Category: Minnesota Wild

Friday roundup: Two counties plan Royals tax votes, plus fresh subsidy schemes for Spurs, Wild, Jazz, Bengals, [headline capacity reached, stack overflow]

access_time personNeil deMause

No time or energy for niceties today, let’s get straight to the firehose of news:

  • The Jackson County Legislature plans to vote Monday on putting a measure on the April ballot to extend a 0.375% sales tax surcharge for 40 years to fund new Kansas City Royals and Chiefs stadium projects, even though neither team has decided what kind of stadium projects they want, let alone agreed to lease terms that would determine what if anything the county would get in return. (Jackson County Executive Frank White counters, “You don’t want to rush into something that the taxpayers have to be responsible for for 40 years without getting some equitable agreement with both teams,” but nobody appears to be listening to him.) Meanwhile Clay County appears to be readying its own sales tax hike ballot measure, only with a much larger (as yet undetermined) sales tax surcharge rate because Clay County has fewer people and so less sales. Bidding wars, man, they can’t be beat — I really need to see if I can get New York and New Jersey to compete to see who’ll agree to renovate my kitchen.
  • The San Antonio city council approved a plan to siphon off any future increase in hotel tax revenues from within three miles of the city’s convention center and spend it on convention center upgrades, a renovation of the Alamodome, plus possibly a new Spurs arena. Estimates are that the hotel tax money could come to $222 million, but it’s not clear if that’s present value or over time, and anyway the whole thing is just a guess at how much will be spent at area hotels in the future and what it’ll be spent on is still TBD, but suffice to say there’s a slush fund now should anyone want to tap it.
  • St. Paul Deputy Mayor Jaime Tincher says city officials want to spend “several hundred million” dollars on upgrading the Minnesota Wild‘s arena, and when he says wants to spend, he means he wants the state to spend it, not his city. The Wild’s current 23-year-old arena is “aging,” reports the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and while it’s true that all 23-year-olds are aging just like the rest of us, that’s not usually what the word means.
  • Utah Jazz ownership is exploring building a new arena and entertainment district south of Salt Lake City, and city officials are already preparing a counteroffer to keep the Jazz downtown, playing different parts of a metro area off against each other in a bidding war is absolutely the flavor of the month.
  • As Hamilton County prepares to spend another $39 million on upgrades to the Cincinnati Bengals stadium under their infamous state-of-the-art clause, county board of commissioner president Alicia Reece says she’d like the team’s next lease to require the team owners to pay more of the costs than the 4% they’ve kicked in so far: “You need to put some skin in the game for our team. Give us some respect.” No official word yet on whether Bengals ownership will be insisting on a no-respect clause in any new lease.
  • Tampa Bay Rays co-president Brian Auld says team officials won’t agree to accept $600 million in public money for a new stadium if it would require changing the name to the St. Petersburg Rays because they “want to make sure that this entire project screams inclusive welcomeness.” That’s it, perfect sentence, no notes.
  • I guess “Experts disagree on economic impact of 2023 Super Bowl in Arizona” is better than just reporting the bogus economic impact claims in a press release without rejoinder, but it’s still bothsidesing when the weight of the actual evidence is that the actual impact is a tiny fraction of what the NFL claims.
  • What will the Baltimore Ravens owners be spending their $600 million-and-more in state subsidies on? For starters, a bunch of high-end clubs including an “ultra-premium field-level experience” connecting  to an “exclusive members-only club featuring a speakeasy.” No reports yet on whether it will include a fire pit where well-heeled fans can actually burn taxpayer money.
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Friday roundup: A’s looking to Texas as stadium model, Wild want more TIF money for arena,

access_time personNeil deMause

I hope everyone who celebrated yesterday had a good holiday and gave thanks to those we owe gratitude to. We now return to our regularly scheduled hellscape.

