Category: MLS

Do the Whitecaps really want a new stadium, or just a cheaper BC Place lease?

access_time personNeil deMause

Add the Vancouver Whitecaps to the list of teams looking to build a new stadium, maybe, possibly, if the price is right:

The Major League Soccer club is in talks with the City of Vancouver about the construction of a stadium at the PNE fairgrounds site, said Whitecaps CEO and sporting director Axel Schuster.

“The club’s ownership has always been clear on their goal of constructing a purpose-built stadium and the importance of a suitable venue to both fan experience and financial performance for any professional sports franchise,” said Schuster in a statement on Friday.

The talks are in the early stages and Schuster did not disclose any other details, but said the club is looking forward to continuing its “constructive engagement” with the city.

The Whitecaps are currently renters at the province-owned B.C. Place, where the CFL’s B.C. Lions are the primary tenant, so surely they wouldn’t mind a stadium of their own. Whether they would welcome the construction debt that would come with it is another story: Schuster didn’t reveal anything about how much a new stadium would cost or whether that “constructive engagement” — interesting choice of that term, by the way — would include seeking public subsidies, something that is significantly less common in Canada than the U.S., though by no means unheard of.

Meanwhile, Schuster added that he’s simultaneously talking with B.C. Place operator PavCo about continuing on under a “different type of lease” after their current one expires later this year. If the Whitecaps owners are just trying to get a better deal by warning they might consider building a stadium on their own, more power to them; if they’re trying to leverage one branch of government against the other, though, the city and the province might want to consider getting together on this to tell the team they’re not going to bid against themselves.

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Friday roundup: Rays, Coyotes, A’s fiascos keep on fiascoing

access_time personNeil deMause

All kinds of news of the week to cover this morning, and I already lost a couple of hours getting up early to yell at my senator’s window about this fiasco. Let’s start with the Tampa Bay Rays‘ own fiasco, and then work backwards:

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Friday roundup: A’s hire ex-Raiders stadium czar, Texans want renovations paid for by somebody

access_time personNeil deMause

It’s been another week, and, yeah, it sure has. Feeling this very strongly this morning, you all go on ahead and read this week’s bullet points while I get my second wind.

  • The Athletics have new Las Vegas stadium renderings (pretty similar to the last batch, only with more entourage) and a new president, Marc Badain, who formerly worked in the same role for the Las Vegas Raiders before abruptly quitting. Badain’s role in getting the Raiders’ stadium built (with $750 million in public money) and the fact that the Nevada legislature is coming back into session this year have people speculating that Badain could be on board to go back to the state for more cash to fill owner John Fisher’s budget hole; there’s no actual evidence that’s in the works that I can tell, but this entire project has been little more than tea-leaf reading for close to two years, why stop now?
  • New Houston Texans president Mike Tomon says he doesn’t want a new stadium, just renovations to the old one. The Houston Business Journal reports: “As far as funding potential renovations to NRG Stadium — which, coupled with projects around NRG Park and maintenance, could cost billions of dollars — Tomon said it’s too early in the process to determine what that would look like.” Lobbying strategy still hazy, ask again later.
  • The A’s and Tampa Bay Rays playing in minor-league stadiums this year are “cautionary tales of what happens when big, complicated challenges are met with half-measures and inaction,” writes ESPN’s Jeff Passan, who apparently missed the parts about how the A’s are in Sacramento because they alienated Oakland officials enough to torpedo talks of a lease extension there and the Rays are in Tampa because a hurricane blew their roof off, and neither of those things would be changed even if local officials hadn’t engaged in “inaction,” which they actually didn’t. Friends don’t let friends read Jeff Passan think pieces, is the lesson here.
  • San Antonio’s “Project Marvel” that would include a new Spurs arena, convention center expansion, and other crap has “tepid” 41-36% support, according to a new poll. The plan could be up for a public referendum as soon as this November, so that undecided 23% should start reading up on the details ASAP.
  • The San Jose Giants have agreed to extend their lease from 2027 through 2050 in exchange for $5 million in public stadium upgrades, and I’m going to go out on a limb and call this not that bad — the Single-A team has even agreed to double its rent payments from $20,000 a year to $40,000, which is next to nothing but not completely nothing. It’ll probably come out next week that San Jose has to turn over development rights to 10,000 acres of land or something in addition, but until then I’m filing this under “could have been so much worse.”
  • Someone wrote in to Cincinnati Enquirer sports columnist Jason Williams to ask if Hamilton County residents could have a re-vote on the tax hike that is paying off the Bengals stadium, and Williams replied, not a bad idea, it could be expanded to help fund a new arena, too. Pretty sure that’s not what the letter writer meant, Jason.
  • There’s actual video of actual cranes doing actual work to build Inter Miami‘s new stadium, maybe this thing will actually open eventually, even if the 2026 target date still seems ambitious. Or it could be the latest fake video, for all we know, hard to trust anything coming out of south Florida these days.
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Friday roundup: D-Backs tax kickback plan rushes ahead despite questions, Utah bill would let a hundred stadiums bloom

