Category: Jacksonville Jaguars

We have our first sign of city council dissension on the plan to give Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan $775 million in city money toward a $1.4 billion stadium renovation — and it’s not about the $775 million for a privately used football stadium at all. Nope, councilmember Rory Diamond says he’s opposed to the deal because of the $300 million (sort of — more on that in a moment) in “community benefits” spending that would be split between the city and Khan:

As promised, Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan finally released her Jaguars stadium plan yesterday, in the form of a presentation to the city council. Let’s get straight to answering your questions about it — no, no need to ask actual questions, I’ve got that covered for you:

How much would the stadium renovation cost, and how much public money does Jaguars owner Shad Khan want?

Action News Jax reports that the total cost would be $1.7 billion, with $925 million coming from the city of Jacksonville, while Florida Politics calls it a $1.25 billion deal with a 50/50 split between the city and team.

You’re confusing me already.

In the form of a question, please!

Sorry. What’s the actual breakdown?

• $625 million from the city for the stadium renovation
• $625 million from Khan for the stadium renovation
• $150 million from the city for “maintenance costs on the existing structure,” which Deegan claims the city would have to spend either way
• $150 million apiece for “community development projects” including affordable housing, homelessness programs, and parks

Is that a lot of public money?

That all depends on how you look at it. Even if you count the deferred maintenance costs, $775 million is less than the $800 million to $934 million that was previously floated. And Deegan was quick to note that it’s less than Tennessee and New York taxpayers are spending on new stadiums for the Titans and Buffalo Bills, though those are whole new stadiums, not just renovations.

All that’s just anchoring, though. Some other ways to look at it:

• In exchange for a 30-year lease extension, $775 million comes to $25.8 million in present-day cost for each additional year Khan would promise to keep the Jags in town. That would be the third-highest cost per year of any pro sports renovation, behind only the Baltimore Ravens‘ $40 million a year and the New Orleans Saints‘ $30 million a year.
• That $775 million could build about 13 new schools, even at the inflated prices Jacksonville has been paying.
• It’s $775 million more than most Jacksonville residents or business owners would get from the city if they wanted to renovate their homes or offices.
• The city and Khan would be (roughly) splitting renovation costs evenly, but Khan would (presumably) continue to receive all revenues from the building, including naming rights.

Are there any hidden costs like tax breaks?

We don’t know yet, as Mayor Deegan didn’t include lease details in her presentation. We also don’t know, crucially, if there are any state-of-the-art clauses or other provisions that would allow Khan to demand more public money before the 30 years were up.

Is there a slideshow with lots of really big numbers?

Of course! Here’s one example:

That is number is indeed really big, in both value and type size! But is that real city revenue or just one of those “impact” numbers that means money changing hands anywhere in the city?

Mayor Donna Deegan says the deal will provide a whopping $26 billion of economic impact over the length of the 30-year lease. [Action News Jax reporter Ben] Becker pressed her on that number because economist’s says economic impact is not revenue for a city, revenue is tax dollars.

“Do we have a number on that, guys?” Deegan asked lead negotiator Mike Weinstein from the podium, but the number was not available.

What do economists say about it?

“I think they did a really good job marketing it,” says Kristi Sweeney who is a sports finance professor at the University of North Florida… “That is over-estimated I would say.”

Where will Jacksonville get the $775 million it would be spending?

Deegan has posted a really confusing explanation to her site, but it comes down to: If the city keeps a 0.5% sales tax surcharge to fund capital projects in place through 2030 instead of allowing it to end in 2026, that would let it pay for around $600 million in city projects to be funded by sales tax receipts instead of by borrowing. So the city could use the borrowing for Jaguars renovations instead, making that free money!

Does that make any sense?

No, and doubly not since once the capital projects sales tax expires, a different 0.5% sales tax to fund city pension costs will kick in. So extending the first tax just means an extra $600 million worth of pension money that the city has to come up with somewhere, eating up any windfall.

What does the city council think of all this?

