Several years ago, Major League Baseball decided to eliminate numerous minor league baseball teams. They also updated the ballpark facility standards for minor league baseball teams. What does that mean exactly? What things must be upgraded or built?
As Baseball America wrote when this update was announced, it is now mandatory for a ballpark to have “larger clubhouses, brighter stadium lights, covered batting and pitching tunnels and other details”. Let’s not forget the price of these upgrades, which “will be quite high”. Basically, instead of making the owners pay for the things that owners should pay for (since they collect almost all the revenue from the ballpark), MLB is simply forcing taxpayers to do it for them.
Since MLB has released this rule, numerous cities have been fighting with Major League Baseball about who should pay for the new mandated ballpark upgrades. If the city refuses to pay for the upgrades? MLB will take away the team. It really is that simple. None of these cities signed up for this extortion, and there is little that can be done to fight against it.
Let’s see some of the most recent examples:
- Even though the Hillsboro Hops built a new ballpark in 2012-2013, MLB demanded numerous upgrades that would have cost millions to fix. For almost two years now, the city and team have been trying to find a way to pay for these upgrades. MLB has said that if the upgrades are not done, the Hops “will no longer have a home in Hillsboro”. The owners decided it was best to just build a new ballpark. This one will cost $115 million, with $82 million being put in by the owners, $18 million being put in by the city and the remaining $15 million is up in the air. The team hopes that the state of Oregon will provide that money but so far, no luck. It should be noted that the city council met privately and behind closed doors when they decided to give them the $18 million from the Lodging Tax.
- In California, the city of Visalia is taking MLB to court over the mandated updates for the Visalia Rawhide that cost between $7 million-$11 million. Since the city owns the ballpark, the team maintains that they should be responsible for the upgrades. The city notes that the lease states that the city must only spend up to $200,000 in improvements per year. The owners of the team laughably claim that the city is operating in “bad faith”. Which is quite funny considering that teams intentionally stay away from owning the arena, ballpark or stadium for financial reasons like this. The city has had a baseball team for 77 years and counting…so what? Pay us or else.
- The Durham Bulls are one of the most well-known minor league teams. But MLB claims that if the city wants to keep the team, the ballpark must have $10.4 million dollars of upgrades…“or Durham could lose the Bulls”. Eventually, the city caved in and paid for almost the entire amount. The owners of the team politely contributed just $1 million dollars out of the $10.4 that was required.
- In Spokane, Washington, MLB told the city that $22.8 million dollars of ballpark upgrades were required to keep their team. As of today, the city and team have gotten $16.8 million through various sources and continue to try to raise money however possible. This makes the city and team roughly $6 million dollars short. Of the $16.8 million raised, Spokane County has given $5.5 million, the city of Spokane Valley has given $2.5 million, the Washington state ballpark bonding budget has given $5.8 million and private contributions have given $3 million. You may be wondering where are the team owners’ contributions? I can’t find anything about that. I did see that the team claimed to “invest in cameras for in-house production” of games. Yeah?
- Maryland has three minor league baseball teams. All of them were told by MLB that their ballparks needed massive upgrades. So in 2022, the Maryland Legislature divided up $200 million for upgrades to the ballparks throughout the state.
- In Arkansas, the city of Little Rock was told that Dickey-Stephens Park required an “expansive renovation” costing almost $12 million by MLB. However, both sides expected the other to pay the entire bill. In addition, the ballpark has been dealing with a sinkhole issue that will cost a bit of money to whoever pays to fix it. Initially, the city responded by giving the team $700,000 for ballpark upgrades and $800,000 to hire a firm to fix the sinkhole. When city leaders offered to pay even more of the upgrade costs, they also demanded to see the financial books of the team. The team said no thank you. Eventually, the city agreed to pay for $7 million of the upgrades. The team said that the city should also pay the additional $5 million. Even though the lease clearly says that the “Team shall be solely responsible for, and shall make and perform, all Maintenance and Repairs”.
“It’s their stadium; they own the facility, they should be required to fix it and get it up to standards for MLB,” said Rusty Meeks, executive vice president and chief executive officer of the Travelers. “Or, you know, we could be asked to relocate.” — Arkansas Online, 03/27/22
- In Rochester, New York, the Rochester Redwings, were told by MLB that their ballpark must be upgraded at a cost of $26 million dollars. The ballpark was upgraded (with critical elements such as adding high-top table seating overlooking the outfield) thanks to County taxpayers paying $13.5 million of the bill. The remaining $12.5 million was paid by the state. What about the team? I love this quote…“While the Red Wings will not be contributing to the cost of the upgrades, the team puts upward of $100,000 into a stadium maintenance fund yearly”.
- In Syracuse, New York, MLB told the city that the ballpark needed roughly $25 million dollars worth of upgrades. The state of New York and Onondaga County taxpayers split the cost of the upgrade. As one city leader said, the use of taxpayer money makes sense here because the ballpark “serves the greater community, not just the baseball team”…whatever that means.
- In Amarillo, Texas, MLB declared that a ballpark not even five years old, somehow requires $4.5 million in upgrades. Five years ago, taxpayers gave $44.5 million dollars for the ballpark to be built. As ABC7 observed, why is the city “already tasked with spending millions for upgrades” after paying for the ballpark to be built not that long ago. We even had a city official claim that no taxes would be increased for residents, yet then admit that the money comes from “Hotel Occupancy Tax”.
- Within just a few months after announcing these mandatory upgrades in 2020, MLB was able to
stealextortobtain roughly $250 million from taxpayers around the country. The number as of today must be several billion dollars. Maybe that is too high a guess?