  • Oakland A’s execs are reportedly looking to the Texas Rangers‘ Globe Life Field as a model for their Las Vegas stadium, which is raising anew questions about how to fit a retractable-roofed stadium on a nine-acre site. The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that the Rangers stadium “sits on 13 acres,” but sports economist J.C. Bradbury points out that it’s really 18 acres once you count the space needed to open the roof. Globe Life Field is also pretty much universally reviled as butt-ugly, with sportswriter Jeff Passan saying after it opened during the 2020 COVID postseason that it “looks like what would happen if a Costco and a barn had a baby,” but I guess it’ll be too hot in Las Vegas for anyone to spend much time looking at the outside of it anyway, and people inside will be too distracted by watching the butt-ugly A’s baseball, so maybe this will work out just fine!
  • Minnesota Wild owner Craig Leipold is reportedly kicking the tires on public subsidies for upgrades to his 25-year-old arena, though no specific numbers have been revealed. Leipold has hired a former state official, Jim Schowalter, as a state lobbyist on “capital bonding” and “sports facilities,” and St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter says, “We are committed to working with the Wild to envision and ensure the arena’s long-term success,” so I think we can all tell which direction this is heading. St. Paul already got approval to extend its tax increment financing district until 2023, which could provide another ten years of tax kickbacks to funnel toward buying Leipold a glass wall or whatever it is he wants on top of the reduced rent he negotiated back in 2019.
  • As if having three possible stadium sites in Kansas City and North Kansas City isn’t enough, Jackson County legislator Manny Abarca is now warning that the Royals could move across the state line to Kansas, and take the Chiefs with them, if they don’t get a pile of public cash in Missouri. “We have heard from direct sources that there are serious considerations for a move to the Kansas side,” says Abarca, and … sorry, what are “direct sources,” exactly? Does that just mean people he talked to directly, not things he heard secondhand? Wouldn’t secondhand news still be from a “direct source,” since someone would have to tell him about it directly even if they heard it from someone else? I also want to ask whether Royals and Chiefs fans would really rather spend over $1 billion in tax money on stadiums just to avoid having to cross state lines to see games, but we may never get to that if we’re too busy with this direct source business.
  • The $4 billion Las Vegas arena proposed by Jackie Robinson (not that one) way back in 2013 may finally be almost dead, with Clark County sticking to a November 30 deadline for Robinson to show he actually has $4 billion. This will leave Vegas with only 87 arenas (approx.), one hopes it isn’t too much of a blow to the local economy.
  • And finally, one last Vegas note: The A’s should stay in Oakland, according to actor Paul Giamatti, the son of former MLB commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti — wait, that guy is the son of that guy? How did I not know this, or did I know it and then somehow forget it? I need to go think about this, enjoy your weekend and see you Monday!
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Friday roundup: Wild get $55m to extend lease, A’s seek to buy into Coliseum land, Calgary will own Flames arena (maybe, whatever that means)

access_time personNeil deMause

Friday! Let’s see what else has been happening this week:

  • The owners of the Minnesota Wild have extended their lease for ten years, through 2035, in exchange for cutting their rent from $9 million a year to just over $3.5 million. That may sound like a $55 million gift (or an $88 million gift — the Pioneer Press wasn’t clear about whether the rent reduction starts now or in 2026), but St. Paul officials say it won’t cost the city any money, because they renegotiated the public arena bonds so that they can be paid off over a longer time. No, I don’t get it either, this is just what the newspaper says the unnamed city officials said, go ask them.
  • The Oakland A’s owners have a tentative agreement to buy Alameda County’s half of the Oakland Coliseum site for $85 million. (The public landowners previously turned down a purchase offer of $167 million when it looked like the Raiders might stay put there, and other indicators put the market value of the site in the same range, so the price looks reasonable, at least.) No, that doesn’t mean the A’s owners will necessarily build a stadium there — they say Howard Terminal is still their first choice for that — but they could, or they could just build other development there, or they could be prohibited from building anything, given that Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf has been complaining that the county selling its stake without consulting the city, which owns the other half, could be illegal. Check back again in about a month, when the deal is supposed to be finalized, maybe.
  • Calgary councillor Jeff Davison, the main proponent of a new arena for the Flames, says that “the City of Calgary will own” any arena, which could mean, well, anything really: Will the city own just the deed, or the revenues from the build as well? Who will control non-hockey events? Who will pay maintenance? Will the building pay property taxes? Rent? The Calgary Herald says that “an official with the Flames said there was ‘nothing to report’ when asked for comment,” so we’re flying blind here, at least until Davison drops some more hints about what he thinks is going to be approved, if he even knows what will be approved and isn’t just trying to boost his plan’s prospects by talking it up in the press. Stenography journalism is hard!
  • Eastern Illinois University is looking at building an esports arena in a second-floor classroom, and now I really don’t get why Comcast Spectacor needs to spend $50 million to build one in Philadelphia.
  • This week in vaportecture: One of the ghostly figures projected to attend Worcester Red Sox games has now wandered onto the imaginary field’s imaginary second base and is celebrating an imaginary double; the F.C. Cincinnati stadium will now feature a “grand staircase” that is supposed to echo the Spanish Steps in Rome and the front steps of the New York Public Library, which are 174 steps and (roughly, I can’t find a count online) 25 steps respectively, whereas these look like they’ll be seven steps max, but okay; and the Tampa Bay Rays stadium in Tampa that will never be built has finally turned around its field so the giant gap in the grandstand isn’t behind home plate but is now in center field, which is more reasonable but, remember, not going to be built anyway, so never mind.
  • And speaking of Tampa, newly elected mayor Jane Castor has declared, “I will do what I can to have the Rays move to Tampa.” Rays owner Stuart Sternberg can’t move anywhere until 2027 without the permission of St. Petersburg, and the term Castor was just elected to expires in 2023, so good luck with that one, mayor.
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Friday roundup: Warriors rail stop turns pricey, West End stadium undead again, Montreal mayor meets with would-be Expos owners

access_time personNeil deMause

Superbrief mode today:

  • Expanding light-rail service to the Golden State Warriors‘ new arena is now expected to cost at least $62 million, which is a lot for Muni Metro, though not for some other transit systems. The Warriors owners are kicking in $19 million, but the rest will be funded by tax money from the arena district, which may or may not be enough to cover the entire nut. Tim Redmond saw this coming.
  • F.C. Cincinnati owners are officially pivoting back to the West End stadium site that it had declared dead last month after not getting offered enough property-tax breaks on the land. How come? Team CEO Jeff Berding said of the other two options, Oakley is “not as close to the urban core as desired,” and the team couldn’t secure land in Newport, Kentucky. Sounds like the West End has the club over somewhat of a barrel, which it should be able to use to ensure the team pays full property taxes, at least, though some residents may be more concerned about keeping out a stadium entirely over fears it will further gentrify their neighborhood.
  • The mayor of Montreal is meeting today with an ownership group that wants to bring a new Expos MLB team back to town. “We don’t need a cent from the city of Montreal, but we need a little help,” prospective co-owner Stephen Bronfman said earlier this week; your guess is as good as mine what that actually means.
  • Minnesota taxpayers have spent $1.4 billion on new or renovated sports venues over the past 20 years, if anyone is counting.
  • The Pawtucket Red Sox‘ stadium demands continue to be stalled, if anyone is keeping track.
  • “A deputy in one of Russia’s 2018 FIFA World Cup host cities has claimed that a latest inspection by the world’s footballing body has neglected a missing column at a newly built stadium.” You’ve just got to read the whole Moscow Times article now, don’t you?

 

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MN sports teams hate idea of taxing sports gear to pay for stadium, duh

access_time personNeil deMause

Predictably, the Minnesota Vikings aren’t too happy with state representative Ann Lenczewski’s proposal to pay for the shortfall in stadium funds by taxing sports memorabilia sales, since that would mean they’d be paying the bills, not taxpayers. And that’s not what they agreed to at all:

“This legislation fundamentally changes the agreement the Vikings negotiated with the state of Minnesota,” said Lester Bagley, the Vikings vice president of public affairs and stadium development, after a hearing on the bill in the House Taxes Committee.

The team put in an additional $50 million in the final stages of negotiation on the bill for the National Football League stadium, Bagley said, and “that commitment was in exchange for an assurance that there would be no further impacts on stadium revenues, including taxes on stadium revenues.”

And other Minnesota sports teams are even less happy with the plan, if possible:

Representatives of the Timberwolves, the Wild and the Twins testified against the bill, which one said essentially would require the teams to subsidize a competitor. A spokeswoman for state retailers spoke against the bill as well.

Still, it seems at least possible that some kind of memorabilia tax will be seriously considered by the legislature — the head of the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority says it’s a good idea, and really, the state doesn’t have a lot of other options. And even if the Vikings are upset, would they really walk away from $1.1 billion worth of subsidies just for fear of losing a bit of money on memorabilia taxes?

Which is both the strength and the weakness of the proposal, by the way: It’s not actually expected to raise much money. Estimates are that the memorabilia tax would generate $6.8 million in its first year, while the funding gap from e-pulltabs is more like $50 million a year. So while this could help, it wouldn’t be a solution by any means. But at least it’s nice to see the legislature considering trying to make this deal better for the public, rather than just promoting compulsive gambling.

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Wild owner: Without new practice rink, we can’t sign free agen — oh, hi, guys!

access_time personNeil deMause

Apparently still peeved at being left out of the Vikings stadium subsidy deal, Minnesota Wild owner Craig Leipold interrupted his announcement of the signings of Zach Parise and Ryan Suter on Monday to call on St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman to build his team a new $50 million practice rink. And why should it do that?

“[Paris and Suter’s] agents came to us,” Leipold said. “They had heard that sometimes we’ve got to go downstairs, the players put their equipment on, they take their skates and sticks, they get on the bus, they drive over to St. Thomas [Arena] to practice. They wanted to know, how often did that happen because they’re concerned about. We went through the whole list, and it looked like it would happen maybe 14 times. So we told them. And we also told them we’re working very hard with Mayor Coleman to get a practice facility. We gave them that commitment we’d work on it.”

Catch what just happened there? A sports team owner, in the middle of announcing that he’s spending $196 million on two top free agents, called on the city to pay for his new practice facility because it’s hurting his ability to sign free agents. Where’s the picture of Leipold here?

Xcel Energy Center public affairs director Bill Huepenbecker, at least, took the more traditional route of stumping for public money, worrying that now that the Target Center in Minneapolis is getting public renovation funds, his arena will be at a disadvantage of luring major concerts. Which is still the old “Everybody else has a new toy, why don’t I?” argument — and doesn’t actually explain how a new hockey practice rink would appeal to concert promoters — but at least he wasn’t announcing a new concert series when he said it.

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St. Paul mayor: Everybody gets a new stadium!

access_time personNeil deMause

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman entered the Minnesota Vikings stadium debate with a bang yesterday, issuing a complex plan to use local sales tax hikes and a statewide liquor tax to: build a Vikings stadium in Minneapolis, move the Timberwolves and Lynx to St. Paul’s XCel Center (which would receive $75 million in upgrades for the current tenants, the Wild), redevelop the Target Center, and build a new stadium for the minor-league baseball St. Paul Saints…

…and the Vikings and the Wolves owners already hate the idea, and that’s before even getting into the problems getting approval for all those tax hikes. But at least Coleman got his name in the paper.

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