Unclear. One councilmember, Jimmy Peluso, told Action News Jax that the community development money is a nice carrot, because “this is something that’s going to benefit the whole city.” Another, Rory Diamond, called it “exactly the same as it was last year, except now we have a new $150 million of spending that has nothing to do with the stadium” and called the pension fund switcheroo “both dangerous and just dishonest.” Most of the other 17 members of the council apparently weren’t available for comment, or were just distracted by the slideshow.

Would the Jaguars at least have to stop playing one home game a year in London?

“We will have the option — not the requirement — to play up to one home game a year” in London, [Jaguars President Mark] Lamping said.

Do we have a photo of Shad Khan showing the guy who’d be collecting the $775 million in tax money? Preferably on a yacht?

I got ya:

Is that a real photo?

God help us, yes.

What happens now?

Council president Ron Salem says he wants to pass at least the stadium renovation portion of the deal by the end of June, “but not at the expense of people still uncomfortable with the deal,” whatever that means. Also, does Salem mean the stadium part might pass without the community benefits part? If so, what would Khan’s incentive be to agree to the additional spending once he gets his stadium money?

I thought I was asking the questions here?

You’re right, sorry. But there are a whole lot of questions left to be answered, so one of us had better get cracking.

After more than two years of talks, the city of Jacksonville and Jaguars owner Shad Khan have announced an agreement on publicly funded upgrades to the team’s 28-year-old stadium. And the details are:

The city announced the agreement will be presented to council Tuesday, but until then, it seems the details will be scant, if not non-existent.

“The negotiating team is currently putting the final details on paper, and we will release that information as soon as it is available,” said Mayor Donna Deegan in a statement attached to the release announcing the framework agreement.

That’s interesting, to say the least. It’s certainly a common tactic to wait until the last possible moment to announce stadium subsidy plans, lest people start looking at them and thinking about them and all the other nasty things people are wont to do. But not even releasing them until the council is actually gathered to discuss it is above and beyond the usual hurry-up-and-wait, and resulted in this hilarious back and forth between Deegan and a reporter for Action News Jax:

We asked why the city announced a deal had been reached if it wasn’t willing to provide details for days.

“Did you hear me make an announcement?” said Deegan in response.

We noted the release sent by the city.

“After the news came out. Look I will be talking to you on Tuesday,” Deegan responded.

“Did you hear me make an announcement?” while at a press conference you yourself called is truly peak elected official, A+, no notes.

One hopes that some of the stadium details will leak before Tuesday, or at least that some of the council members will get tipped off in advance so they can ask more probing questions than “Hold up, what page are we on?” At last report, Khan was still asking for close to $1 billion in public money, all to upgrade a stadium that has already been renovated three times in the last 28 years — and that’s presumably before any hidden goodies like tax breaks or infrastructure. Tune in on Tuesday along with the people who’ll actually have to vote on this thing, and find out the whole truth! Maybe.

At a sports industry conference on Thursday, Jacksonville Jaguars president Mark Lamping said this in response to a question about whether a proposed $1 billion stadium renovation subsidy would go before voters:

“If there’s a referendum, the ballot question should be: Do you want to keep the NFL in Jacksonville? … Look, if Jacksonville loses an NFL team, they’re never going to get another one. And if the Jaguars have to relocate from Jacksonville, those of us that went down there would have failed. OK? And none of us want to face that.”

That’s about as threatening as veiled threats get: Lamping is here saying that voting against a billion-dollar subsidy would mean the Jaguars would leave. Except that on Friday, Lamping immediately turned around and said he didn’t say that at all:

“That’s obviously taken totally out of context,” Lamping told News4JAX. “What will happen, and it’s been very consistent, dating back to 2016, we can’t extend our lease unless we find a stadium solution. That is so important. You’ve heard me say that many, many times dating back to 2016. And try to turn that into a statement that here’s this ultimatum, it just isn’t true.”

Um? First off, saying something is “out of context” when it contains all the necessary context isn’t a thing — I mean, it is a thing and has been for a long time, but that’s doesn’t make it any more legitimate of an excuse for saying something you later regret. And second, Lamping immediately restated the threat, since “we can’t extend our lease unless we find a stadium solution” actually means “we won’t extend our lease unless we get stadium subsidies,” and not having a lease means they’d have to play elsewhere, which means relocating.

