Category: San Jose Earthquakes

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: O’s lease, Brewers doubletalk, A’s lawsuit, Bears gibberish

access_time personNeil deMause

Today’s Friday where you are, right? I’ve completely lost track, honestly. Some things happened this week, or maybe last week, but they definitely happened, let’s talk about them:

  • The Baltimore Orioles owners announced a 30-year lease extension on Camden Yards last night by putting it up on the scoreboard between innings, that’s totally normal, yup. Actual details like what if anything the team got on top of the $600 million in state money approved last year will have to await a Friday news conference.
  • Wisconsin state representative Rob Brooks, who co-authored the bill to give Milwaukee Brewers owner Mark Attanasio even more money than he asked for, now says that he doesn’t want the city of Milwaukee to give Attanasio $7.5 million a year, but just $5 million a year. “If they come up with the things they’ve counted they can do and we think we can do, I do think it will be around $5 million,” said Brooks, which, sorry, what? You really gotta show us some actual legislative language, man, this trying to describe things using your words thing just isn’t going well at all.
  • “Representatives with ties to the A’s” have sued the teachers’ union–backed group Schools Over Stadiums over their proposed Las Vegas A’s stadium referendum “not fully describing the petition’s ‘substantive impacts’ on the project,” according to SOS. Who? What impacts? “This is a developing story. Check back for updates.” Pro journalism tip, Las Vegas Review-Journal: Try to answer at least some of the five W’s before hitting publish. (The Las Vegas Sun has a bit more info, adding that the suit is from registed lobbyists Danny Thompson and Thomas Morley and is objecting to the referendum petition trying to overturn just the funding part of the stadium bill and being “argumentative,” but doesn’t explain why either of those things would disqualify it from the ballot.)
  • Arlington Heights is still talking to Chicago Bears execs about a new stadium, and so is the mayor of Chicago, and that could mean that they’re about to approve a ton of subsidies or agree to a deal that doesn’t require a ton of subsidies or not agree to anything, really. “It’s what the people of Chicago elected me to do is to bring people together,” said Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson. “Being collaborative, compassionate and competent, those are the hallmarks of my administration. It’s what I expect, quite frankly, all leaders to possess.” Is there some sort of brain worm they inject mayors with at their inaugurations that make them talk like this?
  • Michael Baumann of FanGraphs writes that the Tampa Bay Rays and Kansas City Royals owners are both trying to get new stadiums by claiming it would let them start spending money with the big boys, but “we all know this is bunk.” He also complains that new baseball stadiums are too disconnected from their neighborhoods and too tall and too generic (all true), and then headlines the whole thing “The Jewel Box Under End-Stage Capitalism,” to which I can only say promises, promises.
  • The Chicago Tribune is worried that if the Bears don’t win games, no one will want to give them stadium money, and WCPO is worried that if the Cincinnati Bengals don’t win games, no one will want to give them stadium money, and both are probably right, but is that really the part to be worried about?
  • Sports management professor Mark Rosentraub still thinks Saskatoon needs a new arena, this time to remain “competitive” for concerts, LOLRosentraub.
  • Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke may pull his stadium from consideration for hosting 2026 World Cup games because FIFA won’t let him have enough of a cut of the vig. Sometimes when elephants fight, we can just get an entertaining elephant fight, maybe?
  • The Athletic noticed that A’s owner John Fisher, during his recent interview with ESPN, said (in ESPN’s words) that his San Jose Earthquakes‘ stadium “is already outdated compared to newer MLS stadiums” and “lacks the capacity and premium seating that drives the kind of revenue needed to compete for championships.” The stadium is eight years old.
  • “I don’t really like owning teams,” New York Knicks and Rangers LOLowner James Dolan told The New York Times, adding, “Being a professional sports owner in New York, you’re not beloved until you’re dead.” This may be overly optimistic, but sure, he’s welcome to try.
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Friday roundup: Reds exec says team will only demand renovation money, threatens to move if fans ask for better players

access_time personNeil deMause

This has officially been the longest week ever. Scientists agree! And so does the news:

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Earthquakes stadium opening pushed back to 2015

access_time personNeil deMause

The opening of the San Jose Earthquakes‘ new stadium has been pushed back from 2014 to 2015 because builders “encountered concrete vaults deeper than expected” at the site, according to a “source involved with the project.” (An official announcement is expected on Monday.) I know you’re all disappointed.