access_time personNeil deMause

Springtime is always a busy time for stadium and arena shenanigans, if only because it’s budget season for most states and cities. But still! Buncha bullet points today, is what I’m saying, and expect a lot more next week, and so on and so on until legislators break for the summer or come to their senses, whichever comes first (you know damn well which will come first):

  • An Arizona state legislative analysis says because Diamondbacks players pay $3.5 million a year in state income tax, that would over more than a quarter of the tax kickbacks team execs want for stadium renovations — asked and answered, move to strike. Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego, meanwhile, says the state analysis doesn’t look at actual economic data but rather projections like calculating every fan buys two beers (first, assume a spherical fan). No worries, though, the bill still has to go through — oh, welp, looks like it already passed the state house and just needs to clear the senate, and House Democratic Leader Rep. Oscar De Los Santos has expressed “alarm” and said “we should not be rushing through this legislative process,” guess there’s no time to worry like the present.
  • Utah state senator Scott Sandall, figuring one MLB stadium with no team to play in it and no way to pay for it isn’t enough for a growing state, introduced a bill to let Salt Lake City’s stadium district build multiple stadiums as small as 18,000 seats for any sport, “to be proactive, just for the future,” not because he has any particular sports teams in mind that could use an 18,000-seat stadium or anything.
  • Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas is supporting a new Missouri state bill to raise money for Royals and/or Chiefs stadiums by providing … okay, Lucas didn’t say exactly how much money or from where, and the bill itself isn’t posted on the Missouri senate website yet, but Lucas says it’ll help Kansas City “host FIFA World Cup games,” please nobody tell him that it’s going to be decades before the U.S. gets another World Cup after 2026, I don’t want to spoil his day.
  • The proposed Cleveland Browns stadium in Brook Park is set to lead to the creation of a new Circle K gas station, maybe, if government bureaucrats don’t get in the way with their red tape about “residents” being “concerned,” can you believe those guys?
  • Phoenix Suns co-owner Justin Ishbia has pulled out of bidding for the Minnesota Twins and is instead upping his minority stake in the Chicago White Sox, which certainly can be read as positioning himself to become majority owner once 89-year-old Jerry Reinsdorf gives up either control or this mortal coil. Whether he would go ahead with with Reinsdorf’s current stadium plans, let alone rebranding the team as the Chicacago White Sox, remains to be seen.
  • The MLB cable empire keeps on crumbling, and at least one small-market owner, the Milwaukee Brewers‘ Mark Attanasio, says he wants a TV revenue sharing model more like the NFL’s where all the money is shared equally. This is worth watching since it would have a major impact on where teams could relocate to (Green Bay would suddenly be a viable MLB market), plus all sort of other things like how long the 2027 baseball lockout is likely to last.
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Friday roundup: Ravens get even more public cash, D.C. United wants somebody to buy them a roof

access_time personNeil deMause

Greetings from New York, where we now have two terrible mayors instead of one! That’s hardly the worst of today’s political news, so instead let us distract ourselves with some (mostly) terrible stadium and arena news:

  • The Baltimore Ravens‘ $434 million stadium renovation project is now a $489 million renovation project, and 64% of the additional cost is set to be covered by state taxpayers. Or, if you’re whatever AI is writing the headlines over at Sports Illustrated, “Ravens Spending Over $50 Million More on Stadium Upgrades,” sure, that’s probably right, no need to read your own story to check.
  • D.C. United‘s owners want to add 10,000 seats and a roof to their (checks) not yet 7-year-old stadium, and “what remains unknown is the potential price tag or whether the team will ask the city for subsidies.” Also the Axios reporter passing this along (from an original source of “two sources,” not even “familiar with the team’s thinking” or anything) calls D.C. United “American soccer royalty,” what ever happened to no more kings?
  • Missouri House Speaker Jonathan Patterson is turning up the heat on Jackson County, saying “time is running out” for “a plan and course of action” for new Kansas City Royals and Chiefs stadiums, or else … the teams will kick everything back a year and try again, again? Too many showrunners these days really do substitute overbearing string sections for viable suspense plots.
  • D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser says a Washington Commanders stadium “will be the anchor that attracts other investment–housing, amenities, jobs, and opportunities,” guess somebody doesn’t remember what the late Allen Sanderson said about NFL stadiums and cemeteries.
  • In 2023, the city of Anaheim commissioned a $325,000, two-month study of how to keep the Angels‘ stadium viable for decades to come, and now the study may not be done until 2026 and will cost over $1 million, cool, cool.
  • New Sacramento Republic F.C. vaportecture! And it looks like, uh, a soccer stadium? At least there are some smoke bombs, on both ends of the pitch for some reason, but no fireworks or people holding up scarves dramatically and we can’t even see what ridiculous formation the players are in, I give this a B-minus for entertainment value at best.
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Friday roundup: City sues Browns over Brook Park vaporstadium, Broncos go all Bears on suburban move threats

access_time personNeil deMause

Weeks keep happening, and we keep making it to the end of them! (Well, most of us.) If you ever need a break from the general state of everything, you might want to check out this other project I’m involved in, where you can immerse yourself in great live music of the recent past to gird yourself for the present. Or just experience whatever exactly this is.

Back now, all musicked up? Good, because there’s some news waiting for you and it’s not going to stay hot forever:

  • As promised, the city of Cleveland officially sued the Cleveland Browns under Ohio’s Art Modell Law this week to force team owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam to offer the team for sale to local owners before trying to move it to the suburb of Brook Park. The Haslams already preemptively sued to block the Modell Law, so now this will be in the hands of the courts, though it’s also in the hands of the state legislature that is being asked for maybe $1.2 billion to help build a Brook Park dome, hey guys, I think I came up with a way to save a bunch on lawyers’ fees!
  • Denver Broncos co-owner Greg Penner said Wednesday that “We haven’t ruled out anything at this point” in terms of a new or renovated stadium to replace or upgrade their 24-year-old one, adding, “We’re still looking at options on the current site, around Denver.” If that sounds suspiciously like “We’re kicking the tires of local governments to see what our leverage is,” congratulations, you’ve passed Chicago Bears 101!
  • Speaking of the Bears, Illinois house speaker Chris Welch said he might consider having the state pay for some infrastructure costs of a new NFL stadium, so long as the team owners build one at the Michael Reese Hospital site that they first rejected before saying they might reconsider. Fox 32 Chicago further reports that “Governor JB Pritzker is open to talks with the Bears regarding the Michael Reese site” (according to “sources); if the Bears execs’ plan is really “keep throwing things at various walls until we see what sticks,” this might be just the opening they’ve been hoping for — now, how to define an entire stadium as “infrastructure”?
  • The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal … I probably shouldn’t even finish this sentence, but in the interest of the completeness: Mr. Bowtie says that Tampa Bay Rays owner Stu Sternberg needs to find a way to get a stadium built in his current city or else sell the team, and that the situation is “not identical” to the Athletics moving out of Oakland, because Tampa-St. Pete is a large market and the Rays have a stadium offer in hand while the A’s … well, they’re just different, okay? This is probably just Rosenthal going off for his own reasons, but he does spend a bunch of time discussing how MLB commissioner Rob Manfred is taking a “different approach” with the Rays than the A’s, so there’s some chance the consummate baseball insider is sending a message on behalf of MLB leadership, in which case maybe Sternberg will take the hint and stand down from his “Thanks for the billion dollars, what else you got?” gambit.
  • Retiring Miami Mayor Francis Suarez gave a farewell speech in which he stood before the under-construction Inter Miami stadium — as well as an American flag and two John Deere tractors, because Florida — and declared the “the best sports deal in America.” Mmm, maybe not quite that actually, but we have some lovely parting gifts.
  • Remember that time San Diego almost had a floating ballpark? Wait, that was never really going to happen? Shh, it makes a great story.
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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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Friday roundup: Everyone’s building soccer stadiums, no one’s sure how to pay for them