Whether Lamping (or his boss, Jags owner Shad Khan) actually means that the team will move if it doesn’t get this round of funding approved is unknown, obviously — all we know is that he means for Jaguars fans to feel threatened that if they don’t approve the $1 billion, they’ll lose their team. But not to blame Lamping (or Khan) for making a threat or thinking they’re not nice people, oh, no no no.

This is why in our book Field of Schemes we called it the “non-threat threat”: The trick is to get all the benefits of scaring sports fans without any of the pitchforks and flaming torches. Whether Lamping’s attempt here will work remains to be seen, though there haven’t been any reports of him being hanged in effigy at Sunday’s home game, so that’s a good start, anyway!

Jacksonville Jaguars execs have declared themselves ready to open talks with Donna Deegan, who was elected mayor last month, on a proposed $2 billion stadium renovation and development project, of which roughly $1 billion would be paid by taxpayers. Deegan has said she wants to schedule a series of town halls to get public input for the rest of the year, and team president Mark Lamping said he’s in no rush:

“We’re ready to engage, but we’re not going to put any pressure on anybody to sit down with us under a specific timetable,” Lamping said Thursday after a “community huddle” at the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens.

And then, in the next breath:

He said the cost of construction will go up over time so that’s a factor in the timetable for negotiations. … “To the degree that we can, I think it makes sense for all parties that if we are going to get this done, let’s stick to the timetable so the cost doesn’t go up,” he said.

Lamping said in order to stay on track with that schedule, the team would need to start spending about $1 million per month in October to advance the design of the future stadium. He said the decision to spend that money isn’t dependent on having an agreement by then, but the Jaguars will do a “little bit of a check” on the status of any negotiations before writing those checks.

“If we had to make that decision today on would we continue to invest the money, the answer would be ‘Yes, we would’ because we’re optimistic that we’ll be able to get to a win-win for all parties,” he told attendees who filled a second-floor pavilion at the Jacksonville Zoo.

These team execs, they just can’t help themselves. The two-minute warning is such an ingrained part of their stadium playbook that they start turning up the time pressure even while saying there’s no time pressure. (The “check” in question here could refer to the city budget, which is due July 15 and which Jaguars execs would no doubt love to have include at least a framework for stadium subsidies.) Or else they turn up the time pressure because they know that rushing things through can be a great way to get subsidies approved without much oversight, but they claim that they’re in no hurry in order to seem less like dicks, which is sort of the same thing, but sort of not.

Either way, it looks like Jacksonville residents will have at least a little time to ask questions about why team owner Shad Khan (net worth: $12 billion) needs $1 billion in taxpayer money to renovate a 28-year-old stadium, not to mention what things like this mean:

The rebuilt stadium would not have air conditioning. Instead, the design calls for creating openings on four corners to circulate air from outside the stadium and then release the heat up through the top portion of the open-air stadium.

Sorry, what? Not only does that not sound like how air works (you’d have to have something drawing in the air through the openings), but it would only function to cool the stadium if the air around it is significantly cooler than the air inside — and the issue here seems to be less “Jaguars fans generate a lot of heat” than “it’s hot in Florida.”

Other questions include “What will the renovated stadium be made of that makes it so shiny?” and “What’s the deal with all that superstructure holding up the nonexistent roof?” and “How can there be openings in the corners when the stadium won’t have any corners?” But mostly “Seriously, $1 billion?” Look, someone has already started:

One participant said Thursday [at the zoo event] if the Jaguars’ message is “if you don’t pay us a billion dollars we’re going to leave, I’d be the first one to call the cab because I think that’s just way too expensive for our city.”

Excellent comment, unnamed participant, not least for the image of the entire Jaguars team and front office and equipment being stuffed clown-car-like into a cab. So long as Deegan doesn’t spoil it by agreeing to stadium terms in her budget in July, these town halls should be a ton of fun.