Category: Stadium

Stadium

The Pittsburgh Penguins & Pirates paid for their scoreboard upgrades. The Steelers are demanding that the city pay for their upgrades

The city's side, called the Pittsburgh Sports & Exhibition Authority (SEA), noted in a filing that the Pittsburgh Pirates and Penguins both paid for their scoreboard upgrades. In fact, the Pirates really did the exact same thing as the Steelers. They made the video size bigger and the picture resolution improved. In summary, the city is saying that the scoreboard upgrade was a “major expansion” rather than just a simple upgrade.

William Neilson Jr.
Stadium

The Super Bowl continues to suck cities in with false promises of economic glory

Why are cities not making more money off this big event? Because they are paying millions upon millions in expenses mandated by the NFL. In 2016, local taxpayers in San Francisco paid the bill for hosting the Super Bowl and its many off-field festivities. The NFL, a multi-billion dollar company, pays nothing, let me repeat that, nothing during Super Bowl weeks because of a deal between the city and the NFL Host Committee. If you were wondering, local taxpayers did pay for the construction of the stadium in Santa Clara. There is a vast amount of evidence that suggests…

William Neilson Jr.
Stadium

Chicago Bears continue to whine about their property tax

Yet even with the questions and people pre-selected, the Chicago Bears GM, Kevin Warren, still got “confrontational” and threatened people who asked questions. The original price of the Stadium and Entertainment District for the Bears new stadium was projected around $5 billion. Billionaires don't become billionaires without keeping every last cent that they can, and I can only guess that is the attitude that the Bears are taking.

William Neilson Jr.
Stadium

The Washington Redskins/Commanders have officially stopped screwing over Richmond, Virginia

The city of Richmond at this time was dealing with “revenue shortfalls” that “forced (public) schools to cut millions of dollars … forcing scores of layoffs, furloughs and other job cuts”. What better time to help out a billionaire sports owner. That year, the Washington Redskins (Commanders will be used from now on) announced that their training camp would move 100 miles south to Richmond in the following year, 2013. The agreement states that summer training camps will be held in Richmond for the following 8 years. In addition, the team announced that their corporate headquarters (in Loudoun County)…

William Neilson Jr.
Stadium

Maybe the worst argument for why the city of Chicago should give the Bears all naming-rights and revenue

Yesterday, I read an interesting opinion piece in the Chicago Tribune. In it, a woman claims that the city of Chicago should just hand back naming rights money along with ownership of the Chicago Bears stadium land. Why? Because the Bears owners family is nice? I don't know. I couldn't find anything substantive or factual about her belief that the city doing this would make a single difference compared to today.

William Neilson Jr.
Stadium

Fort Lauderdale decides to build a previously agreed upon park and to bill Inter Miami owners

Now, Fort Lauderdale is getting ready to build a new $25 million park that will cost Inter Miami $13 million dollars (the city pays the rest) and should open by 2025. The park will include new fields for all sorts of sports and even a dog area. In addition, the city has now stopped the team from using the land for parking. The team was given a chance to pay the $1.4 million dollars in overdue building permit fees, but nothing was given, and the bills remain unpaid. Keep in mind that this is the same owner who has…

William Neilson Jr.
Stadium

Cincinnati apologizes for wrongly evicting thousands in the 1950s. Didn’t FC Cincinnati just do that?

A full year had not even passed since FC Cincinnati's housing promise, when the Cincinnati Enquirer found out that at least 20 people were, in fact, being displaced by the new stadium. Many more would follow, and the above two examples are ones of many that I could write about. The kicking out of the 99-year-old woman caused so much local anger that FC Cincinnati decided to keep her building in their plans, rather than destroy it. But FC Cincinnati doesn't do good things like that without something in return.

William Neilson Jr.
Stadium

Philadelphia Union swear that this time, the new stadium will be an economic engine for Chester residents

The Philadelphia Union, the local MLS team, will get $250,000 in county tax breaks for their new Stadium, WSFS Bank Sportsplex. Specifically, the Delaware County Council allowed the Philadelphia Union to not pay any county real estate taxes. This lasts for the next 10 years and will be done on a sliding scale that starts at the team being exempted 100% this year and down to 10% at the end. According to the city and not a single economist alive, this should allow for the city to see direct spending increase by $9 million dollars. Why? Because this new…

William Neilson Jr.
Stadium

Why in the world would the city of Jacksonville pay 70% of the stadium upgrades?

Jacksonville has already given so much to the Jaguars. Remember when the city hosted the Super Bowl in 2015? Around $40 million dollars in taxpayer money was given to the team to improve the stadium just for that game. In 2013, the city gave the team another $45 million for upgrades and renovations. In 2015, the city split the bill with the team on a $90 million project....so another $45 million.

William Neilson Jr.
Stadium

Inter Miami continues making secret, non-written down agreements with former city officials

Maybe patience is the way to go. Inter Miami seems like a truthful organization. Even though they are a new MLS team, it isn't like this ownership group has already been involved in a major cheating scandal. Except two years ago, when they tried signing several world-class players and lied about their salaries. MLS would eventually penalize the owner of Inter Miami and other executives with million dollar fines.

William Neilson Jr.
Stadium

Charlotte taxpayers will be paying for a new stadium shortly

South Carolina House member John Ray Bradford stated that by keeping certain hospitality taxes in place until 2060, people should be happy because they are “not increasing any taxes”. Except, without this extension, locals would have paid less at hotels, bars, restaurants, etc… in the future. He also claimed that the city would have more confidence going to banks with more taxpayer money? Or something. My confidence is always sky-high whenever I see my “local hospitality lobbyists” being the ones who are dictating city/state policy for stadium funds.

William Neilson Jr.