Category: NHL

Are the Buffalo Sabres moving to Greensboro now? An investimagation

access_time personNeil deMause

The Sabres may be moving out of Buffalo!

Sabres might move, as Erie County’s lease with KeyBank Center expires and city can’t afford upkeep and renovations

The Sabres aren’t moving out of Buffalo!

The Buffalo Sabres have no intention of leaving Buffalo.

“I don’t even think that’s a reasonable expectation,” Sabres COO Pete Guelli said.

The Sabres aren’t moving out of Buffalo, but that doesn’t mean they won’t demand public money to get them to sign a new lease to keep them from moving out of Buffalo!

“Our goal is to kind of sit down with the county to stay in the city and work out a solution that’s best for everybody.”

But as you may remember, New York state and Erie County gave the Bills and Pegula Sports a combined $800 million for the new stadium, and multiple sources have told 2 On Your Side that renovations at KeyBank Center could range between 75 and 200 million dollars.

Will the organization be able to make those types of renovations, especially if it’s in that ballpark? Will the organization need assistance from New York State to do that?

“I don’t have that answer yet either. I think the partnership that we set up here at the stadium has been beneficial to everybody involved, so I wouldn’t rule it out.”

WTF is actually going on here: Earlier this week, Erie County executive Mark Poloncarz, one of the architects of the Bills stadium deal that gave the Pegulas (who own the Sabres as well) $250 million in county money along with $750 million in state money, declared that he wants to end the county’s lease on the Sabres arena, which is owned by the city of Buffalo but leased to the county and then subleased to the Pegulas. (I think. The Spectrum News article linked above says, “Erie County owns KeyBank Center, leasing it from the City of Buffalo,” which is nonsensical; Wikipedia and this article both say Erie County owns the arena; I’m still working on getting hold of a copy of the actual lease.)

The Sabres’ lease, which automatically renews this fall for another five years unless the Pegulas opt out, requires the team owners to pay for all interior upgrades, while the county pays for all exterior improvements. And the arena needs up to $200 million in renovations, look, it says right here in this graphic:

Interior renovations? Exterior renovations? Renovations that are needed to keep the place from falling down, renovations that are needed so the Pegulas can charge more money for luxury suites? Who knows! WGRZ had to make that “ripped piece of paper” graphic, no time to waste on more research!

As for Sabres COO Guelli, I watched the WGRZ interview with him so you don’t have to, and he said:

“That’s not our intention to go anywhere.”

And also:

“That’s where things are not quite as simple. Because basically we would have to walk away from the lease, the way it’s currently structured…

“We’re not looking for [the city and county] to contribute beyond their means.”…

Will the organization need assistance from New York State to do that?

“I don’t have that answer yet either. I think the partnership that we set up here at the stadium has been beneficial to everybody involved, so I wouldn’t rule it out.”

So basically: The Sabres’ lease is expiring, and a key bargaining point will be who will pay for what future renovations. The team COO says the Pegulas aren’t threatening to move, but are threatening to “walk away” from their lease and … go skate on frozen-over Lake Erie? Refuse to leave or sign a lease and become squatters? The exact details are left to your imagination, which is how non-threat threats always work: If you spell out exactly what you’re threatening to do, people start asking whether it’s feasible or ethical or a violation of basic human rights. But if you just allude to how you wouldn’t want anything to happen to the team, then nobody raises any pesky questions. At least, not if they know what’s good for them, isn’t that right, Dino?

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Friday roundup: Bengals want $350m in stadium money from Ohio, A’s still insist Vegas stadium is happening for real

access_time personNeil deMause

The spring legislative season is always exhausting, but at least we’re already up to … April 11, is that all that it is? At least we can hope that all the team owners lining up for stadium and arena money have already gotten their bills submitted, though plenty of subsidy demands have emerged this late or later: Today is in fact the second anniversary of the Maryland legislature approving $1.2 billion in public money for renovations for the Baltimore Orioles and Ravens (a number that would eventually grow to an unlimited number depending on how much in taxes comes in) essentially without warning, so it wouldn’t be that much of a shock to see a surprise demand emerge from out of nowhere.

