Category: Ballpark

Arena Ballpark Stadium

Does your sports team need help convincing the public to give the team billions of taxpayer dollars? Call the Seidman Research Institute

The Phoenix Business Journal wrote a story on a recently released study by the Seidman Research Institute that discussed how a women's final four tournament held in the area generated a huge economic impact for the state of Arizona. Apparently, this tournament created $42.2 million for Arizona's Gross Domestic Product for Phoenix, while the State of Arizona saw a $71.5 million overall impact. However, the report appears to be missing a lot of information. The report admits to JUST using “new dollars” that Arizona may have received during the tournament. What about expenses? What about the substitute effect? Or…

William Neilson Jr.
Ballpark

To get their new ballpark approved, the Tampa Bay Rays made many promises to local students…now that the deal is done, the Rays will just ignore almost all of them.

It has been reported this week that the city has agreed to a community benefits agreement (“CBA”) with the Tampa Bay Rays. In this agreement, the Rays are forced to do little except say that they made efforts to do small things for local citizens. Overall, the CBA has the city giving the team $80M of taxpayer money while the team is promising to give $21M worth of benefits to the city. As the Tampa Monitor wrote about the community benefits agreement, the deal “relies too much on the Rays voluntarily keeping their promises.” Additionally, there is almost “nothing…

William Neilson Jr.
Arena Ballpark Stadium

Team owners continue to get out of paying for venue upgrades when they are responsible for keeping it at a “First-Class Condition”

The new owner of the Portland Trail Blazers, Tom Dundon, told Portland city leaders that he won't negotiate with them until language is changed in the lease agreement between the city and the team. Dundon is demanding the removal of language that requires the team to keep the Moda Center in first-class condition. When an agreement includes a “First-Class Condition” or “State-of-the-Art” clause, it requires the facility owner (either the city/county or the team itself) to maintain, repair, and upgrade the venue so that it remains comparable to top-tier facilities in the league. This means Dundon is responsible for…

William Neilson Jr.
Ballpark Stadium

The Washington Commanders owner is “frustrated” when he is asked to negotiate a deal that was done in secret for months

Sports owners are trying to negotiate their new stadiums in secret and then refuse to negotiate once the agreements are in the public eye. Recently, the owners of the Tampa Bay Rays and Washington Commanders have used this tactic, although in slightly different ways. Residents of both Tampa Bay and Washington DC were never involved in stadium talks before an announcement was made on a new stadium. Once their deals were announced, the Rays claimed that their deal would not change because they had given up too much already, while the Commanders stomped their feet like a child and…

William Neilson Jr.
Arena Ballpark Stadium

San Antonio editorial wants taxpayers to follow the “spirit of the agreement”, yet teams never seem to care about it

The Spurs Sports & Entertainment (SS&E) owe the city of San Antonio and Bexar County $5 million because of a failed 2015 MLS bid. The city, county, and SS&E were all involved in the bidding for a team and signed an agreement stating that SS&E would pay $5M if the bid didn't produce an MLS team. Yet, to this day, SS&E has not paid for it, nor has the city tried to push the team to pay what is owed to taxpayers. Even so, the city did find time to help pay for a large part of the new…

William Neilson Jr.
Arena Ballpark Stadium

Will news sites ever properly label people who are clearly biased or have an interest in the venue?

Yesterday, I saw an opinion piece in the Sports Business Journal. The point of the piece was just how great the World Cup will make our stadiums look for future events. The article claims that the current stadiums that are hosting World Cup matches shortly are all in top-notch form and can handle any future “World Cup (matches), Super Bowl(s) & specialty events, concerts, and more.” About here is where I started to wonder whether this was an actual opinion piece or essentially an advertisement by a financially biased individual/group. It is the latter. Before we go into that,…

William Neilson Jr.
Ballpark Stadium

In Chicago, Kansas City & Tampa Bay, sports owners are trying to push new venues without any public input or review

If you are a sports owner, massive projects should and do get agreed upon in weeks, if not a month or two…max. I have written numerous times about how almost every sports owner runs the same play every time. The sports owner will come out and demand a new stadium and mandate that a deal must be done within weeks due to…reasons unknown. If this isn't good enough, then the team will possibly relocate. The purpose is clearly to pressure local leaders into agreeing to the project without any time to properly review and vet it. Most local politicians…

