Dallas Stars – Field of Schemes

Plano just approved how much money exactly for a new Dallas Stars arena?

June 9, 2026June 9, 2026 Neil deMause

I didn’t make it to this week’s annual sports economics conference in Maryland that starts this morning, but a special guest blogger has offered to report back on the stadium papers presented there, so please tune back in later today for that. (UPDATE: now underway!) In the meantime, I’ve taken on the task of figuring out exactly what the Plano city council approved yesterday for a new $1 billion Dallas Stars arena development in the north Dallas suburb. Piecing it together from various news reports, mostly a useful explainer from the Dallas Morning News:

The council unanimously approved creating a tax increment financing district that would siphon off all new property tax revenue from the arena and surrounding development — described as “other sports and entertainment venues, retail, restaurants, residential development, public spaces and related infrastructure improvements” — for 41 years, with this TIF providing an estimated $700 million that would be used to pay off bonds for the Stars’ arena.
The city would own the site and the arena, while Stars owner Tom Gaglardi would lease it for terms that “are to be negotiated.” Gaglardi and partner developers Levin Holdings and Cawley Partners would co-own the rest of the development in the TIF district, with their property taxes kicked back to Gaglardi to help pay for the arena.
The council approved an upcoming public vote to create a “venue tax” to provide additional funding for the arena — but while that normally means a ticket tax, in this case, the Morning News reports, “the city could ask voters to consider a combination of several kinds of taxes, aimed at visitors, on things like car rentals, hotel occupancy, event parking, event admissions and facility use per game and player.” Unlike a ticket tax, which mostly ends up coming out of team owners’ pockets, much of that would money that would actually drain the public treasury.

Hockey Reddit, meanwhile, is already LOLing at the prospect of the Stars trying to better their finances by leaving downtown for a less easily accessible location for many residents, though the money from the real estate play should help defer some of those concerns. (Best comment so far: The team should be renamed “The Slightly Farther North Stars.”)

None of this is set in stone, as Gaglardi has as yet only issued a nonbinding letter of intent, plus that lease agreement needs to be negotiated and any new taxes voted on. All we can say for sure is that the city would be out at least $700 million in tax breaks — money that normally would go to paying for public services to support a new development — plus potentially hundreds of millions more in new “venue” taxes plus possibly additional tax exemptions on the city-owned arena, all of which could easily push the public cost to more than $1 billion.

In exchange, Plano would ensure the presence of the Stars for 30 years, at least assuming the eventual lease doesn’t contain an out clause allowing them to leave or demand new upgrades later, hard to say since it isn’t written yet! But here’s Stars president Brad Alberts talking about how committed his organization is to this agreement:

“There’s the wedding. We’re planning for the wedding,” he said. “That’s a good way to think about it. Can we walk away from the wedding? Sure. Are we intending to? No.”

Now that’s what you like to hear from your fiancé! We’ll likely hear more in coming months in the run-up to that arena vote, though it’s always possible we won’t find out for sure until the last minute.

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Stars owners announce move to Plano as soon as city agrees to pay $700m for new arena

June 3, 2026 Neil deMause

This has been quite a week already for Dallas sports franchises announcing arena plans without quite committing to them: On Monday, the Mavericks owners declared that they had “entered into option agreements” to maybe purchase 104 acres at the former Valley View Mall site in north Dallas to use for a new arena. (The total price hasn’t been made public, but 20 acres of it would cost $50 million. The Mavs owners are putting down about $200,000 a month to hold the option open.) The project would also — if the team owners go through with the purchase, and then build it — possibly include “a vibrant mixed-use destination anchored by a state-of-the-art arena, along with restaurants, entertainment options, public green spaces and family-friendly experiences.”

Just 24 hours later, Stars owner Tom Gaglardi announced that he, too, was absolutely thinking about the possibility of considering moving to the site of a shopping mall, maybe, this one in the eastern suburb of Plano:

Tuesday, the Stars announced that it submitted a signed, non-binding letter of intent for a proposed sports and entertainment district at The Shops at Willow Bend.

The team said that the proposed mixed-use development, being advanced jointly with Levin Holdings & Cawley Partners and Centennial, could include sports, entertainment, retail, dining and public gathering spaces “anchored by a future Dallas Stars arena.”

“This project would present a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for our franchise,” said Tom Gaglardi, the Dallas Stars’ owner, governor and chairman. “We eagerly await the vote by the Plano City Council and look forward to continuing the conversation to be part of the redevelopment of The Shops at Willow Bend.”

Neither an option agreement nor a nonbinding letter of intent — sorry, a signed nonbinding letter of intent — is a promise to do anything, of course. First, Gaglardi needs the Plano council to approve some niceties like, what exactly would those be?

