one does, to determine the economic impact of building a new stadium in Brook Park, and announced that the county would see an added five squillion dollars in annual economic impact (give or take a squillion). Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne responded with a statement that “economic impact studies commissioned by organizations with a vested interest often present overly optimistic projections that do not reflect the financial realities faced by local governments and taxpayers” and that “we’re going to have to throw a flag on the play.” (And we were so close to getting out of this without any football metaphors!) Still, this allows the media to portray this as “Browns study says five squillion dollars, city claims only three squillion, truth must lie somewhere in the middle,” which is why real estate consulting firms get paid the big bucks.
  • A city council vote on the proposed Philadelphia 76ers arena is expected by December 19, and Chinatown groups made a last-ditch effort to demand that the team owners increase their community benefits agreement from $50 million to $300 million. (Sports economist Geoff Propheter says this would be close to what Sixers owner Josh Harris would be saving in property tax breaks, at least.) Developers said at a hearing Tuesday that $300 million would be too much, but were open to a smaller increase; with the council seemingly set on approving the deal, we look to have entered the haggling over the price phase.
  • NYC F.C. held a groundbreaking for their new Queens stadium, now to be called Etihad Park after a brief but memorable spell being depicted as Naming Rights Sponsor Stadium. The city’s Independent Budget Office recently issued its long-awaited report on the cost of city tax breaks for the stadium, and determined that team owners Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan and the New York Yankees will save $538 million via the site being exempted from property taxes, though it also notes that it could have saved all but $74 million of that money through other city tax breaks anyway. So, yay?
  • Washington Commanders owner Josh Harris (yes, same Josh Harris) and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell went to D.C. this week to lobby Congress to hand over the RFK Stadium site to the district for a potential NFL stadium, and Maryland’s two senators responded that they would demand that one of D.C.’s two Air National Guard squadrons be transferred to Maryland in exchange. This is officially peak haggling over the price, I think we’re done here, have a good weekend and see you on Monday!
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Liveblog: St. Pete council calls a do-over on its Rays stadium bond vote (UPDATE: Bonds are approved)

access_time personNeil deMause

The St. Petersburg city council is set to start its meeting at 1:30 pm today, and the best guess is that councilmembers are planning to approve the city’s $287.5 million in Tampa Bay Rays stadium bonds, figuring 1) this way they can get the approval done before new anti-stadium-deal councilmembers take office in January, and 2) if Rays execs don’t hash out a better deal that includes either more team money or promises to play temporarily in Pinellas County or both, the county will likely reject it anyway. So, kick the can into the county’s court, mixed-metaphorically.

But that’s only a guess! Tune in on BlueSky for running updates, or refresh this page for only slightly delayed updates. And/or watch below yourself!

In case you missed the beginning, it was just the announcement of the starting lineups.

— Field of Schemes (@fieldofschemes.bsky.social) 2024-12-05T18:32:09.980Z

Hanewicz (a steady no vote) leads things off by saying it's not fair to hold such a major vote with hardly any notice for the public to be able to testify. Council goes 4-3 in favor of holding the Rays stadium bond re-vote anyway — got a feeling we're going to see a whole lot of 4-3 votes today.

— Field of Schemes (@fieldofschemes.bsky.social) 2024-12-05T18:40:42.019Z

And the first public speaker says adding the Rays stadium bonds last-minute violates the rule that the council agenda has to be published a week in advance! Clearly somebody is trying to set up any council decision today to be called back by VAR.

— Field of Schemes (@fieldofschemes.bsky.social) 2024-12-05T18:44:42.588Z

More public comments (assorted): "Now we're a major league city!" "Get this project underway!" "That's 86 acres that could be used as reparations to the Black community!" "It's like paying for a wedding when the Rays won't even say they want to get married!"

— Field of Schemes (@fieldofschemes.bsky.social) 2024-12-05T18:52:54.578Z

"We don't want to run businesses out of the community until they say they want to go!" "If the Rays and Hines truly believed this development was a winner, they would pay for it themselves!" "Thousands of new jobs!" "Albert Whitted Airport was damaged!" (Yes, there are other agenda items today.)

