Category: Las Vegas MLS team

Friday roundup: Mayor nixes downtown Bills stadium, another A’s vote in works, also world coming to end real soon now

access_time personNeil deMause

Happy Friday! Let’s check out the non-sports-stadium news for a minute and see if there’s anything cheerier to start our weekend with and … no … no … nope, okay, sports stadium news it is, here we go:

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Friday roundup: Rays-Tampa stadium talks commence (again), Coyotes eviction put off (for now)

access_time personNeil deMause

Yes, yes, I’ve read that restaurant review, and it’s great, but is it really better than the classic of the genre? It’s hard to beat “tasted like chewy air,” is all I’m saying.

And speaking of things that are almost indescribably awful, on with the week’s stadium and arena news:

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Friday roundup: MLB billionaire owners cry poor, Rangers stadium reviews get worse and worse

access_time personNeil deMause

What a week! I know I say that every week, but: What. A. Week. In addition to the World Series insanity, I spent some time this week writing an article about other ways that giant monopolistic cartels screw over regular folks, but it’s not up yet* so you’ll just have to find out about it next week (or keep refreshing my personal website, or follow me on Twitter or something).

In the meantime, there’s lots of sports stadium and arena news to keep you occupied:

  • NYC F.C. may have announced progress on its new soccer stadium this week while providing no indication of actual progress, but the Washington Football Team one-upped them when team president Jason Wright earned an entire NBC Sports article about their stadium plans by saying he didn’t even have a timeline for the process. Meanwhile, the Sacramento Republic likewise issued a statement on their new stadium construction plans that amounted to nothing (“I do have a hard hat in my trunk!” said team president Ben Gumpert, by way of news). At this rate, team owners will be able to get reporting on their stadium campaigns after denying they even want one — oh wait, we’ve gone there already.
  • MLB commissioner Rob Manfred says the league now has $8.3 billion in debt, $3 billion of it accrued during 2020’s pandemic season, which doesn’t actually tell you how well baseball is doing — presumably some of it was borrowed against future revenues from TV contracts and naming-rights deals and the like — but sounds impressive when you’re about to go into union contract talks. Also, notes Marc Normandin, that’s really only a $100 million loss per team, which isn’t an unfathomably huge sum for the billionaires who own most teams; plus we have to take Manfred’s word on that debt figure, and it already doesn’t include things like teams’ ownership of regional sports networks. MLB owners, he writes, are “hoping, as they so often do, that you have no idea how anything works, and will just take them at their word. So that they can do things like, oh, I don’t know, decline the 2021 option on basically everyone with one in order to flood the free agent market with additional players they can then underbid on and underpay, claiming that this is all financially necessary because of all the debt, you see.” Or as we may start calling it soon, getting Brad Handed.
  • Philadelphia public schools lost $112 million in property tax revenues in 2019 that were siphoned off to tax breaks for developers, according to a new Good Jobs First study, nearly double their losses from just two years earlier. Good thing the 76ers‘ plan for an arena funded by siphoned-off property taxes was rejected, though there are more plans where that came from, so Philly schools should probably still hold onto their wallets.
  • One more review of the Texas Rangers‘ new stadium that team owners Ray Davis and Bob Simpson got $500 million to help build because the old one lacked air-conditioning, this one from a fan who’s visited every stadium and arena in North America: “This would probably end up probably down near the bottom.” He added that the upper decks are too far from the field, the place is too dark, the scale is “ridiculous,” and on top of that fans were taking off their masks as soon as security is out of sight, which, yup.
  • Las Vegas has extended its negotiating window again for a new soccer stadium to lure an MLS team, which makes you wonder why they even bothered to set a window in the first place instead of just hanging out a shingle saying, “Have Stadium $$$, Inquire Within.”
  • Sports team owners make tons of “dark money” to political campaigns to try to get elected officials to support their interests, according to ESPN, though disappointingly their only real source is an unnamed NBA owner. But that source did say, “There’s no question,” in italics and everything, so you know they’re serious.
  • Maybe the NHL should just play games outdoors so they can allow in fans? There are dumber ideas, but they might want to figure out how to get fans to keep their damn masks on first.
  • There are some new renderings of the New York Islanders‘ luxury suites at their new arena, and I can’t stop puzzling over what that weird counter-like thing is in this one, or why the women are all wearing stiletto heels to an NHL game. I’ll never understand hockey!

*UPDATE: Now it’s up.

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Garber says Charlotte next MLS expansion frontrunner, fee to be part of money-losing league now up to $300m

access_time personNeil deMause

MLS commissioner Don Garber was back on the expansion-franchise hustings this weekend in advance of the MLS Cup final, and had a bunch of newish stuff to let slip:

  • In the race for the 30th and final announced MLS franchise, Garber said, “It’s fair to say that Charlotte has done a lot of work to move their bid really to the front of the line.”
  • He also mentioned Las Vegas and Phoenix as cities that “our expansion committee has been engaging,” which certainly seems to hint that those cities will be first in line for franchises 31 and 32, once those are inevitably announced.
  • According to the minimum-wage-paying content farm currently bearing the name Sports Illustrated (the article is actually by one of SI’s remaining actual staff journalists, Grant Wahl), “The 30th team is expected to pay a $300 million expansion fee.”
  • An official announcement for the 30th team will be made in the “next number of months,” which definitely narrows it down to sometime in, um, the future.