Though maybe some of you are actually a little extra disappointed if you already bought season tickets for the new stadium for next year, which apparently a bunch of Earthquakes fans already had. The San Jose Mercury News helpfully reports that “team officials will have to address what to do with the season tickets already sold for the new facility.”

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Earthquakes stadium funding gap resolved?

access_time personNeil deMause

San Jose Earthquakes managing partner Keith Wolff (son of owner Lew) gave a presentation to San Jose residents last night on the progress of their long-stalled soccer-only stadium, and if he’s to be believed, it could be stalled not much longer. Skip past all the stuff about noise complaints (which is important if you live near the stadium, but not likely to be a major holdup) and stadium design (which is largely unchanged from two years ago), and you hit this tidbit:

The overall budget for the 15000-18000 seat stadium would require “up to a $60 million investment” by team ownership and was not dependent on securing outside corporate funding.

If true, that’s a big change from last year, when Lew Wolff said he’d need to pre-sell “sponsorships” to raise money for a new stadium. It’s not clear why that would have changed — improving revenue projections for MLS? increased desperation on Wolff’s part to get shovels in the ground leading him to front the money himself? — but if it has, then a new Earthquakes stadium could be open by … probably not 2013, but certainly 2014, if they get rolling soon.

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Wolff: Selig should okay San Jose A’s move “for good of baseball”

access_time personNeil deMause

Athletics Nation has posted a long three–part interview with Oakland A’s owner Lew Wolff on multiple issues, including his new stadium plans. Among the highlights:

  • Asked when a decision will be reached by MLB’s relocation commission, Wolff sounded frustrated, as always: “I wish I could give you a finite answer on that. There is actually no reason in the world that any of us can come up with that either the Giants or the baseball Commissioner should not approve us to move 50/60 miles away to San Jose so A’s can get a new ballpark. The Commissioner … is not the kind of person, for reasons that I don’t know even though we are very close, that gives you a firm date on anything until he is absolutely ready to do so. So I feel embarrassed that I can’t answer the question to say, ‘By the end of November…’ but I can’t.”
  • Wolff hinted that he hasn’t been directly negotiating a territorial rights buyout with the Giants, saying, “I haven’t heard much from the Giants either, not that they need to,” and adding: “So this really boils down to the commissioner deciding, which he has the power to do, whether or not he will grant our request to share the Bay Area two-team market as the other three two-team markets in MLB all do.” He also reiterated several times that the former A’s owners handed over San Jose rights to the Giants for nothing “for the good of baseball,” and that handing them back to the A’s would likewise be for the good of baseball. Reading between the lines, this appears to be: “We’re not going to haggle over the price, so it’s up to Bud to force an agreement down the Giants’ throats”; given Selig’s proclivities for avoiding internecine conflict, good luck with that one.
  • Wolff ruled out staying in a new stadium in Oakland, insisting: “We have exhausted every option in Oakland. And you’d think within the last two years that somebody from Oakland would pick up the phone and say ‘here’s a finite plan that you missed and that we wish to discuss with you.’ I haven’t heard one word.” As if in answer, yesterday the Bay Citizen profiled plans continuing for Oakland stadium proposals by Jack London Square and near Lake Merritt Channel — whether you consider them viable options or not, they are “finite plans.”
  • He reiterated the “nobody wants to play on our grass” argument, asserting: “We have lost players in past years who would rather take a bit less money and play in a modern venue in a stronger market,” and citing Rafael Furcal and Adrian Beltre as specific examples. (Though in Beltre’s case, at least, indications are that he signed with Boston mostly to play in a pennant race and juice his batting numbers to earn a better subsequent contract in free agency.)
  • “We are, I believe, the only team in baseball to share our ballpark with another professional sports team.” When the interviewer points out the Florida Marlins, Wolff replies, “No, I think they just play there by themselves. I think it is a football stadium, but they play there without a team there.” That stadium would be the facility until recently known as “Dolphins Stadium,” where the Miami Dolphins play — they may be going through a rough patch, but “unprofessional” is kind of harsh.
  • On moving the team if San Jose falls through: “John Fisher and I don’t want to own a team outside of the Bay Area or outside of California. So if the Commissioner says to us, ‘Sorry I can’t do anything for you.’ Then I don’t know what we’ll do. We have not measured those options.” Wolff also reiterated the claim that he’s “never once threatened a move to another city,” though that hasn’t stopped his media proxies from doing so on his behalf.