According to the letter of intent, the city is expected to contribute up to $700 million in funding toward the project from TIRZ revenue and other available funds. Development costs for the arena are expected to be around $1 billion.

Ah, $700 million, a small detail! A TIRZ is Texas’ version of tax increment financing, where any rise in property taxes on a site is kicked back to pay off the bonds that built the project getting taxed, a kind of fiscal perpetual motion machine that it takes either advanced economics or the wisdom of Oscar Madison to see through as still being public money. In fact, the TIF district the city of Plano is considering would cover more than 900 acres; the city would also own the arena, while the Stars would get every lick of arena revenue. (Whether the team would pay any rent is yet to be negotiated.) The $700 million, according to an agreement the Plano council is set to vote on Monday night, only includes “public infrastructure,” while “interest on debt” is listed as TBD, making it unclear if this is $700 million worth of public bonds or $700 million in tax revenues over time plus interest or what.

(For those just tuning in for the first time: The Mavs and Stars currently both play in an arena that is just 25 years old, but which both team owners have decried as obsolete. Sports marketer Craig Sloan of Playfly Sports explained this as “it seems like the life cycle of a stadium or arena is moving towards 20 to 25 years,” which isn’t really an explanation, though economist Rod Fort’s suggestion, also from 2001, that “I don’t see anything wrong, from an owner’s perspective, with the idea of a new stadium every year” might be.)

On the Mavs side, meanwhile, the team’s casino-operator owners, who have previously expressed interest in building a combined arena and casino complex in Dallas, notwithstanding that casinos aren’t yet legal in Texas, now insist that they’re thinking of nothing of the sort:

In a statement to The Dallas Morning News on Tuesday, Welts reemphasized the absence of gaming elements from the team’s plans for a new entertainment district, including a new arena, corporate headquarters, practice facility, hotel, retail and dining.

Asked if those plans will change in the future, Welts said, “No, our plans will stay consistent with no casino component.”

Nobody is saying how much public money would go into a Mavs arena district, though the Valley View site already sits in a TIF district, which could provide a chunk of Dallas city property tax money to start things off. Assuming that all these options are actually actualized, which is just as TBD as any potential public costs. First step: Monday’s vote in Plano, then we’ll see where the remaining chips fall.

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Friday roundup: Bears battle drags on, Blazers subsidy heats up, 15 teams now angling for Ohio unclaimed funds cash

March 6, 2026March 9, 2026 Neil deMause

It’s Friday! But because of other commitments, I’m writing this from Thursday evening! So if there’s any breaking Friday morning news, complain about it in comments, and we’ll get to it on Monday, which for me will probably be Sunday. You following all that? Doesn’t matter, just read your bullet points, they’re good for you:

The Chicago Bears stadium war burbles on, with Indiana having passed a bill to throw $1 billion or $4 billion or maybe more at a stadium in Hammond (details are still very TBD), and Illinois working on a bill to allow property tax cuts for “megaprojects” such as a Bears stadium development in Arlington Heights, which could end up being a $2 billion tax break for the team owners. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker is also still talking vaguely about passing state “infrastructure” spending on an Arlington Heights stadium (also very TBD) once the legislature comes back in session in a couple of weeks, which would add even more to Illinois taxpayers’ tab. And to get Chicago legislators on board, Bears ownership will likely have to offer at least a $90 million payout for breaking their Soldier Field lease, though with what they’d likely be getting from taxpayers, they could more than afford it. Meanwhile, some people in Indiana, or at least a radio talk show host and an anti-tax group, are unhappy with the Indiana stadium funding plans, which still must be finalized and signed off on by both the newly formed state sports authority and the city of Hammond. Tune in next week for more exciting non-decisions, probably!
Willamette Week ran a long article about the Oregon legislature’s consideration of a bill to give Portland Trail Blazers incoming owner Tom Dundon $365 million in state income tax money, along with another $235 million in city and county funds, toward renovations on the team’s 31-year-old arena. It ends with a quote from yours truly on the subject of Oregon legislators having both the right and the responsibility to use their leverage to negotiate the best deal possible for residents — which does not seem to be what’s happening when they’re rushing into a subsidy package without first calculating what will cost taxpayers — but read the whole thing if you want the nitty-gritty of the deal, including a last-second amendment to establish a “sports and entertainment district” to siphon off taxes for the project, because that’s how everyone rolls these days.
The state of Ohio has rejected eight applicants for unclaimed private funds money for sports projects, but is still considering 14 other projects: upgrade requests from the Cincinnati Bengals ($234 million), F.C. Cincinnati ($136.3 million), the Columbus Blue Jackets ($100 million), Cleveland Guardians ($65 million), Cleveland Cavaliers ($40 million), Toledo USL ($20 million), Atomic Speedway ($14 million), Dayton Dragons ($8 million), Toledo Mud Hens ($4.5 million), Akron Rubberducks ($1.8 million), Columbus Clippers ($737,000), Mahoning Valley Scrappers ($562,000), and Lake County Captains ($100,000), as well as a new Cleveland soccer stadium for pro men’s and women’s teams that don’t currently exist ($19.9 million). Add in the $600 million in money toward a new Cleveland Browns stadium and that’s almost $1.3 billion in state-controlled money being handed out to local sports team owners, just because they were the first ones to notice it sitting in an Ohio account and ask for it. Sorry, schoolkids, you should have raised your hands faster, better luck next time!
Kansas state senator Cindy Holscher is running for governor, and really wants you to know that she thinks the Kansas City Chiefs stadium deal will be lousy for Kansans. “Economists from the left, right and center all agree that stadiums simply don’t generate enough economic activity to warrant taxpayers footing the bill.” Yup! “More than anything else, the stadium deal reminds me of the disastrous Brownback tax experiment.” Inasmuch as that was also about giving away tax revenues and hoping to make it up in volume, also yup! Holscher is currently the Democratic frontrunner, though with a ton of undecided voters as yet — it’s unlikely the Chiefs deal will remain unfinalized long enough for the next governor to weigh in, but you never know.
I’ve complained about John Romano’s Tampa Bay Times columns before for being overly bothsidesy about the Rays stadium debates, but credit where credit is due, he recognizes that it would be good to know how much taxpayers would be spending before signing off on a stadium deal.
Alberta premier Danielle Smith revealed that her province has committed $15 million to trying to become the host of the 2028 World Cup of Hoekcy (it’s a thing! sometimes), and she certainly used an interesting podium and backdrop while explaining it.
There’s fresh reporting on the flow of dodgy lobbying (certainly) and/or bribe (possibly) money in the now-dead Los Angeles Angels stadium deal, it’s convoluted to follow but if you’re a fan of stories of an “otherwise shadowy world where lobbyists collect big bounties for influencing legislation or securing contracts for clients from local government agencies without full disclosure,” then boy, does the Los Angeles Times have a story for you. (Me, I’ll wait for the inevitable David Simon HBO series.)
This summer’s men’s World Cup might be without the Iranian team if their country is too busy being invaded by the U.S., and might be without some Mexico venues because of fears of violence, and might be without some U.S. venues because the Trump administration is holding up security funding, and could yet be boycotted by other nations upset about the recent U.S. proclivity for invading places. You can’t buy publicity like this!
Wisconsin is considering a bill to cap concession prices at 120% of cost at publicly financed sports venues, and Colorado rejected a bill to cap food and beverage prices in “captive audience” situations like stadiums and airports to the average in the surrounding county. As I’ve written before, it might be more effective to rein in crazy stadium food and drink prices by requiring publicly supported buildings to allow in outside food, or by reducing income inequality so there are fewer fans for whom a $15 beer is no object, but it is interesting to see that this is an issue elected officials feel like they can grandstand on, if nothing else.
Plano, Texas is offering an abandoned mall site for a potential Dallas Stars arena, wait, we knew that already, why are you reporting it as if it’s new news, KDFW FOX 4?
Sporting Club Jacksonville says its planning to build a new 15,000-seat USL stadium with private money, let’s hope it’s true!
Glub. Time to revise the “Which teams will be lost first to climate change?” rankings?

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Friday roundup: This Is So Dumb edition

November 28, 2025November 28, 2025 Neil deMause

For U.S. Thanksgiving week, let’s take a moment to give thanks for the continuing gift of having lots of stupid to laugh and point at. We are truly in the golden age of laughing and pointing, which is … good? Better than nothing? All that separates us from spiraling into despair?

