Category: Orlando City Soccer Club

Florida bill proposes ranking system for which teams get to glom onto tax subsidies first

access_time personNeil deMause

Hey, remember a few weeks ago when Florida house speaker Will Weatherford announced that he wanted an actual process for deciding which sports teams should get state tax breaks, instead of the time-honored local custom of just throwing all the money in the air and letting team owners stuff whatever they could grab into their shirts? There’s an actual bill now, sponsored by state senator Jack Latvala, and here’s its list of criteria, as related by the Tampa Tribune:

  • The kinds of “signature events” — like Super Bowls, all-star games or racing championships — the facility might attract.
  •  The likely boost in ticket sales and attendance the project would create.
  •  The likelihood of attracting out-of-state visitors.
  •  How long a team has been in the state.
  •  Whether the new or renovated stadium could host a variety of sporting or other events.
  • The ranking process also would give extra points to teams that can put up half or more of the total project funds.

So that, um, a start, I guess? It’s arguably a pretty stupid start — why teams that have been in the state longer should get dibs is unclear, and there’s tons of evidence that “signature events” are essentially worthless to local economies — especially compared to a more reasonable metric like, say, whether a project would actually create a net return on investment for the state. And it sounds like this is just an attempt to create a ranking system for who’d be allowed to dip their beaks first into the state’s annual funding pool (which would be set at $13 million a year), which negates the possibility of deciding that there aren’t $13 million a year of projects worth funding at all.

Still, at least mediocre criteria are criteria, and they can always be tweaked later if (okay, when) they prove to be inadequate and ridiculously easy for team owners to game. Not that I really expect the Florida state legislature to pass bills twice in my lifetime putting more strings on sports subsidies, but in an infinite universe, anything is possible.

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Florida house speaker: No new sales tax “checks” for stadiums this year

access_time personNeil deMause

Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford, who said earlier this week that he’d be introducing a bill to require sports teams to show they actually have a reason to ask for sales-tax kickbacks, upped the ante slightly yesterday by declaring that he doesn’t intend on approving any sports subsidies this year at all:

“Our focus right now is on a process that treats everyone equitably and not writing any checks,” Weatherford said during an interview with The News Service of Florida in his Capitol office.

Currently, the state of Florida pays $2 million a year to the Miami Dolphins, Jacksonville Jaguars, Tampa Bay Rays, Tampa Bay Lightning, Florida Panthers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Miami Heat, and Orlando Magic in exchange for the teams doing the state the favor of existing. (The Miami Marlins got left off this list after getting the $2 million a year break for their previous stadium, but did get everything else they wanted, so no complaining.) Right now the Orlando City Soccer Club, David Beckham’s as-yet-unnamed Miami MLS expansion team, and the Daytona International Speedway are all lining up to ask for sales-tax rebates as well, but it sounds like they’re going to have to wait — until next year, anyway, when Weatherford will, at the ripe old age of 35, be term-limited out of office. If Weatherford has his way, by then there will be new laws requiring team owners to “go through the process with the Department of Economic Opportunity just like everybody else does that wants to create jobs in Florida” to prove that their projects will provide a return on the state’s investment, though it remains to be seen whether he has a chance in hell of getting it through the state senate, which has historically been much more lenient about this kind of thing.
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Florida legislature considers requiring sports teams to have actual reasons to ask for state money

access_time personNeil deMause

So as we covered yesterday, David Beckham wants $2 million a year in sales tax rebates from the state of Florida for his new Miami MLS franchise, because all the other teams are getting them and tax rebates aren’t really money, right? Which is, admittedly, how it normally works in Florida, except that it turns out there’s now a push on in the state legislature to stop handing out sales tax breaks like candy:

Lawmakers this spring are drafting legislation that attempts to reform the sport-incentive process used to award hundreds of millions in sales-tax rebates to NFL, baseball and NBA franchise owners.

The idea was floated last year by future Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando. This year, it’s being steered by House Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, and will likely engulf current efforts to win tax incentives for Major League Soccer in Orlando and Miami…

Weatherford said he was in no mood to acquiesce. “I’m not a big fan of allowing anyone to jump ahead of the pack, or trying to pick winners and losers,” he said.

All sports projects should “have to prove the value of that partnership on their end first, and then come back to the Legislature to ask for funding.”

Okay, so instead of “not handing out like candy” I actually should have written “handing out like candy from parents who are worried about spoiling their kids, and ask if they’ve finished all their homework and cleaned their room before buying them that jumbo bag of M&Ms.” I haven’t the foggiest what standards Weatherfod and his legislative colleagues are going to propose for team owners who want state money, but at this point any standards at all would be better than “line up on the left, and have your suitcase open to receive the unmarked bills.”