And speak of the devil:

  • Hamilton County and Cincinnati Bengals owners the Brown family have declared that if the state of Ohio is set on giving $600 million in tax money to the Cleveland Browns for a new stadium, it should also give $350 million to the Bengals for renovations. The entire renovation plan would cost $830 million and would include a new scoreboard, suite upgrades, new roof canopy, new seating, and improved walkways, escalators, and elevators — which sounds like a lot for that work, honestly, unless the suite bathrooms would be getting diamond-encrusted faucets — and would presumably include county money as well, though officials didn’t specify how much. “Our lease ends before theirs,” griped Hamilton County commissioner Stephanie Summerow Dumas. “Just wondering why is there so much focus on the Browns.” (Hmm, can’t possibly imagine why.) No word on whether the Bengals owners would tear up that insane state-of-the-art clause in their lease as part of the deal, you would think that would be important to ask, I’m looking at you, Cincinnati Enquirer.
  • Newly appointed West Sacramento Athletics president Marc Badain has declared that the team is still on track for a June groundbreaking for its Las Vegas stadium, blaming “skeptics” and “negativity” for the idea that John Fisher may not be able to find $1.15 billion in construction costs on top of the $600 million he’s set to get from the state of Nevada. “There’s a lot of people that make a living out of questioning the success of sports venues and what they actually do for a community,” said Badain, and while on the one hand I feel seen, I do question his description of this as “making a living,” as well as questioning whether a groundbreaking actually means you’re going to build a stadium given that just about anyone with a few shovels can hold one — whoops, there I go with the skepticism again, Badain sure has me pegged!
  • The Denver city council has some skeptics about spending $70 million for land and infrastructure for a NWSL stadium, with councilmember Sarah Parady saying, “We are facing the collapse of global financial markets. … I think we’re gonna be sitting here in a year [and] we will have paid in our amount of money from our incredibly scarce dollars that we are going to need for so many fundamental needs in the city.” Also concerning is the estimated additional $80 million in property taxes the city would be giving up by agreeing to buy and own the land under the stadium, according to  University of Colorado-Denver economist Geoffrey Propheter, who is not only a local but also the expert in calculating such things.
  • Just a few months after $900 million in tax money was approved for upgrades to the Utah Jazz and Utah Hockey Club‘s Delta Center and the Salt Palace convention center, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox’s office abruptly expanded the project’s TIF district last Friday to also redirect taxes from two luxury hotels, an apartment tower, and parking facilities on an adjacent block, providing an additional $59 million in tax money kicked back to the developer, according to Propheter. (That developer would be Jazz and Hockey Club owner Ryan Smith — quelle coincidence!) Then on Tuesday the Salt Lake City council unanimously approved creating the embiggened tax district, with councilmember Victoria Petro bemoaning that “we had no options” but adding that “there is no decimal point here that has been taken with anything less than the gravest consideration,” assuming the gravest consideration can be applied in just two work days.
  • “Salt Lake Bees’ new stadium in Daybreak expected to bring economic impacts, growth to local businesses” was the headline on Utah’s ABC4 website on Tuesday, and if you’re wondering “expected by whom?” and your guess was the owner of a single local coffee shop, you’re a winner!
  • Bridgeport, Connecticut now has an idea for how to pay for a $75 million minor-league soccer stadium, and it’s a TIF district, surprise, surprise. Also the full cost would now be $100 million, and would involve additional state money as well, but who can put a price on being one of the umpteen million cities to have a team in one of the nation’s two warring sets of soccer leagues?
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Friday roundup: Rays, Coyotes, A’s fiascos keep on fiascoing

access_time personNeil deMause

All kinds of news of the week to cover this morning, and I already lost a couple of hours getting up early to yell at my senator’s window about this fiasco. Let’s start with the Tampa Bay Rays‘ own fiasco, and then work backwards:

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Friday roundup: Moreno re-ups Angels lease, plus sports leaders mumbling incoherently

access_time personNeil deMause

So this happened:

That’s it, I’m done, I can’t top that. RIP comedy (???? – 2025 AD), reality has finally become too absurd even to laugh at.

If anyone still cares about the rest of the news, here’s some:

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Tempe officials called arena opponents “CAVE people” when they thought no one was listening

access_time personNeil deMause

Tempe Mayor Corey Woods and the city council have not been coming out looking good after their failed campaign to give Arizona Coyotes owner Alex Meruelo about $500 million in tax breaks for a new arena: After Tempe residents resoundingly voted down the plan, the state attorney general found the city officials had illegally conducted private meetings with a consultant that it paid $32,258 to investigate arena opponents. And now that it’s been ruled those meetings should have been public, recordings of them are subject to public records requests, and the results have really made Woods and the councilmembers not look good:

The Tempe City Council assumed it was protected from prying ears when it went into a closed-door meeting on Dec. 15, 2022. According to the minutes from the meeting, councilmembers needed secrecy to discuss “their personal observations of Tempe residents conveying support” for a new arena for the Arizona Coyotes. What the councilmembers and Mayor Corey Woods actually said was a bit more colorful than that.