— Field of Schemes (@fieldofschemes.bsky.social) 2024-12-05T19:00:19.694Z

(For anyone new to public hearings: The public testimony almost never matters, since typically everyone on the council knows how they're voting going in. But it lets the little people feel like they're being listened to, that's nice, isn't it, because they have a hell of a time.)

— Field of Schemes (@fieldofschemes.bsky.social) 2024-12-05T19:03:16.065Z

First five (non-Rays) agenda items are up, good time to go to the bathroom or make yourself a quick sandwich.

— Field of Schemes (@fieldofschemes.bsky.social) 2024-12-05T19:05:00.202Z

Haven't forgotten about you, the St. Pete council is still talking about seawalls. Couple more agenda items to go before we get to the Rays.

— Field of Schemes (@fieldofschemes.bsky.social) 2024-12-05T20:22:38.022Z

And finally the Rays stadium bond item is up! Mayor Welch has even showed up for this, clearly something is afoot.

— Field of Schemes (@fieldofschemes.bsky.social) 2024-12-05T21:33:27.033Z

Welch says "there is consensus" on the deal and the best thing to do is to move forward with the Rays bond sale. And now it's on to more public comment!

— Field of Schemes (@fieldofschemes.bsky.social) 2024-12-05T21:34:41.660Z

Public comments, round 2: "When your partner is out, don't borrow the money!" "I said I was a proud member of the concessions team for the Rays, but we all just got our termination letters today!" (She still spoke in favor of a stadium: "It takes wealthy people to contribute to our communities!")

— Field of Schemes (@fieldofschemes.bsky.social) 2024-12-05T21:40:17.356Z

Lightning round: "Visionary, world-class city!" "Bad partners!" Okay, that's all the members of the public who were able to show up on short notice on a Thursday afternoon and wait around for three hours, time for the councilmembers to debate!

— Field of Schemes (@fieldofschemes.bsky.social) 2024-12-05T21:46:00.209Z

Gina Driscoll, who reportedly added the stadium bonds to today's meeting agenda, says the deal is the deal; now it's just about deciding on whether to sell the bonds. Two weeks ago was a "moment of uncertainty," she says, but now "I feel pretty satisfied" that the Rays "are still in, and so am I."

— Field of Schemes (@fieldofschemes.bsky.social) 2024-12-05T21:48:15.188Z

Hanewicz: "Well, the Rays aren't here. We are about to approve — because I can count the votes — hundreds of millions of dollars, and they don't show up."

— Field of Schemes (@fieldofschemes.bsky.social) 2024-12-05T21:50:20.247Z

Hanewicz asks city administrator Rob Gerdes how much of a funding gap the Rays owners now face. He says he doesn't know.

— Field of Schemes (@fieldofschemes.bsky.social) 2024-12-05T21:52:31.315Z

It's very clear at this point that the St. Pete council intends to vote 4-3 to approve city bonds for a Rays stadium. The big question: Then what? Will Stu Sternberg demand more money to fill the budget gap he's claiming? Will the county demand more money to flip one of its four opposed members?

— Field of Schemes (@fieldofschemes.bsky.social) 2024-12-05T21:55:04.676Z

John Muhammad: "The fear we would be somewhere like this is the reason I did not support that contract in the first place." He asks Gerdes again what the Rays mean that they "can't do this alone." Gerdes: "They're looking for ways to fill that gap" and, uh, private partners maybe? That always works!

— Field of Schemes (@fieldofschemes.bsky.social) 2024-12-05T21:58:39.982Z

Gabbard says she's voting yes, she wanted to vote yes last time: "Quite frankly, I think we're calling their bluff by doing so. … It'll be up to the Rays to go find other funding."

— Field of Schemes (@fieldofschemes.bsky.social) 2024-12-05T22:05:14.736Z

The "yes" votes are clearly trying to position this as "We need to just give them the $1B we promised them and not one penny more and dare them to come up with the rest," which is … a choice.

