The site was under the weather on Friday (all better now), so instead you get the Friday Roundup, Monday Edition:
- “Sources” tell the Las Vegas Review-Journal that the Oakland A’s owners “are interested in a public-private collaboration” for any new stadium in Las Vegas (or any new stadium anywhere? the Review-Journal isn’t clear, or the sources weren’t), pointing to the two most recent MLB stadiums, the Atlanta Braves‘ and Texas Rangers‘, as examples. As a reminder, the public price tag on those two projects ended up at $392 million and $500 million, respectively.
- The NBA could soon expand to 32 teams, according to “league chatter,” with NBC Sports noting that Sportsnet Central reported that Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri was first hired by now-Oak View Group CEO Tim Leiweke, whose brother Tod is the owner of the NHL’s expansion Seattle Kraken, and also “it’s widely believed the NBA will expand for the first time since rounding out to 30 teams in 2004 partly to recoup for losses from the pandemic,” so connect the dots, people! I mean, maybe it’ll happen, but it really does go to show how much wild speculation and outright wish fulfillment news reporters can get away with under the cover of “some people say.”
- In one of the most bizarre editor’s notes of all time, after a Cleveland Plain Dealer reporter revealed that the Cleveland City Planning Commission had not notified the public in advance that it would be discussing a Cleveland Browns plan for a publicly funded $200 million waterfront park/ramp near their stadium, the paper’s editor wrote that the planning commission did so in order to protect the Plain Dealer’s own scoop about the team’s plans. “I have a bit of quandary,” wrote editor Chris Quinn. “On the one hand, I have two reporters who worked out exclusive access for our audience on a huge story — the most realistic bid ever for revamping the Cleveland lakefront — and on the other I have a reporter questioning why the city bent its public notice rules.” Quinn ends up concluding that it was wrong for the city to have kept the meeting a secret from other reporters, even if it benefited his paper, but maybe the bigger problems is news outlets seeking scoops by partnering with developers and city officials to run an article that includes no comment from the public or from other architects, city planners, or economists, because that would have tipped people off about the news? Just an idea.
- Also, here is what the Browns’ “plinth” is envisioned to look like, if you had been wondering. I am a particular fan of the artfully shaped giant holes in it that would allow parkgoers to fall to their deaths on the train tracks below!
- Washington Football Team owner Daniel Snyder is touring new NFL stadiums to drive up interest in a bidding war among D.C., Maryland, and Virginia for his team — wait, sorry, did I type that out loud? I meant doing due diligence for a stadium that Snyder expects to be open by 2027, or as soon as he finds someone to build it for him — damn, sorry, I keep typing the quiet stuff loud, don’t I? Sorry, this whole Monday business is throwing me off.
- Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melnyk says he might build a new arena across the Ottawa River in Gatineau, Quebec, though also he’d rather stay in suburban Kanata, but did you know the city gave a Porsche dealer a $2.6 million tax break as economic development? “He’s selling goddamn Porsches,” said Melnyk, who blew up his last plans for a new arena by suing his business partners. “Give me a break. Give me the tax break! I’m dying out here, I’ve got no fans and I’m still trying to put on a show for everyone.” Note to Melnyk: Maybe advertising that no one cares about your team is not the absolute best way to demand a tax break?