According to an audio recording of the meeting, the officials used their shroud of secrecy to disparage arena opponents. Citizens who campaigned against the arena were “cave people,” while arena opposition ringleader Ron Tapscott was a “crazy uncle.”

Further down, the Phoenix New Times reveals it was actually the consultant, Troy Corder of Strategy 48, who called opponents of the plan “folks who just like to yell at each other” and “cave people” — something New Times described as a “belittling acronym,” though it didn’t explain for what. (“Citizens Against Virtually Everything,” presumably.) Still, Vice Mayor Jennifer Adams then responded by saying, “Yes, exactly,” though, so she deserves credit for the phrase as well.

This, apparently, is how elected officials talk when they think no one can hear them. There were two other illegal closed meetings that weren’t recorded — the one that turned up was only recorded because a fill-in clerk wanted a way to check her notes — so unless someone else present decided to take advantage of Arizona’s status as a one-party consent state, we’ll probably just have to imagine what was said there.

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Adam Silver is behind the Sixers-Flyers arena deal, sure, maybe

access_time personNeil deMause

I figured eventually we’d get one of those insider journalism articles about why the Philadelphia 76ers owners switched from a planned Market Street arena of their own to sharing a new building with their current landlords, the Flyers, I didn’t figure that “eventually” would mean two days, but here we are. And the answer — or at least one answer — appears to be “NBA commissioner Adam Silver got his billionaire friends together to have them kiss and make up”:

On the afternoon of Dec. 1, Sixers managing partner and co-owner Josh Harris, who is also managing partner of the NFL Washington Commanders, hosted a group of sports business heavyweights at the football team’s home game against the Tennessee Titans.

The group included two other Sixers co-owners — David Blitzer and David Adelman — as well as NBA commissioner Adam Silver and Comcast chair and CEO Brian L. Roberts…

Silver, who has served as NBA commissioner since 2014, believed that having two competing Philadelphia arena projects in the same timeframe would be detrimental to both the city and the teams, according to the sources.

There’s some logic to this: Silver has an interest in the health of the Sixers, obviously, but his league is also business partners with Comcast, the Flyers owner, which just signed an 11-year broadcast deal with the NBA. Having the two teams each fighting for Philadelphia arena supremacy could only end up with one side or another losing, so by brokering a deal Silver is just shoring up ruling class solidarity and monopoly power.

The question remains, though, why Sixers owner Josh Harris took the bait. He seemed all-in on a Market East arena as recently as last month, so either something changed his mind about that, or that was always a dodge to get Comcast (and Silver, as it turned out) to the negotiating table, or Silver truly has the power to cloud men’s minds. The Philadelphia Inquirer article laying out the commissioner’s role doesn’t include any quotes from Harris other than those from his press conference on Monday, which are PR mush along the lines of “We didn’t really change our mind. Actually, we were really committed to Market East, but … our north star was doing the right thing by Philly.”

The Inquirer article is evasive about its sourcing for the entire chain of events, citing only “sources familiar with the matter,” which could always mean that this story is what somebody wants to push as a narrative more than actual, you know, reality. The closest to a named source it provides is Philadelphia Building and Trades Council leader Ryan Bower, who says Silver “put [the team owners] together” and “I’m sure that that partnership [between the NBA and Comcast] played a lot in this decision that you see now.” This all amounts to intriguing hints, but is far from the deeply investigated timeline that one would really want; maybe once the Athletic has successfully gotten its union recognized, it can devote some time to putting together all the pieces here.

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Joint Sixers-Flyers arena declared “win, win, win, win,” but for who exactly and at what cost?

access_time personNeil deMause

It’s Tuesday morning, and here’s what we know about the plans for a joint Philadelphia 76ers–Flyers arena in South Philly:

  • Sixers owners Harris Blitzer and Flyers owners Comcast Spectacor have entered into a “binding agreement” to go halfsies on a new arena to replace the Wells Fargo Center, which Comcast owns (and recently renovated) and Sixers rent. The new arena, which doesn’t yet have an announced price tag, is planned to open in 2031.
  • The two companies will also work together on the “revitalization” of the Market East site near Chinatown that the Sixers had previously targeted for a new arena of their own.
  • Comcast will buy a minority stake in the Sixers, and will get full ownership of the naming rights to the new arena.
  • The Flyers owners will join the Sixers owners in seeking a WNBA team to play in the new arena.
  • Mayor Cherelle Parker called this development a “win, win, win, win for Philadelphia” and a “curveball that none of us saw coming” and “exciting” and “unprecedented” and “a celebration for the city” and said as the city’s “CEO, I don’t have the luxury of wallowing in this 180.”
  • Parker said the city will still spend $20 million on affordable housing initiatives in Chinatown, though it sounds like the $50 million in community benefits promised by Harris as part of his original arena deal is now kaput.