— Field of Schemes (@fieldofschemes.bsky.social) 2024-12-05T22:06:08.717Z

Richie Floyd is a no, as expected: "This is not how I believe economic development should take place."

— Field of Schemes (@fieldofschemes.bsky.social) 2024-12-05T22:07:49.895Z

Deborah Figgs-Sanders says now that Rays execs no longer say the stadium is dead, she's ready to vote for it. It definitely feels like she and Driscoll were reacting to Silverman and Auld's letter by delaying the last vote, and now are placated there's still room to keep the original deal in play.

— Field of Schemes (@fieldofschemes.bsky.social) 2024-12-05T22:13:18.160Z

And the vote is 4-3 in favor of selling the city Rays bonds, as expected. The below still stands: Now wth happens? bsky.app/profile/fiel…

— Field of Schemes (@fieldofschemes.bsky.social) 2024-12-05T22:14:38.921Z

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St. Pete council sets re-vote today on Rays stadium bonds, but why?

access_time personNeil deMause

Yesterday afternoon I opened up WordPress and started a post that began like this:

And this just in:

The St. Petersburg City Council has scheduled a vote Thursday on whether to approve bonds to finance the city’s contribution toward a new $1.3 billion Tampa Bay Rays stadium and Historic Gas Plant District even as the team has said the project as proposed is no longer viable.

Council members received notice Wednesday morning that the item has been added to their agenda for the following day.

…and then pretty much stopped there. When the St. Pete council voted two weeks ago to put the Tampa Bay Rays stadium bonds — and any repairs to the roof of the team’s current stadium — on hold, it gave itself until January 7 to re-vote. So by deciding to hold a vote with more than a month to go until that deadline, it sure seemed like either two of the five councilmembers who voted against the bond sale were preparing to switch their vote, or the council as a whole was preparing to put a fork in this deal entirely. But with no indication on the council agenda of who had added the stadium bonds item or why, the tea leaves were especially thin.

The best summary came from DRaysBay, which didn’t know what was up either, but added a bit of helpful context, including that the city’s $287.5 million in stadium bonds would be paid off out of revenues that can be spent on anything the city wants, whereas the county is set to use $312.5 million in tourist tax dollars that are legally required to go toward things that promote tourism. (Sorta kinda, anyway — there are some exceptions.) It’s also worth noting that the council did not set a re-vote on repairing the Tropicana Field roof, which would imply … it’s anybody’s guess, really.

Vince Nowicki, one of the two new Pinellas County commissioners opposed to the stadium deal that was given preliminary approval in July, speculated that the city was “trying to strong-arm the county [by] saying, ‘Hey, you know we’ve done our part. Do your part,’” and suggested that Mayor Ken Welch is rolling the dice on a re-vote before two new anti-stadium councilmembers take office in January. Nowicki also said he met yesterday with “the president of the Rays” — he didn’t indicate which president — and had a “really great conversation” about how to “get to a better deal and a fair deal for the residents,” but added that he’s still a “no” vote until Rays owner Stuart Sternberg agrees to put more of his own money into the deal.

Looks like we’ll find out together what it all means, starting at 1:30 pm ET today. You can follow along on the St. Pete city YouTube channel (also embedded below), or check the Field of Schemes BlueSky account for live commentary.

UPDATE 9:08 am ET: The anti-stadium-subsidy group Home Runs Matter (formerly No Home Run) says it believes councilmember Gina Driscoll added the agenda item. Driscoll was a swing vote who voted yes to the stadium plan in July, then led the charge to delay the bond vote last month, saying, “I think we all need more time. We can save this deal.” Make of this what you will.

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Rays to county: We won’t formally declare death of stadium deal, you first

access_time personNeil deMause

Previously on Rays: The Roof: “Congratulations on your shiny new $1 billion stadium subsidy!” Hurricane: Look what I can do! ROAR! “Hmmmm, maybe selling stadium bonds is not such a good look right now. Also, the team might play in the next county over, what’s with that?” “Not selling bonds, eh? Well, maybe we’ll just move!” “Really not selling bonds now.” “This deal is dead!” “Dead like you’re backing out of it and returning the cheap public land we agreed to give you?” “(silence)” “We know you can hear us even though you have your eyes shut and your fingers in your ears! What’s your answer?”