The key number there is clearly “$300 million,” which is crazy in that Forbes estimates most of the existing teams in bigger markets aren’t even worth that much, but less crazy if you see this as MLS trying to take advantage of too many billionaires with too much money burning holes in their pockets and a bad case of tulipomania. If people are willing to keep paying increasing amounts of money for smaller and smaller slices of the MLS pie — which is mostly a whole lot of money-losing MLS teams plus a money-making Soccer United Marketing enterprise, and SUM doesn’t get any more lucrative just because you add more owners — then of course he should be grabbing their cash with both hands.

What happens when and if the world runs out of soccer-loving billionaires, of course, is another story, but MLS will happily cross that bridge when they come to it. Or runs out of cities willing to help underwrite stadium costs so that owners can better afford those crazy expansion fees — Charlotte’s jump to the front of the line almost certainly has less to do with its charms as a city or a soccer hotbed and more to do with the fact it just re-elected a city council eager to give Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper $100-200 million for stadium upgrades so he can host an MLS team at his NFL stadium. The endgame is likely going to be ugly unless MLS can increase its popularity in a hurry, but success in the grifting economy is less about a happy endgame than cashing out before the chickens come home to roost.

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Friday roundup: Rangers fans don’t like nice weather after all, Orlando re-renovating renovated stadium, Dan Snyder has a $180m yacht

access_time personNeil deMause

Today is site migration day — cue the jokes about how Field of Schemes should be hosted half the time in Montreal and half the time in Tampa Bay — so if things look a bit weird after 2 pm Eastern or so, that’s to be expected. Rest assured that the site will be back to normal soon, hopefully later today but certainly entirely by Monday; or actually better than normal, because the whole point of this exercise is to have a zippier, more reliable platform so that you can get your immediate fix of stadium news without having to refresh or even wait multiple milliseconds for images to load.

And speaking of your immediate stadium fix, here’s the rest of this week’s news:

  • The Texas Rangers are building (read: mostly having the citizens of Arlington build for them) a new stadium just so they can have air-conditioning so that fans will go to games, but the Fort Worth Star-Telegram points out that the team has been winning and the weather has been nice this spring, and fans still aren’t showing up.
  • MLS commissioner Don Garber said that he “could see [Las Vegas] being on our list for future teams,” which is literally the most noncommittal thing he could say, but he still gets headlines for it, so he’s gonna keep saying it.
  • Here’s an article about how building a whole real estate development that will turn a big profit will help the Golden State Warriors make more money, if anyone wasn’t clear on that concept already.
  • The Orlando city council approved the $60 million in renovation money for Camping World Stadium (née the Citrus Bowl) that they said they would last fall. Since the stadium doesn’t even have a regular sports tenant — it is only used for the occasional soccer friendly, college football game, or concert — it’s hard to call this a subsidy to anyone in particular, but it’s still probably a pretty dumb use of money, especially since the stadium was just renovated once already in 2014.
  • There is no actual news in this Page Six item, but if you thought I was going to pass up a chance to link to an article that begins, “Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder roared up to Cannes Lions in his $180 million yacht as ad sources speculated he’s in town to find a title sponsor for the team’s new stadium,” you’re crazy.
  • Construction on the Las Vegas Raiders stadium was momentarily halted last week when it turned out one of the parts didn’t fit, which probably isn’t a big deal in the long run — in fact, the ill-fitting steel truss was adjusted and reinstalled a few days later — but that doesn’t mean we can’t make Ikea jokes.
  • The Arizona Diamondbacks owners have hired architecture firm HKS, who designed the Texas Rangers’ new park, to design a new stadium for them if they choose to build one, and you know what that’s going to mean: lots of renderings with Mitch Moreland and his wife in them.
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Vegas signs agreement with somebody to propose soccer stadium costing something and paid for somehow

access_time personNeil deMause

The city of Las Vegas is moving ahead with that MLS stadium plan, approving an “Exclusive Negotiating Agreement” (caps in original) with Renaissance Companies — the press coverage isn’t exactly clear on whether it’s the Arizona construction managers or the California investment advisors or the Chicago housing developers, none of which appear to have experience building stadiums — to come up with a plan to “including specific details of the stadium and costs” in the next six months. So this really is an “okay, show us what you got” agreement, though calling it “exclusive” gives it a bit more official imprimatur, and presumably means the city won’t be doing anything else with the Cashman Field site in the interim.

