Category: MLS

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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Friday roundup: Florida Panthers’ lease extension could be one of the priciest ever for taxpayers

access_time personNeil deMause

I’ve been trying to write about this all week, but stuff kept happening: Broward County commissioners agreed to a term sheet that would give the Florida Panthers a five-year lease extension through 2033, and the money part is so convoluted that it calls for its own set of bullet points:

  • Panthers owner Vincent Viola will give the county $51.5 million to pay off the remaining debt on the arena where the team plays, which cost the county $185 million to build in 1998.
  • The county will continue to spend $25 million a year in hotel tax money on operations, maintenance, and upgrades to the arena, for the life of the lease extension.
  • The county has two five-year options to extend the lease. If it doesn’t do so, it has to return some or all of Viola’s $51.5 million debt payment.
  • Viola gets development rights to land around the arena, which he had given up as part of a 2015 deal to get access to the hotel tax funding and get the out clause in his lease that is the whole reason why the county is renegotiating his lease now instead of waiting until 2028.

I’m hesitant to put a dollar figure on the whole thing, but it looks like if Broward County picks up the two five-year lease extensions it gets the $51.5 million while spending $25 million a year over 15 years, which comes to around $250 million in present value, plus gives up development rights to 140 acres of land, which is worth who knows — let’s guesstimate it as $250-300 million in subsidies from the county to Viola. On the other hand, if Broward doesn’t do the extensions, it doesn’t get the $51.5 million, but also its annual arena subsidies go down to more like $100 million, so that’d be more like a $150-200 million subsidy — but also it would need to redo the Panthers’ lease a decade sooner.

So on a per-year basis — math’s almost done, I promise! — that’s either $17-20 million a year for a 15-year extension, or $30-40 million a year for a 5-year extension. That would still be less than the current record $43 million a year lease extension that Charlotte gave the Carolina Panthers (no relation), but it’s a chunk of change regardless.

The Broward County Board of Commissioners still needs to give final approval to the deal, so maybe if we’re lucky we’ll get some hearings or something that will shed more light on the bouncing dollar signs. In the meantime, we had more news this week, let’s get to that:

  • Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch says if Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf wants a new stadium, he should mostly pay for it with private money. Welch also revealed that the White Sox greats at that private ballfield event Reinsdorf held this week for elected officials included Bo Jackson, Ron Kittle, Harold Baines, and Ozzie Guillen, and they didn’t even play catch — though given Kittle’s career –7.5 defensive wins above replacement, you probably don’t want to let him throw many baseballs your direction anyway.
  • Frisco, Texas approved that $141 million-plus renovation for the F.C. Dallas stadium that it was set to vote on Tuesday, as expected. At least the new sun roof looks cool, even if the provided rendering shows lots of fans still sitting in the sun.
  • My former employer Gothamist, continuing its race away from quality journalism that saw it earlier this week write about New York police shooting a bystander on a subway car in the head by only asking former cops whether it was justified, opines that the Philadelphia 76ers not moving to Camden is a loss for New Jersey officials who proposed the idea. Not mentioned: All the other things New Jersey can do with $400 million if it doesn’t give it to Sixers owner Josh Harris. Guess this is what happens when keep laying off your news staff.
  • The design of the Oakland Athletics‘ proposed Las Vegas stadium is 50% complete, and no, I don’t know what that means either. It would only have 30,000 seats, with another 3,000 in standing room. If you don’t count the Tampa Bay Rays stadium, which only holds 25,000 because its upper deck has been closed since 2019, this would be the smallest MLB ballpark since the 1969 Seattle Pilots played at 25,000-seat Sick’s Stadium, which went so well that the Pilots moved to Milwaukee the next spring.
  • Cleveland.com asked some sports economists if a new Cleveland Browns stadium would be good for local jobs or tax revenue, and got the expected answer. It’s a good overview of the existing economic findings, though, and worth reading if you want to dive into the details of why sports subsidies don’t pay off for taxpayers, not even if you count the value of keeping a team from leaving town.
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Hunt family set to get $141m+ and city land to renovate 19-year-old FC Dallas stadium that was just renovated in 2018

access_time personNeil deMause

Another day, another team with a stadium not yet of drinking age seeking public funds for upgrades. Today’s contestant: F.C. Dallas, who are set to get $182 million in sales tax money from the city of Frisco for upgrades to their “aging” stadium, which opened all the way back in 2005.

When last we checked in on this back in May, it was just $130 million, and the source of the public money wasn’t yet known. But things have escalated quickly, to the point where the Frisco city council is set to vote today on issuing $182 million in sales tax revenue bonds, 64% of which would be paid off by the city and 36% by team payments on an extended lease through 2057. (Much of the money could go to build a canopy to provide shade for fans, but it would also add 3,400 seats and new restaurants and other revenue-generating opportunities, all of the revenue from which would go to the team.)