CUT TO: Tampa Bay Rays team president Matt Silverman, trying again with the whole letter-writing thing to see if he can get the tone right this time. No, Silverman writes, his co-president Brian Auld “did not waver from our commitment to the new ballpark project,” not even when Auld said “our agreement effectively died” when two new county commission members opposed to the stadium deal were elected before the bonds were sold. In fact, it’s Pinellas County, not the Rays, that “falls short” by not immediately approving the stadium bonds, writes Silverman, because team execs had previously made clear that they wanted bonds sold before the elections, even if they didn’t put that in writing “as a technical matter.” So the shoe’s on the other foot now, see?

There are many, many questions about this letter, especially coming after Silverman and Auld’s previous letter: For one thing, how did a multi-billion-dollar stadium project suddenly go from a slam dunk to unviable just because the bonds weren’t sold five months ahead of the deadline the team itself agreed on for doing so? (The previous Silverman/Auld letter said that even pushing back the bond sale by a month would result in “significantly higher” costs, but didn’t attempt to put a number on it.) The latest Silverman letter seems to imply that really he’s mad that Pinellas County commissioners stalled on approving the bonds — apparently because key commission members were cranky about Rays owner Stu Sternberg not prioritizing their county as the team’s temporary home while its hurricane-damaged roof was being repaired — long enough that the elections tipped the balance from 5-2 in favor to 4-3 against. If so, that’s got to be frustrating, especially if Tampa Bay Times columnist John Romano is correct that no one in the Rays front office saw it coming; but, you know, you still gotta stick the landing, and Silverman and Auld have only themselves to blame there — though they now say they obeyed the letter of their agreement by considering (and rejecting) temporary sites in Pinellas before settling on a stadium across the bay in Tampa, maybe that wasn’t the best way to win friends and influence people with a key commission cote coming up.

And yet, they are blaming the county, because at this point that’s the only thing left to fight over: Nuh-uh, I’m not the one pulling out of the deal, you are! This is a matter of both public posturing and legal maneuvering, since handing over the current stadium property for a bargain price was part of the stadium deal, but stays in place even if the stadium deal is canceled, but only if it’s the county or city canceling it. (If Sternberg backs out, he has to give back the land.) So we have a standoff, at least until some actual deadlines are reached — the county has another vote scheduled for December 17 and the city for January 9, but there doesn’t look to be anything stopping either government body from kicking the can back to the team at that point rather than give up and let Sternberg have his cheap land.

The latest Rays letter went over better with commission chair Kathleen Peters, at least, who replied: “Despite the Rays’ lack of political prowess of late [ed. note: ouch], I’ve always been optimistic about this project because of the great economic impact it could bring to our county. … I look forward to continued discussion with my colleagues about how this stadium can do just that.” That certainly sounds like she’s down for trying to convince one of the four county commissioners opposed to moving ahead with the stadium deal to change their vote; as for Silverman, he said the Rays “continue to wait for decisions and actions” by the city and county, so they’re not closing the door on anything either. NEXT WEEK ON RAYS: THE ROOF: How many development subsidies for their district will it take to flip one stadium vote?

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Friday roundup: More Rays scuttlebutt, Sixers arena advances, nobody’s buying pricey Bills PSLs

access_time personNeil deMause

It’s been three whole days since we checked in on the Tampa Bay Rays stadium situation! Do you feel bereft? Do Rays execs and Tampa Bay–area elected officials feel bereft? If a press statement falls in a forest and there’s no one around to aggregate it, does it make a sound?