But even if Renaissance doesn’t yet know how much the stadium would cost or who would pay for it or even which Renaissance they are, they do have renderings! Oh boy, do they have renderings:

Yes, that is indeed a retractable field in the last image, with the pitch sliding out into the open air to reveal … another soccer pitch, this one in the open air of the stadium itself? Though maybe those fine lines running across the top of the stadium represent some kind of super-invisible roof that would protect fans from the heat while allowing in all light except for what grass needs to grow? Or maybe the second field is artificial turf, so the stadium could be used for … not football, that’s what the Las Vegas Raiders stadium is for, but some other sport that needs to be played on artificial turf, like, okay, I’m not thinking of any, but maybe they’re planning to invent one?

Anyway, there’s lots of fireworks and spotlights and reflected sunlight even if not quite lens flare per se, plus plenty of entourage featuring a whole lot of Rockettes standing around outside the stadium for some reason. Also, it’s not just a stadium, it’s a “sports and innovation district,” and clearly adding “innovation” to your district name isn’t a sign that it’s an empty scam or anything. It’ll clearly be great!

Meanwhile, if you’re wondering why Las Vegas needs a new soccer stadium when it’s already building a new football stadium that could host a soccer team, Vegas Golden Knights owner Bill Foley is wondering that, too! In a just and sane world, one would hope that having two competing soccer plans would enable Vegas officials to cut the best deal for residents and taxpayers, but that is clearly not the universe we live in.

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Friday roundup: Clippers broke public meetings law, Vegas seeks MLS team, Buccaneers used bookkeeping tricks to try to get oil-spill money

access_time personNeil deMause

Any week with a new/old Superchunk album is a good one! Please listen while reading this week’s roundup of leftover stadium and arena news:

  • The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office has determined that Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer violated open meetings laws by hiding information about the team’s proposed new Inglewood arena’s location and scope when formally proposing it in 2017, even replacing the name “Clippers” with “Murphy’s Bowl LLC, a Delaware Limited Liability Company (Developer).” Unfortunately, the DA’s office noted, it’s too late to do anything about this because the violation wasn’t reported in time, but don’t do it again, I guess? In related news, NBA commissioner Adam Silver says he supports the team’s arena plan, even though Ballmer is being sued by New York Knicks owner James Dolan, who also owns the nearby Forum and doesn’t want the competition, and who was apparently the main reason for all that secrecy on the part of Ballmer. It’s all enough to make you feel sympathetic to Dolan, until you remember that he is an awful person.
  • Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman has announced she’s looking at building an MLS stadium in her city, because “We have not become the pariah anymore, and there is no end to this. It’s so exciting,” which would almost make sense if MLS had previously steered clear of Vegas because of gambling or something and also if MLS were currently about to put a franchise in Vegas, neither of which is the case. The stadium, if it’s ever built, would go on the site of Cashman Field, where the USL Championship Las Vegas Lights FC currently play, and would be paid for by some method that the developers “would have to present” to the city council, according to the mayor’s office. It’s so exciting!
  • The owners of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers tried to get $19.5 million in settlement money from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster on the grounds that the team lost revenue that summer compared to the following summer when it was banking extra NFL checks that the league was stockpiling in advance of a player lockout. Amazingly, that’s not what got the claim rejected — it was only nixed when it turned out the Bucs hadn’t even stockpiled that revenue at the time, but rather did so retroactively on its books when it realized it could use it as a way to try to get oil spill settlement cash. It’s such a fine line between mail fraud and clever.
  • Inter Miami owners David Beckham and Jorge Mas have agreed to pay a youth golf program $3 million to clear out of the way of their proposed Melreese soccer stadium and move, you know, somewhere else, so long as it’s not on their lawn. This is not a ton of money in the grand scheme of things, but it is worth noting that Beckham and Mas are sinking a whole lot of money into this stadium and a temporary stadium until this one is ready and the old new stadium site that they say they’re not building a stadium on anymore; this can either be seen as a laudable commitment to private funding or a dubious business investment or, hell, why not both?
  • The Portland Diamond Project group has gotten a six-month extension on its deadline to decide whether to build a baseball stadium at the Terminal 2 site, and is paying only $225,000, instead of the $500,000 it was originally supposed to be charged. That seems like bad negotiating by the Port of Portland when they had the wannabe team owners over a barrel, but I guess $225,000 just for a six-month option on a site that probably won’t work anyway for a team that probably won’t exist anytime soon is nothing to turn up your nose at.
  • When the headline reads “New A’s stadium could generate up to $7.3 billion, team-funded study predicts,” do I even need to explain that it’s nonsense? If you want a general primer on why “economic impact” numbers don’t mean much of anything, though, I think I addressed that pretty well in this article.
  • The Los Angeles Rams‘ new stadium is reportedly set to get $20 million in naming rights payments for 20 years from a company that lost hundreds of millions of dollars last year, which is surely not going to result in a repeat of the Enron Field fiasco.
  • A reporter at the Boston Bruins‘ 24-year-old home arena was startled by a rat on live TV. Clearly it’s time to tear it down and build a new one.
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Friday roundup: More MLS expansion drum beating, more wasteful non-sports subsidies, more bonkers Tottenham stadium delay stories

access_time personNeil deMause

Getting a late start this morning after being out last night seeing Neko Case, so let’s get to this:

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