William Neilson Jr.
Ballpark

The Arizona Diamondbacks just got $500M of taxpayer money yet now want even more

Recently, Arizona Diamondbacks officials have issued several public statements that seem to suggest that the team will demand more taxpayer money. Since the lease agreement between the team and county expires after the 2028 season, the Diamondbacks are apparently using this as a reason for more taxpayer money to be given to them. This week, the team opened up to being shocked at how much it costs to repair and upgrade equipment at their ballpark. The team admitted that the cost of recent repairs to things, like a new air conditioner, were “much higher than we thought.”

William Neilson Jr.
Ballpark

The St. Louis Cardinals owners yet again want significant taxpayer funds while giving almost nothing

Let's move up to today. Guess what DeWitt II wants? Busch Stadium needs a “significant capital infusion” in the upcoming years at the latest. My guess is that he will get something substantial around the $500 million mark. I don't think they should but I am just stating that I don't think local leaders would stop them from taking this amount of taxpayer money. The spin would probably just be that the Cardinals are taking just $500M instead of $2B for a new ballpark.

William Neilson Jr.
Ballpark

Kansas City officials plan to go around taxpayers to build a new Royals ballpark

I want to congratulate the mayor of Kansas City (State of Missouri) for making one of the most ridiculous arguments that I have seen so far this year.  But first, let me back up slightly. Presently, things do not look good for the Kansas City Royals. They keep missing deadlines. Last week, the Kansas House Speaker noted how the Royals had missed a December 31 deadline, which would have allowed the team to use a state of Kansas funding package for sports venues. This week, one county official told the Kansas City Star that he had given the Royals…

William Neilson Jr.
Arena Ballpark Stadium

Cavaliers CEO: People should “make sure” to “celebrate” when we ask for $400M

Now that the Browns are moving out of the downtown area, residents are left to deal with two billionaire owners demanding countless amounts of money for upgrades. Most rational people would look at this situation and wonder why an owner like the Cleveland Cavaliers Dan Gilbert, with a net worth north of $20B, is not paying for 100% of his arena upgrades. The answer is because he knows that he doesn't have to pay for much, if anything at all, when it comes to his sports properties. He used his ownership of the Cavaliers to lower his taxable income…

William Neilson Jr.
Arena Ballpark Stadium

When will city and state leaders learn that their new sports venue will not magically increase tax revenues?

This week, the Kansas City Chiefs announced they were relocating to the state of Kansas for a brand-new $3B stadium. The term sheet agreed upon by the team and state is outlandish. Joe Pompliano (who is one of the best at sports business news) has gone over the term sheet and claims it is the “Most Lopsided Stadium Deal In NFL History” thanks to $1.8 billion in taxpayer money being included. But the details of many important parts of the deal are still unknown. For example, we still don't know where the new stadium will be located. In a…

William Neilson Jr.
Ballpark

The Kansas City Royals continue to push forward on one of the worst organized ballpark plans ever put together

A few months ago, I wrote a story on the Kansas City Royals and their crazy ways of trying to convince taxpayers to give them a billion dollars through an increased sales tax (for a new ballpark). As I said in the story, the Royals decided that the best way to do this was by making sure that residents were “confused about every detail of their potential ballpark.” Rather than finish important deals months before the vote on the new sales tax, the Royals were completing them “just a week or two before the sales tax vote, leaving people…

William Neilson Jr.
Ballpark

In Mesa, Arizona, city officials did not want residents to know about a stadium agreement so they had a 12 minute meeting right before Thanksgiving

The day before Thanksgiving, the Mesa City Council held a 12-minute meeting (with no residents in attendance) that allowed for 80 acres of land to be classified as a “theme park district.” Moving forward, this land will now be called “Palo District.” The big prize of this deal was how it sets up for a new soccer stadium to be built on this land. For years, the city of Mesa has been trying to figure out a way to get either an MLS or NWSL soccer team to their city. When the city attorney went in front of the…

William Neilson Jr.