None of this, and more, will be answered in this week’s news roundup:

  • The Tampa Bay Times sports desk has certainly been chiming in on the Rays situation, with columnist John Romano, who first reported on Rays owner Stu Sternberg’s threats to move the team if he didn’t get stadium bonds approved ASAP, declaring that what is needed is “a hero” or “a savior” or “a fairy-tale knight” to “step up and purchase a large hunk of the franchise and pay for a stadium, or at least provide a stadium financing plan that does not involve more than a half-billion in public dollars.” Why a half-billion? Who knows! Where does Romano think Sternberg will go if no buyer steps in? Dunno, though he predicts the team will “be on the move, at least temporarily, when 2026 rolls around and Tropicana is still not fixed and the Rays do not want to be stuck in an 11,000-seat spring training stadium.” (The number of cities that could have significantly larger stadiums ready to go by 2026 is zero, or maybe one if neither the Athletics nor San Francisco Giants have territorial rights to Oakland.) The most logical short-term solution is for Sternberg and local electeds to get together and agree to pay the $55 million it would cost to repair Tropicana Field for the short term, with Sternberg agreeing to extend his lease a few years in exchange; it would take a lot of pride-swallowing, especially on Sternberg’s part, so it probably won’t happen, but the alternative looks like it’ll be a whole lot of baseball seasons in minor-league parks somewhere.
  • The group that wants to bring an MLB team to Orlando — formerly led by former Magic executive Pat Williams before his death this summer — also chimed in, saying that while they would never interfere in the business of St. Petersburg, if the Rays did want to move to Orlando, they’re confident that Orange County political leaders “can provide an attractive public/private partnership stadium financing structure that benefits all stakeholders involved.” The last time they brought this up, the “public” part involved $975 million in hotel tax money, one of the same revenue sources that St. Petersburg had been looking to use on its new Rays stadium. (Though it’s often said that Florida counties can spend this on tourism promotion and building things like stadiums and convention centers, it can also use some of it for zoos and beaches and river cleanup and even transportation and sewer infrastructure, something lots of Floridians would like to see counties do.) The Orange County Commission has passed on this idea in the past; we’ll see if it goes over any better with the Rays as a potential target.
  • The Philadelphia city council voted 10-3 to approve creating a tax-kickback district for a new 76ers arena and a new “arena district” to manage neighborhood impacts, which are expected to be extensive. More arena votes are scheduled for the next council meeting on Tuesday.
  • Cleveland and Cuyahoga County are each being asked for $20 million for Guardians and Cavaliers stadium and arena repairs, with another $30 million ask on the table right behind that. If there’s a small silver lining, it’s that this is money the city and county already agreed to spend, it’s just that the cigarette and alcohol taxes that were supposed to fund it are coming up short, so now taxpayers will have to dig into another public pocket.
  • How are those super-pricey Buffalo Bills PSLs selling? Extremely poorly: Only 10% have sold so far, and the rate of purchases is slowing. If they don’t sell out, the Bills owners are on the hook for coming up with the money elsewhere, at least, so at least it won’t be an additional public disaster like the 1990s Oakland Raiders PSLs were.
  • The Chicago Bears owners and Arlington Heights have finally agreed on a property tax valuation for the land the team wants to build a stadium on in that Chicago suburb, but also they say they still really want to build a stadium in Chicago, raising the question, as the Chicago Sun-Times puts it, of “whether the Bears’ latest announcement is [just] a push for leverage in stadium negotiations that have now stretched over three years.”
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County to Rays: If you’re going to kill the stadium deal, do so by Sunday or face our wrath

access_time personNeil deMause

Tampa Bay Rays stadium news comes at you fast: When we last left off on Friday, team execs and government officials were in a standoff over who, if anyone, was going to pull the plug on the deal, even as the Rays’ two co-presidents (it’s going around) declared that the plan had “effectively died” and both the Pinellas County Commission and St. Petersburg city council showed no interest in moving ahead with selling bonds for a stadium, or even fixing the old one. Yesterday, county commission chair Kathleen Peters sent an open letter to the Rays presidents giving them until Sunday to “declare your intention regarding this Agreement and whether you intend to see it come to fruition”:

[Rays co-president Brian Auld] went on to complain to the Commissioner that the Rays’ revenue was down and that anticipated project costs going up were putting the project in jeopardy. This, again, on the day before the Commission met to vote on issuing the bonds. Therefore, the notion that it was the County that “killed the deal” is categorically false based on the Rays President’s own statements prior to the county’s action…

The November 19, 2024 letter approaches being an inelegantly stated notice of termination pursuant to Section 3.6(a)(ii) of the Agreement. The County is scheduled to move forward to consider legislatively adopting the supplemental bond resolution on December 17, 2024. The County can be in a position to offer its bonds for sale pursuant to the Agreement weeks (and potentially months) before the Rays’s deadline to meet its conditions precedent to such offering. As your November 19 letter makes several statements that are demonstrably false as reflected by the terms of the Agreement itself and as explained in this letter, and as President Auld made public comments in other settings that the Agreement is “dead”, that action by the Board on December 17 appears to be futile.

The Rays (StadCo.) must either indicate in writing that they intend to move forward under the Agreement as executed, or provide a clearer Notice of Termination pursuant to section 3.6(a)(ii) of the Agreement by no later than December 1, 2024.

If all this feels needlessly performative — who cares who killed the stadium deal so long as everyone agrees that it’s dead? — there’s likely more to it than just wanting the Rays to take the political heat. If you recall, county officials testified last week that if the city or county pulls the plug on the deal, Rays owner Stu Sternberg can still go ahead with taking possession of the land around Tropicana Field and redeveloping it, with or without a stadium; if it’s Sternberg who walks, then the rest of the development is canceled as well. (I’m still going through the contracts to try to find this clause — will post an update here if it turns up.) [SMALL UPDATE: If you want to play along at home by digging through the contract language, I’ve put a bunch of the documents here.)

Peters didn’t say what would happen if Rays leadership ignores her December 1 deadline, and it’s not clear she has much leverage beyond the threat to viciously subtweet (subskeet?) them if they don’t comply. Still, it’s pretty harsh wording from someone who as recently as last Tuesday was arguing that the stadium bonds should be approved because her sons love baseball, and probably a strong sign that the deal is unlikely to come back from the dead after the Rays execs’ nastygram. “Torching bridges” isn’t a legal term, though, so until one side or another agrees to formally terminate the plan, it’s going to continue to survive in a zombified state, neither alive nor dead. At least we’ll always have the vaportecture.

Still no word, meanwhile, on what the Rays’ fallback plans are for playing games beyond 2025 if St. Petersburg goes ahead with refusing to fix the Tropicana Field roof. MLB shuffled some home games around for next year to keep the Rays from having to play quite so many outdoors in the summer heat, with the result that the team will play 47 of its first 59 games at home. Maybe the schedule makers could arrange it so the Rays play all of 2026 and 2027 on an extended road trip? It’s been envisioned before.

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Oregon officials mull upping state tax kickbacks to lure the Rays (or somebody) to Portland

access_time personNeil deMause

With the Tampa Bay Rays‘ new stadium plans dead or mostly dead or pining for the fjords or whatever pop culture reference you prefer, it’s time to speculate wildly on other cities that might want to take St. Petersburg’s place to offer up a steaming pile of money for a new stadium. Up first: Portland, Oregon, where would-be team owners the Portland Diamond Project (led by retired not-even-close-to-billionaire Nike executive Craig Cheek) want to revisit the $150 million in player-income-tax kickbacks that were approved two decades ago to try to lure the Montreal Expos, and invited over a ton of city and state elected officials, as one does, to discuss upping that dollar amount for bring an expansion or existing team to town. How’d that go over?

  • State Sen. Lew Frederick: “How would people respond? The present state treasurer and the incoming treasurer were there—she [Elizabeth Steiner] will have a lot of say. If there’s a bill, the argument will be the same as it was in the past. Could we be leveraging the tax money for something else other than baseball?”
  • Incoming state treasurer Elizabeth Steiner: “Selling bonds backed by the new salaries—that’s revenue we wouldn’t get if we didn’t get the team. In principle, I’m supportive but I’m not willing to commit until I see all the details.”
  • State Sen. Mark Meek “I can’t wait.”

