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UNLV partners with former opponents in attempt to revive stadium plan

access_time personNeil deMause

The story so far: The University of Nevada-Las Vegas partnered with developers Majestic Realty on a proposal for a new domed 40,000-seat football stadium, which soon turned into an $800 million, 60,000-seat domed football stadium, which then became $900 million at which point casino owner MGM Resorts International (which was going to face a levy to help pay for the stadium) announced its opposition to the plan, and then UNLV, realizing who held the cards in their town, dropped Majestic like a hot rock. So what’s the plan now?

UNLV officials on Monday launched their attempt at building Stadium 2.0 with their new strategy firmly in place — a partnership between the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and the Las Vegas casino-hotel industry.

If you can’t beat ’em, deal ’em in.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal notes that the new partnership’s stadium board “is months away from determining many variables — how many seats the stadium should hold, whether it should be covered or not, how much the cost estimate will be and potential funding.” Also, that Assembly Speaker Marilyn Kirkpatrick told the panel that because Vegas already gets lots of tourists on weekends, any new stadium needs to be “an economic driver from Tuesday to Thursday.” College football stadium that draws people to town in the middle of the week — what could possibly go wrong with that?

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Markham arena developers promise new plan that’s an awful lot like old plan

access_time personNeil deMause

The Markham city council was set to vote yesterday on its deputy mayor’s proposal to put a stake through the heart of its beleaguered NHL arena plan, but instead delayed a vote for another month to consider a new funding plan that isn’t so built on thin air. And what would this new plan be?

Arena promoters GTA Sports and Entertainment had proposed a public-private financial partnership whereby the city and primarily developers would split the cost of the venture. The city would borrow $325 million and the private sector partners (GTA Sports and others including key local developer Remington Group) would pay back half over 20 years under the arrangement…

Taylor said under a new formula, Markham would borrow a maximum of $162.5 million while the private sector would secure financing for the other half with the aid of investment banking firms Jeffries LLC and Canaccord Genuity.

Furthermore, Taylor said the city was working for payments and guarantees from developers that would negate any levies on new homeowners plus assurances that the arena managers would be responsible for all operating and maintenance costs.

So… instead of the city borrowing all the money and GTA paying back half of it, GTA would borrow its share and pay it off itself. And as for the other half, the city would still have to repay it, but would get “guarantees from developers” that would — okay, that part doesn’t make any sense, as the whole point is for developers to charge special fees to new homeowners in the arena area and hand the money over to the city. And so far as I know the arena managers were always going to be responsible for operating costs — though not, as some critical councillors have pointed out, property taxes or sales taxes, something that’s unusual for Canada.

Anyway, it looks like GTA is going to try one more Hail Mary pass, or whatever they do in Canadian football, to get some more of the council on its side before the final vote. Check back in late November to see how that’s working out for them.

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Raiders owner visits defunct Navy base for day, hopes to earn public riches as result

access_time personNeil deMause

It must be great to own a sports team: All you have to do to make headlines is to hop a plane to another city, and then let everyone freak out that you’re planning to move your franchise. Or if you’re really lucky, you can just drive to the next town over:

Oakland Raiders owner Mark Davis took a tour of the old Concord Naval Weapons Station the other day – with an eye toward whether it could be just the place for a new stadium for the team.

“He made no commitments, but my feeling, he liked the looks of the property,” said Concord Mayor Dan Helix.

Yeah, of course he made no commitments: Davis is in the middle of negotiations to get Oakland to build him a new stadium on his current site, and “Don’t make me take my ball and drive across the Oakland hills with it!” is exactly the kind of threat he needs to back up his demands. (Not that Davis would ever say it that way, not when spending 90 minutes in Concord and muttering “Mm-hm” thoughtfully will get the same headlines.) And as CSN Bay Area’s Ray Ratto notes:

You gotta have leverage.