Whichever, this was a very good week for stupid, please enjoy a heaping helping:

Detroit City F.C. is set to get $88 million in property tax breaks for its planned $193 million stadium after the Detroit city council voted to give it the green light. “The stadium is expected to generate $25 million in annual economic impact for the area,” reports WXYZ-TV, no source given or needed, nobody would just make up a number like that, right?
The Dallas News has explored how cities in the Dallas area could spend money on a new Stars arena, and came up with “grants” and “loans” and “tax breaks,” that’s pretty much the way cities spend money, yes. Possible sources of the funding include pulling funding from regional mass transit and giving it to the Stars, or tax increment financing, or borrowing the money and paying it off by some means undisclosed in the article. At least economist Nola Agha shows up to give her evaluation of some of the possible options — TIFs, she notes, are “popular because [they’re] relatively hidden, meaning the taxpayers don’t have to know that a city is using property tax and giving it back to a developer,” which is really as much indictment as endorsement.
The Chicago Architecture Center assembling a team of “business executives, civic leaders, urban planners, architects and others” to spend three months seeing how stadiums can be a “Win/Win” is pretty dumb given that the premise assumes there’s a way to do so. For the resulting report to then conclude that “instead of treating stadiums as
standalone facilities requiring public support, we propose thinking about them as anchors for thriving neighborhoods” without establishing whether stadiums are good anchors for thriving neighborhoods — they’re not — is, well, you know.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is looking to spend $200 million on Albany “revitalization” with part of that going toward a $75 million minor-league soccer stadium, but nobody’s saying how much. “I don’t understand the secrecy,” said a former staffer for the state’s Empire State Development agency who is trying to research the soccer project. “I think it would be good to have a public discussion about this.” So far the local development authority, Capitalize Albany, has responded by repeatedly denying Freedom of Information requests for information, with a spokesperson adding that “we expect there to be many opportunities for public input” once officials decide what they tell the public they can have input on.
Denver held a public event to see what residents think of plans for a new Broncos stadium (projected public cost: at least $140 million and likely a lot more) as expressed entirely through colored stickers and Post-It notes, because that’s just how democracy goes now.
The owners of the Union Omaha USL League One team can’t build a new 6,500-seat soccer stadium until they get kickbacks of state sales tax money that are being “bottlenecked” by Gov. Jim Pillen, that sounds awfully judgy, Nebraska Examiner. Pillen did get to say that he sees his job as to “look out for ALL taxpayers, not give subsidies to lobbyist and politician-supported special projects which could not move forward without them,” but Omaha Mayor John Ewing says spending tax money on a soccer stadium would be “great,” surely not just because it would be state tax money that wouldn’t affect his city budget.
Hamilton, Ontario’s arena just got a $300 million renovation, conducted by operators Oak View Group but aided by an unspecified amount of tax breaks, but the truly dumb part is the CBC headline that specifies the rehabbed arena’s opening concert as being by “Beatles, Wings artist Paul McCartney,” just in case readers weren’t sure which Paul McCartney they meant.
The prize for the dumbest headline of the week, though, has to go to Secret Los Angeles for its “California’s SoFi Stadium Is The Fifth Most Iconic Stadium To Host The 2026 World Cup.” That’s meaningless enough, but add in that the “iconic status” scores were compiled by a ticket broker using factors from capacity to measuring “each stadium’s roof using Google Earth to get a Golden Ratio score,” and we have a winner! Please select the trophy of your choosing.

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Mavericks, Stars owners launch war for Dallas arena supremacy, taxpayers hold on to your wallets

October 29, 2025October 29, 2025 Neil deMause

A shooting war has broken out between the owners of the Dallas Mavericks and Stars, with the Mavs owners filing suit yesterday against the Stars owners for … well, it’s complicated. But suffice to say that it all looks to have to do with two elements that are increasingly common factors in sports arena scheming: an expiring lease, plus a battle for dominance between a city’s NBA and NHL franchise owners.

When the Minnesota North Stars first relocated to Dallas in 1993, they shacked up with the Mavericks in Reunion Arena, a then 13-year-old arena owned by the city. The two teams convinced the city to spend $420 million to replace that arena with the American Airlines Center in 2001, and have been co-tenants there ever since, paying $2.2 million a year each in rent and other payments. (No, you are correct, that does not come close to paying off a $420 million construction cost.)

Ever since Sands casino owners Patrick and Sivan Dumont (along with Miriam Adelson) bought majority control of the Mavericks from Mark Cuban in 2023, however, they’ve been increasingly focused on building a new arena-and-casino complex somewhere in the Dallas area. (Casinos aren’t legal in Texas, but the Mavs owners aren’t sweating that part just yet.) Stars CEO Brad Alberts said at the time of the sale that he was fine with going it alone at the current arena, possibly with some renovations, but needed to wait to hear the new Mavs owners’ plans first.

Since then, things have deteriorated fast. Late last year, the two teams failed to reach agreement on a planned $300 million renovation of the current arena — to be paid for half by the city of Dallas, the rest either by the two teams jointly or the Mavs owners alone, depending on who you ask. This was immediately followed by the Mavs seizing the Stars’ half of the arena operating company and withholding their arena revenues. The conflict only escalated with yesterday’s lawsuit filing, in which the Mavs owners charged the Stars owners with breach of contract for moving their corporate headquarters from Dallas to nearby Frisco — in 2003 — and with obstructing improvements to the current arena.

