Category: Stadium

Stadium

How dare the city of Chicago ask the Bears to pay property taxes like everyone else

The Chicago Bears publicly admitted to buying land in nearby Arlington Heights to likely build a new stadium. However, it appears that a Chicago (technically Cook County) assessor is now holding the Bears accountable for future property taxes on this land. The county assessor raised the property tax value of this land by six times (applies to tax year 2022 and beyond), and that does not even include the construction that will be done.

William Neilson Jr.
Stadium

Milwaukee Brewers continue ballpark upgrades push, not moving very fast

In the last few months, the Milwaukee Brewers have been begging city/state leaders to give them money for ballpark upgrades. The Governor of Wisconsin proposed giving the Brewers almost $300 million in public money in exchange for an additional 13 years being added to the lease. This proposal really means that taxpayers will pay closer to $450 million in renovations over the next 20 years. Several Brewers executives did a PR tour and tried to tell everyone that the Brewers “want nothing more than to continue playing baseball in Milwaukee for another generation”. He goes on to claim that…

William Neilson Jr.
Stadium

Buffalo Bills exec promises that, unlike last stadium, developers will flock to the new one

Last year, New York lawmakers gave the Buffalo Bills $850 million dollars in taxpayer money to help the NFL team build a new stadium. The New York Legislature managed to craft one of the worst stadium deals in recent memory. The $850 million dollar figure does NOT include a significant number of subsidies such as maintenance costs and property tax exemptions. Therefore, the bill will likely be at minimum $1 billion. Then again, since the deal was agreed upon last year, the price of it has already gone up 10%, so it could be even higher.

William Neilson Jr.
Arena Stadium

Teams continue to make millions yet want their property taxes slashed

The city assessed the property value where the arena was built along with surrounding developments at $1.7 billion for tax purposes. The Warriors are asking the city to lower that assessment by just a little.....a billion dollars, that is. The Warriors believe the property value is at $706 million for 2022, which is $1 billion less than the city's value and would save the team over $11 million in property taxes for 2022.

William Neilson Jr.
Stadium

Minnesota Vikings new stadium being debt free is irrelevant to whether it is an actual good financial asset

That is quite remarkable. I mean, in 2012, both the city of Minneapolis and the state of Minnesota kicked in over $500 million in taxpayer money to build this new stadium. Why is this suddenly happening? Essentially, gambling has taken off in Minnesota and their stadium reserve fund has gone astronomically higher than anyone thought it would be at thanks to a tax on electronic pulltabs.

William Neilson Jr.