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Bills getting more than $200m in stadium subsidies in exchange for staying put six more years

access_time personNeil deMause

The Buffalo Bills‘ stadium is getting $130 million in renovations at the end of this season, and the Buffalo News is ON IT! About how “like a football player at age 40, Ralph Wilson Stadium needs reconstructive surgery”! About how the renovations will “make the aging facility more fan-friendly”! How in place of nine entry gates there will be six “super gates” with more entry lanes and video boards so you can watch highlights while you have your non-clear plastic bags rejected for entry! How there will be a “huge new Bills Store” and 22 percent more restroom space!

And who will be paying for all this? Let’s see, scroll down, scroll down, here we go:

jointly funded by New York State, Erie County and the Bills

Okay, how much from each party, exactly? Scroll down, scroll down — really, Buffalo News? I have to do everything myself? Well, fine:

Under the proposed lease, the state [and county] would immediately pay $94.5 million toward renovations of Ralph Wilson Stadium, which is less than the $200 million that the Bills owners asked for earlier this year. The state would also be on the hook, though, for $132.3 million in operating subsidies over the next ten years.

Bills owner Ralph Wilson, meanwhile, will pay a grand total of $35.455 million toward the stadium improvements, about 27% of the total cost, and an amount that he’ll easily earn back in the first three years of “operating subsidies,” not to mention whatever new revenue he gets from the Bills store and the like. (Of course he doesn’t have to share any of this money with his public partners — why would he agree to something silly like that?) New York state taxpayers, meanwhile — including those nowhere near Buffalo, like, say, me — will be on the hook for most of the rest.

Still, I suppose $227 million isn’t an outrageous sum, as these things go, to keep the Bills in town for … let’s see … ten years? Counting the current season, so really nine years. And starting after the 2019 season, the Bills can break the lease by paying just $28.4 million, so it’s really just a six-year guarantee, after which Wilson (or more likely his heirs, since the man is 94 years old) will be free to take his money and run. But who really can put a price on roomier restrooms?

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Football fans oddly upset at being asked for more money

access_time personNeil deMause

Time magazine has an overview of the trend toward personal seat licenses at NFL stadiums, and while there’s not a whole lot new there — fans resent paying them! but many do anyway! — it does include the greatest paragraph in the history of paragraphs:

During a public comment period after the agreement was reached, critics bashed the project as a raw deal for fans and taxpayers. “This is fricking ridiculous, man,” said Jeff Wagner, one of 35 candidates reportedly running for mayor in Minneapolis. Wagner removed his shoes and tossed them on the table before announcing, “You can keep my shoes because basically you are just stealing from the people.”

Just sit and enjoy that one. I think my favorite part is “reportedly.”

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Vikings, Minnesota announce plan to only half-soak fans for seat license fees

access_time personNeil deMause

After months of negotiations over seat license fees at a new Minnesota Vikings stadium — something that Gov. Mark Dayton had warned would be a betrayal of the public trust — the state and the team yesterday announced a deal on how much Vikings fans will have to pony up for the right to buy tickets:

The team and authority agreed to attach a one-time fee to 75 percent of the seats in the 65,000-seat stadium, charging season-ticket holders anywhere from $500 to $10,000, depending on the seat. The remainder of the seats, including some held by season-ticket holders, would not carry such fees.

Is that a lot? It depends on your point of comparison. The total cost to fans will be about $100 million (though the Vikings’ site has it as $125 million for some reason), which as the Vikings’ site also points out is a bunch less than other teams like the San Francisco 49ers, Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants, and New York Jets have charged, though also a bunch more than other teams in smaller markets have charged. And it’s less than the $200 million that the Vikings were originally set to collect.

Still, it’s definitely a lot more than Dayton’s professed statement that “$1 for a personal seat license is $1 too much.” And the governor, who has made PSLs the one point of the $1.1 billion stadium subsidy deal that he’s making a stink over, didn’t exactly sound thrilled yesterday:

“For most Minnesotans, this will look like a questionable deal because the economics of professional sports are questionable all over this country,” Dayton said, addressing the issue before the board meeting. “But we had to make a deal and we had to get the owners of the team to agree to a deal.”