Why the Mavs owners would want to pay to renovate an arena they want to move out of is an excellent question; there’s some speculation that they were simply hoping to lock the Stars into the current arena to keep them from building their own new one. And sure enough, since everything fell apart the Stars owners have begun talking up the possibility of building a new arena themselves, possibly in nearby Plano, or possibly in Frisco, The Colony, Arlington, or Fort Worth.

If all this is starting to sound familiar, it’s likely because of the recent throwdown in Philadelphia between the Flyers and 76ers owners. That was a slightly different scenario — their arena is privately owned, solely by the Flyers owners — but it played out similarly: Sixers owner Josh Harris launched plans to build his own new arena to outcompete the Flyers for concerts, and eventually used this as leverage to get the Flyers owners to agree to jointly build a new arena at the current site. (There’s since been talk of a similar possible dispute in Boston between the Celtics and Bruins.) Two arenas in even a moderately large market can be tough on the owners, who are left needing to compete for concert dates and may even have to offer discounts to land them; but threatening to build competing arenas can be a lucrative game of chicken if you think you can force your fellow team owner to agree to an arena deal that benefits you to avoid being second fiddle in their own city.

Both team owners are playing their arena leverage plans close to the vest, but this whole situation is well worth watching, especially as the teams’ leases expire in 2031 and they’re both hoping to use that to their advantage. Each has several Dallas-area cities they can try to play off against each other for arena subsidies, but at the same time both need to outmaneuver each other, something that the city governments could themselves use as leverage, if they play it smart. Hoping that city officials play things smart is usually a bad bet and early indications aren’t great, but there’s at least a chance here, so fingers crossed!

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Dallas Stars owners start shopping for new arena, that’s officially everybody now

October 6, 2025 Neil deMause

It’s rare for a major pro sports team to have no entries in the Field of Schemes “posts by topic” list, given that pretty much every team owner out there has at least hinted at demanding some kind of public money for something at some time. That’s the situation for the Dallas Stars, though — or was until this post, because we just can’t have nice things:

The Stars’ 21-person ownership advisory group met on Wednesday night and zeroed in on Plano as one of the likeliest destinations, Front Office Sports has learned.

The team is eyeing a purchase of land in Plano, but has not signed anything yet. It operates a youth hockey facility there, and has a practice facility in Frisco. Arlington is also in the mix, and has appeal as it’s already home to an MLB and NFL team. Each of those cities is roughly 20 miles from the team’s current home.

Team ownership also hasn’t ruled out staying in Dallas, either in the American Airlines Center or in a new arena.

So, the Stars are moving to Plano, unless they’re moving to Arlington, unless they’re moving to The Colony or Fort Worth, unless they’re building an arena in Dallas or staying in their old Dallas arena while the Mavericks build their own arena maybe. That’s pretty much all the options other than Greensboro, so maybe not really rising to the level of “news,” but you do you, Front Office Sports.

The news, such as it is, is that Stars owner Tom Gaglardi is clearly entering the kicking-tires-to-gin-up-a-bidding-war phase of his arena dreams, especially given that the team CEO followed up with some decidedly on-the-record comments:

“I don’t deny we are in discussions with Plano,” team president and CEO Brad Alberts told FOS when reached by phone Friday. “Have we decided on where our future is? No. We’ve gotta decide, are we staying or are we going to build somewhere. Certainly Plano is part of that, but we haven’t decided. We are going through due diligence to make sure that if we are going to leave, we have the right spot.”

And to the Dallas Morning News:

“We do not have a deal with Plano,” Alberts said. “We don’t have any of that. We are in discussions with them. We’re also in discussions with other cities. Arlington would love us to come to Arlington. They’ve got two of the four already. We’ve got a really good relationship with those two franchises there and the city.

“There’s no favorites at this point. We’re all just doing our work.”

The Stars’ lease expires in 2031, but there’s nothing stopping them from extending it, and in fact team officials have previously suggested that as one option. So beyond vague “discussions,” there’s not much going on here, so hopefully Dallas officials won’t be suckered into bidding against themsel—

Said council member Chad West, chairman of the ad hoc committee on professional sports recruitment and retention: “Dallas needs to [do its] part to ensure we keep our teams in the city.”

Hope you enjoyed that blank space on the topic list while it lasted, because https://www.fieldofschemes.com/category/nhl/dallas-stars/ is almost certainly about to start growing like crazy.

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