access_time personNeil deMause

This was a rough week for anyone in the U.S. who is an immigrant or looks like they might be, is trans, might ever need an abortion, is Palestinian, is a federal government employee, is a local government employee, is an employee of anything that depends on international trade, lives near sea level or in places that get hot or are at risk of hurricanes, likes democracy, or cares about a relative, friend, or neighbor who does. Not that it would have been an amazing week for most of those people if the presidential election results had gone another way, but a whole lot of folks are somewhere on the spectrum from anxious to terrified right now, so if you need to check in with each other right now before getting back to life as we know it, that’s not only reasonable, it’s a fine tradition.

And now, whenever you’re ready, back to sports stadium and arena life as we know it:

  • The owners of Sacramento Republic F.C., who now include the Wilton Rancheria Native American tribe by are still led by minority owner Kevin Nagle, announced plans for a new stadium, and almost none of the news coverage bothered to provide details of how it would be paid for, even those that reported on how it was announced to the tune of “Don’t Stop Believin’.” Finally, way at the bottom of a KCRA-TV report, we learn that the city of Sacramento is expected to put up $92 million in infrastructure money from property taxes on 220 acres surrounding the stadium, plus provide free police, fire, EMS, traffic, and other services for the next ten years. The city council is set to vote on the plan Tuesday, so that leaves three whole days to gather feedback, two of which are weekend days and the third is a holiday when city offices are closed, this is fine.
  • Bridgeport is considering a minor-league soccer stadium that would cost at least $75 million and which would likely include public funds, and Baltimore is considering a minor-league soccer stadium with no known price tag or details on how to pay for it, and Fort Wayne is considering a minor-league soccer stadium that is promised will be “100% privately financed” but we’ve heard that before.
  • Cleveland and Cuyahogo County are continuing to look for ways to fill their budget gap for paying for future upgrades for the Guardians and Cavaliers, and county executive Chris Ronayne says options are “not yet concrete” because “it’s a conversation that’s probably also going to have to include the public.” Signal Cleveland speculates that this could include going back to voters to approve another tax increase, unless Clevelanders go back to drinking and smoking at their old rates, which might not be as likely as you would think.
  • Nearly 95% of campaign donations by U.S. sports team owners went to Republican candidates or causes, according to a Guardian review of donor filings, which, duh, Charles Barkley could have told you that.
  • How are Inglewood business owners around the Los Angeles Rams‘ new stadium and Los Angeles Clippers‘ new arena loving all the new foot traffic? Not so much! “One of my lowest sales days was on Super Bowl Sunday” because of street closures, said a local bakery owner at a press conference this week. “I literally made under $600 for the day. I had to send employees home, and you’re just looking around like, ‘What in the world?'” Checks out!
  • Did a major news site just run an item reporting wild economic impact projections for a proposed Buffalo soccer stadium without saying who conducted the study, while the byline partly credits a City Hall press release? Sure did! Please give to support your independent nonprofit or collectively owned news media, we might just be needing them the next year or four.
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After U of I pulls out, downtown Chicago developer suggests just building more stadiums

access_time personNeil deMause

The University of Illinois has backed out of plans to build a research and teaching facility at the proposed The 78 downtown development site, but don’t fret! This is actually good news, says site developer Related Midwest, because it means now they can build moar stadiumz:

“Given its proximity to downtown, adjacency to the river and flexibility to accommodate a wide range of uses, The 78 stands alone in its ability to house large institutions that want to plant their flag in the heart of Chicago,” their statement read, in part. “We are actively exploring the co-location of dual stadiums for the Chicago White Sox and Chicago Fire, two organizations whose presence at The 78 would align with our vision of creating Chicago’s next great neighborhood.”