And what about fans? Are they happy that in order to buy most seats they’ll be paying, if not through the nose, then just through one nostril?

“Season ticket holder for 30 years, no way in hell I’m paying upwards of 2500 dollars on 4 seats. Take your SBL’s and shove them.” Matt Mattern wrote on Vikings.com. “I’m done.”

Some of the venom was directed at Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton.

“The ‘Peoples Stadium’ my aunt Matilda. Only those with a South Dakota trust fund could participate,” Jay Schuster commented on TwinCities.com.

“Why was the license fee part of the stadium deal? Didn’t our goof ball governor read that clause either?”

(Incidentally, you gotta love that what passes for “venom” in Minnesota is “goof ball” and “my aunt Matilda.”)

In the end, the state did manage to negotiate Vikings owner Zygi Wilf’s demands down a bit: He’ll have to finance $100 million less of his stadium via fans, and will instead have to dip into his own profits for that money. Though given that he’ll probably compensate for lower PSLs by raising per-game ticket prices on those seats, at least some of it will likely come out of fans’ hides anyway. And even if this does end up cutting into team profits some, since Wilf is already getting more in public subsidies than the stadium will cost to build, he can certainly afford it.

Now it’ll be interesting to see how the PSLs sell. The Jets and Giants already had trouble getting fans to shell out for all the seat licenses at their new stadium (I actually just found out that my neighbor gave up his Giants season tickets after 50 years because he refused to pay PSL fees), and you have to expect that fans are going to rush to grab up the fee-free seats before plunking down thousands to earn the right to tickets in the next section over. Not that any of this is Minnesota’s problem — thankfully, even though the state will be handling the sales for tax reasons, if the money comes up short it’s for the Vikings to make up the difference — but it will help determine whether Vikings fans greet the new stadium with a bad taste in their mouths, in addition to the light feeling in their wallets.

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Emanuel to let Cubs expand Wrigley into public streets for free

access_time personNeil deMause

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has finally revealed how much Chicago Cubs owner Tom Ricketts will have to pay to expand the Wrigley Field bleachers out ten feet onto public streets: nothing. As the Chicago Sun-Times reports:

The Emanuel administration initially promised an appraisal to determine the appropriate level of compensation.

That’s the normal policy whenever street, sidewalk and alley “vacations” are done for developers.

On Wednesday, City Hall reversed field: There will be no appraisal, because no additional compensation will be required.

A top mayoral aide disclosed that the $4.75 million the Cubs have promised Wrigleyville — including $1 million to build a park on School Street and $3.75 million over 10 years for neighborhood infrastructure projects of the community’s choosing — would be enough.

If you count that $4.75 million as payment, it sounds not great but not terrible — about the equivalent of the $7.34 million the Boston Red Sox are paying for use of Yawkey Way, though that’s also been criticized as too cheap. (I don’t think the Cubs deal would include paying for use of the street for concessions on game days, but the Sun-Times article isn’t specific about this.) Counting it as the Cubs’ fee for taking up street space, though, seems a bit unfair given that it’s already been promised as a team contribution in exchange for other concessions — the Cubs’ own website describes it as a way to “give back to the community and invest in Lakeview’s future” and to compensate the neighborhood for allowing more night games and concerts.

We’d have a better sense of how cushy a deal this is for Ricketts if the city would appraise the value of the land rights, but since Emanuel has said he won’t be doing this, we can only guess. (I’m giving it a 6.5 on the cushometer.) All this is expected to be rubber-stamped voted on after serious debate at an October 16 city council meeting, after which Ricketts can go back to not starting any renovation work until he’s arm-twisted local rooftop owners into agreeing not to sue him. It’s a tough life, but I guess anything’s better than spending the next six months looking at Starlin Castro’s stat line.