In related news, Wolff told the San Jose Mercury News that he can have a San Jose Earthquakes stadium built by 2012, or maybe 2013, once he actually starts building one, if he does. “We’re taking every step toward a building permit that we can,” he said. “I don’t want to overdo it. These are very difficult times.” In other words, don’t hold you breath there, either.

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49ers face suit, Quakes need sponsors, A’s report still on hold

access_time personNeil deMause

Much news from Santa Clara County:

  • A former Santa Clara mayoral candidate has sued to block the June vote on building a new San Francisco 49ers stadium. Deborah Bress charges that the ballot language is misleading and hides the project’s true costs; given that this issue has been raised before, if nothing else it’ll be interesting to see a court of law take up the question.
  • The 49ers, meanwhile, have already spent $1.4 million on the stadium vote campaign, including, presumably, for the lawyers who wrote up that contentious ballot language. The stadium opposition has raised all of $3,000, which according to the 100-to-1 rule (stadium referendums generally only pass when proponents have outspent opponents by that margin) indicates that if these spending trends keep up, the Niners have a good chance of winning the vote. Assuming, of course, that there is one.
  • Over in San Jose, meanwhile, Earthquakes owner Lew Wolff clarified his plans for where the heck he’ll come up with $40 million or so in “sponsorships” to pay for his proposed new stadium: He’s going to make some calls. “The process of contacting potential advertisers and sponsors will begin in about a month, maybe sooner,” Wolff told MLS Insider, adding, “It has to be privately financed in California, there is no public financing, so we do need certain level of pre-commitment to get the stadium done.”
  • Finally, MLB commissioner Bud Selig said Sunday that he’s still waiting for that three-man commission he appointed last April to finish its report on sites for a potential new Oakland A’s ballpark — the most important element of which will be whether San Jose is on the list, and if so whether the commission has decided how much A’s owner Wolff would have to pay the San Francisco Giants owners for an official incursion into their MLB-designated territory. “They’re getting reasonably close to competing their work, but they have some left,” Selig told reporters Sunday. “They’re working their way through a lot of things and they’ve made no recommendations to me.” This is taking longer than watching Jack Cust try to score from first.
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Quakes stadium rezoning approved

access_time personNeil deMause

Lost in yesterday’s blizzard of stadium news was word from San Jose that the city council approved a rezoning bill needed to clear the way for a new Earthquakes stadium near San Jose Airport. For those interested in the gory details, Center Line Soccer liveblogged the hearing.

When the stadium will open is still up in the air: Quakes owner Lew Wolff is still working on selling naming rights and other sponsorship deals that will allow him to finance the estimated $40-60 million construction cost. And, of course, he also has other things on his mind.

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More vaportecture in San Jose?

access_time personNeil deMause

The San Jose Earthquakes released some sketches of a proposed soccer-only stadium on Saturday, but there’s no indication when it might be built: Team owner Lew Wolff still doesn’t know how it would be paid for, and would say only that it would open about two years after construction began, whenever that might be.

“People expect you to break ground,” Wolff told the San Jose Mercury News. “I’ve been breaking ground all my life. But I don’t like to generate expectations beyond what I can deliver.”

Interestingly, Wolff didn’t entirely rule out having the Quakes share space with the Oakland A’s should they move to San Jose, though he said, “The first goal is to have it soccer only.” Meanwhile, team execs announced they’d be cutting ticket prices for next season — some by as much as 40% — which is probably as much about the team having just finished in last place two years in a row as it is about the deflating ticket bubble.

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Wolff backs away from Quakes stadium plans

access_time personNeil deMause

Has the MLS pixie dust worn off? San Jose Earthquakes owner Lew Wolff has told the San Jose Mercury News that his new soccer stadium isn’t opening in 2012 as planned, as he hasn’t been able to line up the necessary sponsors. And this even after getting an offer of cut-rate land from the city of San Jose.

“You can’t do it out of magic,” said Wolff. “There’s no sense building a stadium unless you have some flow of revenue.” Guess he didn’t like the view from the diving board.

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