Feel the excitement! The initial $150 million cap on stadium bonds was in 2003 dollars, to be fair, so expanding it would make a kind of sense in that player salaries have gone up since then; on the other hand, state budget analysts at the time said player income taxes would only be enough to pay off about half of a $150 million bond, so maybe it wouldn’t actually make sense at all. A lot of the “revenue we wouldn’t get if we didn’t get the team” calculation would depend on whether the entire roster could be encouraged to live in Oregon and pay its 9.9% state income tax rate or if the state would only be able to charge income tax for days when the team was playing at home.

Plus, as always, there’s the substitution effect problem: How much of that income would be earned, and have taxes paid on it, somewhere else in the state if MLB never arrived? Part of players’ salaries are paid from out-of-state sources like national TV contracts, obviously, but part comes from local fan spending. If even some Oregonians fund their baseball ticket purchases by cutting back on other sporting events, or going out to eat as much, or some other local entertainment option, then the state loses income tax proceeds from Trailblazers players or sous chefs or pumpkin boat mechanics, which has to be factored in.

All this math will need to be hashed out in the state legislature, and even then it needs to be seen how much money a stadium would cost and how much of the tab Cheek and company would pick up themselves. The proposed site, the Zidell Yards south of downtown, is in a tax increment financing district, so it could get potentially get property tax kickbacks as well. (Here are some images of what the stadium could look like, or at least could have looked like when it was slated for an entirely different site in 2018.)

Portland mayor-elect Keith Wilson, at least, is apparently unworried about where to find a billion dollars or so, and already thinks his city is neck-and-neck at the finish line:

“I’d say this is as close as we’ve come. We feel confident it’s down to us and one other city. And we’re making a solid play.”

One other city? Give us a hint — does it rhyme with Schmeensboro?

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Friday roundup: Rays stadium deal falls apart more completely than their roof, San Antonio considers massive tax subsidy for new Spurs arena

access_time personNeil deMause

Sorry that this has turned into Tampa Bay Rays week here, but stuff keeps happening. And last night, perhaps the most happeningest stuff happened, with the St. Petersburg city council meeting and 1) voting 4-3 to approve spending $23 million toward repair of the Tropicana Field roof; 2) voting 5-2 to put off selling $450 million in bonds for a new stadium and surrounding infrastructure; then 3) voting 7-0 to undo the vote to spend on fixing the roof, after Rays co-president Brian Auld declared “our agreement effectively died” with Tuesday’s county commission vote to delay issuing bonds and “I don’t believe we can make the economics around this arrangement work any more.”

A new council vote on the city bonds is now possible for January 9, assuming the county re-votes to approve its own bonds on Dceember 17. But even in the unlikely event that that happens, two new anti-stadium city councilmembers will have taken office by then, making city approval unlikely. Plus there’s increasing expectation that Rays owner Stu Sternberg will officially cancel the stadium plan anyway in the interim; Auld said that he didn’t even care about the roof repair vote, saying wasn’t confident repairs could be completed by 2026 he would “have more certainty” working out a settlement with the city instead. (Auld also apologized for “the tone” in which team execs’ letter before Tuesday’s county vote declaring the stadium deal “suspended” was received, saying it wasn’t meant to be a threat — whatever it was, it clearly backfired.)

This is crazytown, especially when you consider that this whole thing was set off by the four county commissioners who joined two prior stadium deal opponents in voting to delay the stadium bond sale in October, in order to be all respectful of the losses to Hurricane Milton and everything, apparently without considering that they might lose their pro-stadium majority on election day before their next meeting. As unlikely as it may have seemed at the time, it looks like unless Sternberg and his cronies can find a way to flip one county commissioner by December 17 — and threatening to move the team sure didn’t do the trick — everything is going back to square one now, with Sternberg shaking trees to see if anyone else wants to give him $1 billion for a stadium somewhere, while MLB has to go back to sitting on its hands waiting for this mess to be resolved before discussing expansion. Not to mention that without a repaired Trop, the Rays could be playing indefinitely in a minor-league stadium in Tampa, even as the Oakland A’s are playing indefinitely in a minor-league stadium in Sacramento. Cutting off your nose to spite your face comes at you fast.

