On top of everything else this week, the Tampa Bay Rays management dropped their draft memorandum of understanding for a Tampa stadium deal, which sheds a little more light on what precisely they’re asking for in terms of public money. I’ve only had a chance to give it a quick read, but so has Noah Pransky of Shadow of the Stadium, so maybe combined we can hit the biggest takeaways:
- This is just the Rays’ proposed MOU; county officials haven’t reviewed it yet.
- Rays owner Patrick Zalupski wants it finalized by June 1, so that a stadium can be open by 2029 — probably an impossible timetable, but if it works to create a two-minute warning, sure, why not?
- The land under the stadium itself, currently owned by the state, will be shifted to the county’s possession — so all of that previously reported between $1.1 billion and $2.5 billion in free land and property tax breaks is still in play.
- The Rays will lease (or maybe “license”) the stadium for 35 years, for a rent of $10 a year. (No, that’s not a typo: not $10 million, $10.)
- The stadium itself will cost at least $2.3 billion, with $251 million coming from the city of Tampa (source TBD unless I missed it) and $750 million from Hillsborough County, which will include hotel tax (TDT) money, sales tax surcharge (CIT) money, revenue from an already existing TIF district (Drew Park) around the site, and possibly federal disaster recovery block grant funds. that, notes Pransky, are “generally earmarked to rebuild housing & infrastructure that support low-to-moderate income populations.”
- Any excess public revenue from all those tax streams will go into a future maintenance fund, so the actual amount of county funding could be much higher, a la the Atlanta Falcons‘ infamous “waterfall fund.”
- “The Rays Stadium Entity intends to seek additional Public Funding from other available public funding sources,” so the total public subsidy could be even more much higher.
- The Rays will impose a ticket surcharge, but that money will pay off the team’s portion of costs, not the public’s, so no help there.
- Likewise, the “Rays Stadium Entity will retain all revenue generated pursuant to the Lease, including but not limited to revenue associated with tickets, parking, suites, signage, advertising, promotional inventory, sponsorships, concessions, merchandise, broadcasting rights, royalties, licensing fees, concession fees and other sources described in the Lease.” So the city and county will get bupkis in stadium revenues to help pay off their share, not even naming rights on a county-owned building.
- This is all just an MOU for the stadium itself; the surrounding development appears to be waiting for a later date, so no more details on when that would be built, how much it would cost, how much in property tax breaks it would be receiving, or how on earth it could be “100 percent privately financed” but with “tax dollars from the district used to eventually pay off the tab.“
So we’re at a minimum of $2.1 billion in public costs for the entire project, and a maximum of who the hell knows, but numbers like $4 billion or even higher are certainly not out of the realm of possibility. There are certain to be lots of questions from Hillsborough County Commissioners, especially on that CIT sales tax surcharge that voters were promised wouldn’t be used for stadiums (and which residents currently oppose using for a Rays stadium) — in the MOU it’s earmarked for “on-site horizontal infrastructure,” which could mean things like roads and sewers but also building foundations. In fact, County Commissioner Joshua Wostal, who is emerging as one of the louder critics of the deal, has already called attention to a clause saying if the city and county can’t come up with the funds in the MOU, they’ll need to “use best efforts to endeavor to secure alternative financing,” something Wostal said seems to be a “poison pill” intended to “force the commissioners to vote no in what seems to be an intentional killing of the deal.” Or maybe they just hope commissioners will agree to anything, it’s happened before!
More on all that next week, surely. In the meantime, here’s the rest of this week’s news:
- Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas’s Royals stadium ordinance is now released as well, and there’s a lot less there than it sounded like yesterday: Yes, it promises $600 million in city money, but just as part of a future term sheet to be negotiated by the city manager, so at least the city wouldn’t be committing money now for a pig in a poke. Lucas announced that he would also ask the state to fund up to 50% of stadium costs from the $1.5 billion earmarked for stadiums by the state legislature last summer; half of that was set to go to the Chiefs, so it’s as yet unclear whether Royals owner John Sherman could tap more than $750 million of it. In any case, Lucas’s bill is more a framework of a wish list than an actual stadium agreement, so rest assured that there’s still time for city officials to negotiate all the important details before rushing it to a vote without enough public oversight.
- Las Vegas Mayor Shelley Berkley is offering two city-controlled sites as potential locations for a new arena for a possible NBA expansion franchise, because surely Las Vegas doesn’t have enough NBA-ready arenas already.
- The Houston Rockets arena is getting a $180 million upgrade with $95 million of that coming from the state, but Mayor John Whitmire says this is “at no cost to Houston taxpayers” because the money was going to be spent anyway so the arena can host the 2028 Republican Convention — which is not what “no cost” means at all, unless maybe Whitmore is proposing that Houston residents start refusing to pay state taxes, which is always an option.
- Oklahoma City is getting a new UFL football team for its new soccer stadium, will it pay any rent to help defray the city’s $121 million in stadium costs? Anyone? Never mind, probably not important.
- Men’s World Cup games in New Jersey this summer will force NJ Transit train service to be suspended for four hours before matches so that trains can all be used to get fans to the games, but don’t worry, “only one game will impact afternoon rush-hour commuters,” so it probably won’t be too bad a trainpocalypse.
- What about data center subsidies, you’re asking, do they suck as much for the public as sports subsidies? Yes, indeed they do. At least you don’t have to buy tickets to use them, though, just surrender the world’s oceans.