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Jacksonville to pay for Jaguars scoreboards by raiding maintenance fund

access_time personNeil deMause

The city of Jacksonville, which back in June announced that it would be spending $43 million on new scoreboards for the Jaguars but it didn’t know where the money would come from, now appears to have found $43 million under the sofa cushions:

The city’s share will come from the Sports Complex Capital Maintenance Fund, which is already being directed towards the stadium. … The city will issue bonds for its $43 million share and then pay off those bonds with the money put into the maintenance fund, approximately $4 million to $5 million annually. The Sports Complex Capital Maintenance Fund gets its money from a 2 percent tax on hotel guests, part of the 6 percent hospitality tax levied by the city. The fund was established in 2009.

Only one problem: As the Florida Times-Union previously reported, using the maintenance fund for capital improvements means it’s not there for maintenance, and there’s already “a long list of stadium maintenance upgrades” that need to be done. None of the press coverage of yesterday’s announcement bothered to mention that, but then, when you have a media universe where ESPN runs the headline “Khan kicks in $20M to help stadium” when the Jaguars owner already promised that months ago — and it’s less than half what the public will be kicking in — we’re not exactly talking prize-winning journalism here.

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Oakland gets a potential stadium developer, now just needs to find money

access_time personNeil deMause

Stop the presses! Oakland may have a developer for its planned “Coliseum City” stadium and entertainment complex! Or, well, has a developer maybe interested in building it, though it’s not clear that they’re interested in being the ones to pay for it:

The investment group is composed of Colony Capital LLC, which manages investments totaling $32 billion, and Rashid Al Malik, an investor who recently served as deputy CEO of a multibillion dollar aerospace firm founded by the uncle of Dubai’s ruling sheik.

Operating under the banner Bay Investment Group, LLC, Al Malik and Colony are slated to join Oakland’s master-planning team for the Coliseum complex and help fund a new stadium feasibility study.

More importantly, they also want to take the lead in redeveloping the Coliseum complex, which is surrounded by parking lots and cut off from surrounding neighborhoods and city life.

The Coliseum City idea has been kicking around for a couple of years, and would potentially include new venues for the Raiders, A’s, and Golden State Warriors, though since I don’t think anyone’s put a price tag on any of this, it’s all complete wishcasting at this point. Still, the fact that there’s at least one developer who doesn’t think this is a totally crazy idea, plus Raiders owner Mark Davis’s insistence that he only wants a new stadium if it can be in the exact same place as the old stadium, already has people speculating that this spells the death knell for the A’s in Oakland. Like, for example, Forbes “contributor” (read: unpaid blogger) Alicia Jessop:

While some may see this move as the A’s waiving the white flag and succumbing to life in Oakland, the Raiders may slowly riding in as the A’s knight in shining armor.  The shield that the Raiders hold in this case, is that team’s desire to build a new facility on the current coliseum site.

The A’s have made it clear that they have no desire to rebuild or build a new stadium on the current coliseum site.  Thus, if the Raiders’ new stadium plan is approved the possibility exists that the A’s will be left without a place to play when construction is ongoing.  Thus, if this situation arises, might MLB be more inclined to allow the team to move to San Jose?

How should I put this? “No.” Though the image of Lew Wolff calling Bud Selig (or his successor) and crying into the phone, “They’re going to put all our stuff on the curb! Puhleeeeeze tell the Giants they have to let us move now!” is pretty amusing.

Also, note that the white flag is now available to any other A.L. team on waivers. Either that or Forbes doesn’t bother to proofread its “contributors,” and surely that can’t be the case.

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Falcons’ stadium site finally settled, state can get back to shoveling money at team

access_time personNeil deMause

No surprise here since we’ve pretty much known it for a couple of weeks, Atlanta Falcons president Rich McKay has declared it to be “definite” that the team will build its new stadium on the so-called south site, the one with the two churches that were holding out for more money for their land.

The Georgia World Congress Center Authority will end up spending $6.2 million toward purchasing one of the sites, while the Falcons will kick in the other $27.8 million. Which when you add in the rest of the tax money being funneled to the Falcons over the next 37 years, you get a taxpayer cost of … oh, let’s call it an even $560 million. Which may come as a surprise to Minnesota Public Radio, but now they know.

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