Meanwhile, that wasn’t even the only big city council meeting about sports venues yesterday: In San Antonio, the city council held hearings on using tax money to help fund a potentially $4 billion redevelopment including a new Spurs arena. I didn’t watch the meeting, but fortunately University of Colorado Denver sports economist Geoff Propheter did and liveposted about it on Bluesky, so let’s just revisit some of his highlights:

Leading finance mechanism for the district will be a hotel tax and sales tax TIF that will span 3 mi from the district center. The zone can capture all of the 6% hotel tax and 6% sales tax. Holy sh*t that's a lot of money that can be captured. Doesn't mean they will use the full amount.

— Geoffrey Propheter (@gpropheter.bsky.social) 2024-11-21T17:02:39.800Z

Without evidence, the assistant city manager says that most people that went to a Bad Bunny concert at the Alamodome weren't from Bexar County. Did they survey every attendee and double check their addresses against IRS or DMV records?

— Geoffrey Propheter (@gpropheter.bsky.social) 2024-11-21T17:12:25.690Z

"locals bring visitors because of the authenticity"…I don't understand what this means.

— Geoffrey Propheter (@gpropheter.bsky.social) 2024-11-21T17:17:22.930Z

Showing potential funding sources…and as usual, tax expenditures aren't on the list. When you give tax breaks, you are spending money. We know the team and others will end up with tax breaks. Those should always be part of funding discussion.

— Geoffrey Propheter (@gpropheter.bsky.social) 2024-11-21T17:18:51.102Z

courage: how does more tourists lead to better homelessness solutions? better housing solutions? better paying jobs–not just low wage ushers or retail workers? How many residents will be able to attend a spurs game compared to today or stay at a hotel in the district? great questions.

— Geoffrey Propheter (@gpropheter.bsky.social) 2024-11-21T18:30:35.069Z

courage strikes me also as cautiously optimistic, which puts the council tally at 8-3 if a vote were held today is my guess. I'm assuming the mayor would support.

— Geoffrey Propheter (@gpropheter.bsky.social) 2024-11-21T18:33:16.645Z

and the special session is over. Overall thoughts: lots of ideas, nothing concrete, and a lot of silly reasoning. A sport entertainment district is not a novel idea despite some members believing so. Members seem to believe that diverted tax dollars to the project don't hurt existing services.

— Geoffrey Propheter (@gpropheter.bsky.social) 2024-11-21T18:38:41.620Z

 

After all that, do we still have the stamina for the week’s bullet points? Let’s try a couple, at least:

  • Athletics owner John Fisher pulling out of his stadium deal with Oakland to instead move to Las Vegas (maybe) might have blown up his plans to get discounted land in Santa Clara for a San Jose Earthquakes practice facility as well, with the city board of supervisors slamming the brakes on the deal after retiring supervisor Joe Simitian said he’s “not convinced [the Earthquakes] would be a good-faith partner” and warned that the sweetheart land deal represented “essentially a $100 million giveaway to a private enterprise.”
  • Speaking of Oakland, the city finance department issued a warning last Friday that the city is on the brink of bankruptcy and can’t count on money from the on-hold sale of the Oakland Coliseum to bail it out — then reversed course and quietly replaced that report on the city’s website with a new, less apocalyptic one.
  • This week was so nuts that a piece of the Dallas Cowboys roof falling off barely even makes the small print. Team owner Jerry Jones doesn’t want a new stadium, at least, or else we know where this would be headed.
  • And we haven’t even gotten to voters in Forsyth County, Georgia approving a TIF district to kick back tax revenues to pay for $225 million in bonds toward an NHL arena, assuming Forsyth County, which is 30 miles north of downtown Atlanta, can land an NHL team. We will revisit this if an Atlanta expansion team gets past the dreaming stage, or if this firehose of Rays stadium news ever stops, whichever comes first.
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