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Orlando City SC latest team to evict church via eminent domain for stadium

access_time personNeil deMause

Orlando City Soccer Club may have gotten its $20 million in public stadium money, but it hasn’t acquired the land it needs yet. So, naturally, it wants to evict a church to make way for its stadium, because that’s how things are done these days. And also naturally, now that the city can’t settle on a price for the church land (the city offered $1.5 million, Faith Deliverance Temple countered with $35 million), it plans to use its eminent domain powers to acquire it:

Jonathan Williams, son of the church’s founder, said city officials jumped the gun by ending negotiations and saying they had to settle it in court.

“If they want it, they’ll pay more for it than it’s actually worth. We used that [$35 million price] as a basis to start conversations,” Williams said. “I was shocked — I thought we were still in negotiations. There was a high ball and a low ball, so let’s work it out. They initiated the disconnect.”

Silly church founder’s son: There is no “high ball” and “low ball.” There is only  hardball.

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Orlando City soccer celebrates $40m in stadium subsidies by asking for $30m in tax breaks

access_time personNeil deMause

So for better or for worse, the Orlando City S.C. soccer stadium was approved last week, and the financial breakdown is set in stone: The team will put in $40 million, the city and county will put in $20 million each, and the rest will be covered in dribs and drabs that will somehow add up to $14 million. It’s neither the best stadium deal in history nor the worst, but at least it’s resolved and — hoooooold everything:

Even though Orlando boosters were rebuffed by the Legislature last spring when they sought a sales-tax rebate for the stadium, plans are afoot to ask again for $30 million in tax breaks, which could pave the way for the grander $114 million version.

This is the $2 million a year in state sales tax kickbacks that the state of Florida has in the past handed out to pretty much all of its sports teams, which was approved for OCSC by the state senate last spring, but then rejected by the state house amid the Miami Dolphins subsidy debate. Apparently OCSC could ask for the tax break as late as 2015, at which point its new stadium would be almost set to open, but presumably last-minute bells and whistles — the list includes more luxury seating, a second “executive club,” and more advertising boards — could be added if the state money turned up.

Which is completely screwy, and surely nobody in the state legislature thinks that the public should hand over $30 million for a stadium project that’s already being built, just so the team can get more stuff to boost its profits with, right? Right?

“I think it’s something that’s good for the community, it’s good for the state, and boy, does it help make this city more of a world-class community,” said Sen. David Simmons, an Altamonte Springs Republican who plans to push for the tax break next spring.

There you have it, sports fans: A “world-class community” is one that has more advertising signage at its soccer stadium. Put that in your don’t-know-what-I-said book.

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Commissioner who voted against Orlando soccer deal calls economic impact numbers “twaddle”

access_time personNeil deMause

One of the two commissioners of the Orange County Commissioner who voted against Tuesday’s approval of a $94 million Orlando City Soccer Club stadium has spoken out about the team’s claims that the project would produce $1.2 billion in economic impact over the next 30 years.

“The technical term for their (Orlando City’s) economic study is ‘twaddle.'” said Brummer on our Open Mike radio show Wednesday morning. “It reminds me of the old joke about CPAs and it goes like this: A client calls a CPA and says, ‘You’re a math expert, how much is 2 plus 2?’ And the CPA says to the client, ‘What did you have in mind?’

Best part of that joke: Brummer himself is a CPA.

That “our,” incidentally, refers to Orlando Sentinel columnist and ESPN radio host Mike Bianchi, who previously distinguished himself by writing when the Orlando Magic‘s $480 million in arena subsidies were approved that he “wanted to run up and high-five [Orlando mayor] Rich Crotty. Or put on one of those big foam fingers and start chanting, ‘Rich, Rich, he’s our man. He’s gonna pass this venue plan!’” Predictably, Bianchi is all in favor of the OCSC soccer deal, writing that “if you want to be a big-league city, you have to build venues to attract teams,” and also that “There are two things that bring a city together — tragedy and winning sports teams.” Bianchi did not comment on whether this means he’d also be in favor of subsidies to attract terrorist bombings.

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Orlando getting MLS team, half the bill for stadium

access_time personNeil deMause

As expected, the Orange County Commission voted 5-2 in favor of spending tourist tax money on a new MLS soccer stadium yesterday, with former project foe Pete Clarke casting the deciding vote. Clarke didn’t get the promise he was seeking that the Orlando City Soccer Club would share profits with the county in exchange for $20 million in subsidies, but instead settled for the team kicking in $200,000 a year for 15 years to the county parks budget, though even that reportedly hasn’t been finalized.