That disturbing “plant a flag in the heart” image notwithstanding, the more alarming part here is that unlike a research and teaching facility, a soccer stadium for the Fire is unlikely to bring in enough new money to pay off its construction costs. (The Fire only bring in $45 million a year in gross revenue total, so relocating from Soldier Field to a new stadium isn’t likely to move the needle by more than a few million a year, which wouldn’t do the trick.) While Fire owner Joe Mansueto has said he doesn’t “believe in using Tax Dollars to fund these ANY such projects” (that’s the way he typed it, yes), it’s hard to picture a soccer stadium at the The 78 site without some public money, at least for infrastructure or tax breaks.

So we could be looking at additional public costs beyond $900 million in tax kickbacks for infrastructure plus $1.1 billion for a White Sox stadium. None of which anyone at any level of government has offered to step up to pay just yet. You can’t get if you don’t ask, sure, but tacking on a soccer stadium to an already aspirational project doesn’t seem likely to make the financing pencil out any better.

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Friday roundup: Browns officially want $1.2B for Brook Park dome, Chiefs will take whatever stadium money someone offers

access_time personNeil deMause

Thanks to those who’ve re-upped as FoS supporters in recent days without my reminding you. There are still a handful of numbered Vaportecture art prints left, so donate now if you think that’s the kind of thing you’d like, or if you don’t want that thing near your house at all but just want to support the work of this site.

Speaking of work, there’s a whole lot of it today:

  • Cleveland Browns owners Jimmy and Dee Haslam have confirmed they are indeed focusing on a new domed stadium in suburban Brook Park, releasing a statement yesterday saying, “The transformative economic opportunities created by a dome far outweigh what a renovated stadium could produce with around 10 events per year.” The statement also said that “this stadium will not use existing taxpayer-funded streams that would divert resources from other more pressing needs,” which neatly obscures the fact that it would use $1.2 billion in new taxpayer-funded streams that would divert resources from other more pressing needs. And headlines like “It’s official: Cleveland Browns moving to Brook Park” remain premature, since nobody in state or local government has approved the $1.2 billion in tax money yet, so really we’re still just at “Browns owners’ #1 choice is someone giving them $1.2 billion,” and who wouldn’t want $1.2 billion? I bet you could roll around in it real nice.
  • Speaking of non-announcements, Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark Hunt says he might want to move to a new stadium in Kansas, or move to a new stadium in Missouri, or renovate his current stadium in Missouri, whatcha got? “I certainly don’t expect to have anything finalized by [next spring], but I’d like to know the direction that we’re heading in that time frame,” said Hunt, which isn’t even a fake deadline, come on, man, don’t you know you’re supposed to set a date and then move it later if necessary? Do I have to call you up and read Chapter 4 to you out loud?
  • In extremely unsurprising news, NFL owners unanimously approved Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan’s plan to accept $775 million in public money to pay for stadium upgrades. “The NFL believes in Jacksonville. I believe in Jacksonville, and I know our fans and the people throughout the community believe in Jacksonville,” Khan said after the vote from London, where his team will keep on playing one “home” game a year under the new deal because one can always believe in two places at once.
  • As if Chicago doesn’t have enough new stadium demands, Chicago Fire owner Joe Mansueto says he’s looking at building a soccer-specific stadium as well. Mansueto says it would be privately funded, but they all say that, so if he does settle on a location and a plan, it’s worth keeping an eye on the fine print.
  • For everyone writing up your “Where will the Tampa Bay Rays play in 2025?” articles, please cross Durham, North Carolina off the list, Bulls management says there’s no room there. Also if you’re wondering what is being done with the Rays stadium roof that was blown off last week, you can buy bits of it on eBay.
  • Green Bay Packers management says it wants to sign a 30-year lease extension on Lambeau Field and pay for all stadium upgrades in that time and just wants the city of Green Bay to freeze its rent in exchange. That’s probably not a terrible deal, but it would cost city taxpayers something — $30 million, according to city operations chief Joe Faulds — and the current lease runs through 2032 with a 10-year team extension option, so one can see why the city might not jump at the chance. Anyway, let this be a reminder that even fan-owned sports teams can demand public money, nonprofits got the profit motive too.
  • It took 27 years for this Tom the Dancing Bug cartoon to come true, but with cities like Tulsa offering cash payments for remote workers to relocate to their cities, you too can now be Ned Balter.
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