But F.C. Dallas owners the Hunt family, of Kansas City Chiefs fame and $24.8 billion net worth, are holding out a carrot of sorts:

Hunt Sports Group has proposed a “mixed use vision” that, according to city documents, would include 1.2 million square feet of class A office space, a 180,000-square-foot upscale hotel with 200 rooms and a 200-unit multifamily high-rise with retail and restaurant space on the ground floor. The development would also include 30,000 square feet of additional retail and restaurant space, parking structures and complimentary civic spaces and urban streetscape.

Adding mixed-use districts to stadium projects is all the rage, as it both creates new profit opportunities for the team owners and provides a way to show they’re making an “investment” in their city that they can use to justify the stadium subsidy. Which is fine, so long as the ancillary development doesn’t require subsidies of its own—

For the mixed-use improvements, Hunt Sports Group has requested economic development incentives “that are similar in scale and structure to what has been provided for other major mixed use partnerships in Frisco,” according to city documents. The incentives would be provided as reimbursements for infrastructure expenses incurred during the first phase of the mixed-use improvements.

Council documents reveal that subsidies for the stadium district would include a $25 million “Qualified Infrastructure Grant,” plus a kickback of 50% of sales tax on construction materials and services, provided the first phase of the development is underway by the end of 2037. The ancillary development would also require use of a city-owned parking lot, the land value of which isn’t given.

Add it all up, and you have somewhere between $141 million and who knows in order to let multi-billionaires upgrade a stadium that cost $80 million to build 19 years ago and which just received $55 million in upgrades in 2018. Today’s council meeting is set to kick off at 5 pm CT; it looks like we’ll be able to watch along here, if anyone wants to see if there’s any discussion of how much all this will cost or why the city should be paying for it.

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NYCFC releases more pretend stadium images, pretend public cost numbers

access_time personNeil deMause

New York City F.C. officials held a press event last week to promote their new stadium set to open in 2027, let’s see how that went:

Okay, yes, that’s a new rendering. (Or a “model” as the New York Daily News caption puts it.) It’s not exactly an improvement on the last round of vaportecture, given that the entire surrounding neighborhood (plus the Mets‘ stadium across the street) appears to have been demolished and replaced by a gray void featuring only some kind of elevated highway called the “Queens,” but maybe they just wanted people to stop clowning on it as “Naming Rights Sponsor Stadium.” (Team officials said they hope to have a naming rights deal in place by the end of the year, at which point people can clown on it for that name.)

And what about details regarding the possibly $700 million in tax kickbacks and infrastructure spending this all will cost New York City taxpayers?

“When [Mayor Eric Adams] got into office, that’s when the project really started getting some legs, because we were able to present what we really believe is a transformative project for Queens,” [NYCFC CEO Brad] Sims said.

“He was able to say, ‘100% privately financed [stadium]. The city’s in a housing crisis right now. [This is the] biggest affordable housing project that the city’s seen in four decades.’”

I mean, he was able to say “100% privately financed.” He wasn’t able to actually mean it, but he was able to say it. Somebody else — say, a sports economist, the city Independent Budget Office, me — could have told the Daily News otherwise, but as the Daily News didn’t speak to anyone not employed by the team, its readers will never know.

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Friday roundup: Oakland Coliseum redevelopment moves ahead (maybe), DeSantis writes $8m taxpayer check to Inter Miami stadium

access_time personNeil deMause

In case you’re wondering why sports team owners keep on releasing incredibly amateurish vaportecture stadium renderings that are just going to subject them to ridicule, check out these headlines from just the last two days: “Browns players share thoughts on Brook Park stadium renderings,” “Cleveland Browns stadium saga: Fans react to renderings of Brook Park proposal,” “Cavaliers Star Donovan Mitchell Chimes In On Browns New Stadium Proposal.” Pretty pictures, or even doofy-looking ones, are red meat to click-starved news outlets, and so long as they keep getting coverage that is more “ooh, shiny” than “who’s going to pay for this exactly?” the CAD mills are going to be kept busy.

And speaking of busy, let’s see what else happened this week:

  • Oakland A’s owner John Fisher has agreed to sell his half of the Oakland Coliseum property to developers African American Sports & Entertainment Group for $125 million, which is $20 million more than the city of Oakland got for its half. Now AASEG will convert it into a “$5 billion megaproject that could include a new convention center, restaurant, hotel, youth amphitheater and restaurants,” and maybe a soccer stadium — or could, you know, not, depending on how the economic winds blow. That the group’s private equity partner says the money will come from “investors” isn’t exactly reassuring, but at least a Coliseum development might pencil out as a better investment than the plan that Fisher is trying to sell.
  • One thing to breathe easy about with Inter Miami‘s much-delayed new stadium is that at least it’s not getting any public money, and … wait, why is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis holding a giant $8 million check made out to the stadium? He can just do that? (Answer: Yes, it’s from an infrastructure slush fund he controls.) Technically the money is going toward traffic improvements around the stadium, but still, handing over $8 million to support a stadium that’s going to happen whether or not you spend the taxpayer dollars on it and then declaring “we just don’t believe that we give money to build sports stadiums” is a nice trick if you can pull it off.
  • And speaking of privately funded soccer stadiums getting public funding, how about Kansas City spending upwards of $30 million in cash and tax breaks for a parking garage for the KC Current‘s newly opened stadium? The deal isn’t final yet, so no publicity photos of oversized checks for now.
  • Signal Cleveland speculates that the proposed $2.4 billion Cleveland Browns stadium in Brook Park could use tax increment financing to cover some of its bills, with the $740,000 a year in property taxes the site currently generates continuing to go to local schools while anything above that number would be kicked back to help pay for the stadium. Except if you believe transit blogger and Browns dome enthusiast Ken Prendergast, the newly developed land would “generate millions more in property taxes or payments in lieu of taxes for Brook Park schools than it does now,” and both things can’t be right. We’ll just have to wait and see what’s actually in the financial plan, which the Browns owners seem perfectly content not to reveal anytime soon, not when they can get Donovan Mitchell making headlines by tweeting that a new stadium is “gonna be fire.”
  • The new Worcester Red Sox stadium has “put the Canal District’s emergence on overdrive,” according to a Boston Globe article citing … some bars that opened nearby? Not mentioned: What the numbers show about the city’s bang for its 150 million bucks, despite there being local economists who could have easily told the Globe the answer.
  • In Anaheim, meanwhile, the presence of the Los Angeles Angels has spawned a group of about 40 hot dog vendors who’ve set up outside the stadium, and Angels execs hate it because that’s money that’s not going into team pockets — no, of course not, they’re just concerned about someone “getting severely sick or even dying due to food poisoning,” because we know how devoted the Angels organization is to ensuring people get quality food.
  • Thomas Tresser, not the DC Comics villain but the author of a book on the successful campaign to defeat Chicago’s Olympic bid, has launched a petition to demand that the city of Chicago not provide any public money or land for sports stadiums, feel free to sign if you’re the petition-signing type.
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Friday roundup: How fast is the A’s Vegas stadium going nowhere, and other questions

access_time personNeil deMause

Another week down! Have you been enjoying the Olympics so far? Did you even remember the Olympics were happening, other than to make sure you weren’t going anywhere near Paris during them? I, for one, cannot wait for the 2028 flag football competition.

Meanwhile, here’s what’s been happening:

  • Until now Oakland A’s owner John Fisher’s lack of any options for funding a Las Vegas stadium has just been widespread conjecture, but now a research note by JMP Securities analyst Mitch Germain confirms it: “The Oakland A’s new stadium currently remains in a holding pattern. The last piece of the puzzle was private financing obtained by the owner for the remaining cost of the stadium. Chatter suggests this may have hit a roadblock.” Oh wait, “chatter” could just mean Germain is reading the same conjecture? We can upgrade it to extremely widespread conjecture, at least.
  • Oakland has officially signed a deal to sell its half of the Oakland Coliseum site to the African American Sports & Entertainment Group for $105 million, paid out between now and June 2026. If AASEG fails to make the payments, then … that part didn’t make it into the San Francisco Chronicle story, it’s okay, they had bigger fish to fry.
  • The Massachusetts legislature adjourned this week without rezoning industrial land in Everett for a new New England Revolution stadium, and team owner Robert Kraft said he’s “deeply disappointed,” then threw some passive-aggressive shade by adding, “Massachusetts’ political landscape is one of the only places where creating opportunities in environmental justice communities and rehabilitation is dictated by the needs and bargaining of political leaders with outside influences.” Outside influences, eh? Were they … agitators?
  • Cleveland councilmembers want the Cleveland Browns to keep playing in Cleveland, not so sure about the whole “giving them hundreds of millions of dollars” thing, film at 11.
  • There are two competing proposals to put a sales tax increase back on the ballot to raise money for a Kansas City Chiefs stadiums, and the Jackson County legislature just voted down the one for a 0.125% hike over 25 years but is still working on the one for a 0.375% hike for 40 years.
  • Chicago Bears president/CEO Kevin Warren says he still prefers a new stadium on the Chicago lakefront that would come with billions of dollars in public money, but if that doesn’t work, Arlington Heights is nice, too.
  • Turns out someone did do a more robust analysis than the one by the Pennsylvania Independent Fiscal Office of the number of hotel room stays attributable to Philadelphia Phillies fans, and the finding was “not statistically significant.” I know Springer books are pricey, but the fiscal office really couldn’t afford $180?
  • The Atlanta Braves owners’ decision to build their stadium in the middle of the woods in the suburbs has prompted much debate, but until now it didn’t have its own Tracey Ullman parody song.
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