With the city of Orlando having already approved the plan, this pretty much cements it in stone: The Orlando City Lions will likely become MLS’s 21st team either in 2015 or 2016, under league commissioner Don Garber’s “let a thousand soccer teams bloom” program. The new $94 million stadium — to be built near the Magic‘s Amway Center in the mostly poor, mostly African-American downtown neighborhood of Parramore — would be paid for roughly half by the team and half by the public: OCSC has committed to $30 million up front plus rent payments to cover $10 million in bonds, Orange County and the city of Orlando have each approved $20 million in tax money, and the other $14 million will apparently be paid off by everyone throwing their money on the table and leaving before the waiter has a chance to add up the bill.

The benefits of the stadium will be anything but halfsies, though: The team will get all revenues from soccer games (which will be the main use of the place, since it’s a soccer stadium), plus half of advertising board fees for non-soccer events; the county, despite owning the building, will be left with whatever it can get from renting the place out for concerts and the like. It all makes you wish that somebody had suggested a larger cut of the proceeds for the public in exchange for kicking in half the funding … oh, right.

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“Make the team share profits” commissioner reportedly backing down on Orlando soccer stadium opposition

access_time personNeil deMause

The Orange County Commission is set to vote at 2 pm today on committing $20 million in county tourist taxes toward a new $94 million Orlando City S.C. soccer stadium, and some angry speculation from stadium boosters last week notwithstanding, it doesn’t look like commissioners are going to stand in its way. In particular, commissioner Pete Clarke, who first floated the idea that if the team wants public money, it should share its profits with the public, now seems willing to back down and just accept a handful of coins for community projects:

Clarke said Monday that he’s now “flexible” on the soccer funding, largely because the team appears ready to help fund Orange recreation programs.

In return for helping fund the stadium, Clarke had sought a more ambitious plan to capture a share of ownership revenues of any MLS team. But Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer shot that idea down, saying state law bars such deals.

On Monday, Clarke said if the team helped fund recreation programs, it would ease his concerns. One negotiation still unfolding on that front, Clarke said, was a team pledge of $2.5 million toward such programs over the next 10 years.

If I’m Orlando City S.C., I jump all over that deal — $2.5 million over 10 years is a tiny price to pay for $20 million in cash right now. Plus, once Orange County signs off on the deal, OCSC is set to collect another $20 million from the city of Orlando, which already approved its own $20 million in subsidies earlier this month, plus another few million from neighboring counties. The team would end up putting in just $40 million toward the stadium, three-quarters of it in cash, the rest in future rent payments.

Two other county commissioners, Fred Brummer and Ted Edwards, have also expressed qualms about the deal, but with three votes needed to block a five-member supermajority on the seven-member commission, Clarke is in a position to cast the deciding vote all by his lonesome. It’d be nice if he’d hold out for a bit more than $250,000 a year in kickbacks, but let’s not be too hard on the guy — after all, if he holds up this deal, Christian Bruey might tweet at him again.

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Sports reporter fight! Sports reporter fight!

access_time personNeil deMause

So yesterday, Christian Bruey, the sports anchor for ABC affiliate WFTV in Orlando (Twitter bio: “Tweeting us? You may be on air!”), was all this:

And then someone told ESPN director Billy Corben this:

And then Corben went all no you didn’t:

And then, you know, Twitter stuff happened:

And so on. The apparent catalyst for this whole mess was a report by WFTV that Clarke, who you’ll recall as the guy with the crazy idea that if Orlando City F.C. gets public money for its stadium, the public should get a cut of the profits, too, is saying he won’t vote to approve the soccer stadium deal unless there’s a revenue-sharing component for the county. And with several other commissioners also opposed or noncommittal, stadium boosters are trying a full-court press (sorry, I don’t know the equivalent soccer term — full-pitch?) before Tuesday’s county commission vote. Which has Bruey all #Sad.

With his reporter hat back on, Bruey also tweeted that MLS president Mark Abbott will be in town on Monday to lobby county commissioners in advance of the vote. Because that’s why they pay league officials the big bucks.

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Orlando soccer stadium clears first hurdle, heads for county commission showdown

access_time personNeil deMause

The proposed Orlando City Soccer Club stadium cleared its first hurdle yesterday, as the Orlando city council voted unanimously for an $84 million stadium plan that would use $20 million in city funds, $20 million in county funds, $30 million from the team and $14 million from … they don’t seem to be saying where, though it could be the “annual payments for the next 25 years” that the team would be committing to.

That’s not actually all that big news, since unanimous approval was expected from the city. It’s the county commission where there’s opposition, including that guy who thinks that if the public hands over money to a private team, it should get a share of the profits, too. That vote won’t come until October 22, by which point hopefully the plan’s boosters — or at least the papers covering it — will be able to make their numbers add up.

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