All this still leaves a lot of questions: What will the “revitalization” at Market East look like, and will it still be eligible for the property tax breaks that were approved for the previously planned arena? What will the previously announced arena district in South Philly look like, when will it be built, and will Comcast and Harris seek any tax breaks or public infrastructure money for that? Who’s paying who for what in all these new cross-ownership deals, and how certain is it that any of these new plans will come to fruition? (City councilmember Mark Squilla, who played a key role in approving the now-suddenly-dead Market East arena plan, said when asked how he knows the new arena will actually happen, “I mean, you don’t. I mean, they say their commitment is there, there’s a little trust building that needs to be done.”)

In an editorial late yesterday afternoon, the Philadelphia Inquirer called the last four years spent on the Market East arena plans “a giant waste of time and money for everyone.” That’s not quite true: It was clearly time and money well spent for the Sixers owners, who were able to use the threat of their own arena to get Comcast to the table to work out this new deal. Whether it can now really be a “win, win, win, win” for the city, Sixers, Flyers, and whoever else Parker had in mind is going to depend on a lot of details that are currently unknown; once the excited press conferences die down and we start seeing financial details, we’ll know better who exactly got played here, and for what.

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Arizona official forms “advisory committee” to raise Coyotes from dead

access_time personNeil deMause

The Arizona Coyotes don’t have an arena to play in or an actual NHL franchise or an owner, really, but they have one thing you haven’t got: a friend in Maricopa County Board of Supervisors chair Tom Galvin, who plans to form an “advisory committee” to “explore options” to bring the Coyotes back from the dead:

“I cringed when local politicians took glee in the demise of our hockey team,” Galvin said. “I think of Wayne Gretzky’s quote: ‘You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.’ So, I’m forming an advisory committee of visionary leaders.”

Local politicians didn’t actually take glee in the demise of the Coyotes, and it was actually Wayne Gretzky’s dad that said that, but whatever! The point is, Galvin is forming an advisory committee, which will have people on it, “smart, credible people who know how to do things the right way” — you know what, let’s just let Galvin keep going on this, he’s on a roll:

Galvin said two big questions need to be answered for hockey to return to the Phoenix metro.

“Who would be the owner? And, where would this building be? It would have to be a world class building,” he said…

Galvin said the situation with the NHL is “different” [from its talks with the Diamondbacks about a potential new stadium]:

“We are not owning a hockey stadium,” he said. “This is about helping promote and convening community leaders to help see how we can get hockey back.”

If you’re a visionary leader who would like to serve on the committee, or maybe have a billion dollars in your pocket and would like to build and own a “hockey stadium,” you can call Galvin’s office at 602-506-7431. He doesn’t actually say he’s interviewing candidates, but it’s pretty clear he needs all the help he can get.

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Was the Carolina Panthers’ $650m renovation deal really the worst of 2024? An investimagation

access_time personNeil deMause

The Center for Economic Accountability, a friend of this site, announced its annual “Worst Economic Development Deal of the Year” award for 2024 this week, and the winner was the city of Charlotte, for giving $650 million to Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper for renovations of his team’s stadium. CEA said in a press release that “Charlotte’s Bank of America Stadium deal stood out from the rest of the competition for a combination of factors that included its high cost, lack of transparency, poor returns, questionable economic justifications and the Panthers ownership’s checkered history with subsidized projects.”

There’s certainly a lot to be said for the Panthers deal as a terrible one: The city of Charlotte put up $650 million out of $800 million for renovations to a 28-year-old stadium it didn’t build and doesn’t own, in exchange for Tepper extending his lease for just 15 years and getting to open “good faith” negotiations for a new stadium as early as 2037. Still, it’s worth looking at some of the other contenders from 2024:

All worthy candidates, even if there can be only one winner. The lesson here isn’t that Charlotte is singularly bone-headed when it comes to handing out public money to local billionaires; it’s that siphoning off public money for private profit is a pandemic with no end in sight, and even the less-bad deals would be scandalous in a saner world.

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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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