All of this at a cost of $30M...and would be "paid for by the San Jose Sharks." The mayor mentioned that she was "pleased" that taxpayers were being asked to spend "next to no cost" for this project. The mayor wrote a letter to the Gilroy Dispatch to again state that this project would "be paid for and operated by Sharks Sports & Entertainment."
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.”
In 2024, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) spent more than $2.2M on “influencers to promote the city.” However, the LVCVA refused to tell the public how much each influencer received because LVCVA claimed it was a “trade secret.” Let me get this straight. A taxpayer-funded agency is giving taxpayer money to a contractor, and the public isn't allowed to know who was paid what?
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.
Now, the Portland Trail Blazers would like some of that money. According to OregonLive, the Blazers want an “estimated $20 million per year” to be given to them “from the state’s general fund.” The team claims that this allows them to start a $600 million renovation of the current arena. However, as OregonLive notes, the Blazers' situation is not similar to last year's MLB giveaway. The NBA team's players/staff have already been paying “into the state’s general fund” since 1970. If the Blazers want money for their arena, it will need to come from “essential services” for a new…
Essentially, the state of Kansas allows for lawmakers to use a “special incentive program” that was started just two years ago to fund a project like the Kansas City Chiefs. The lawmaker who wrote this law (not including language allowing for the public to vote) claims that the public doesn't need to vote since the sales tax is not increasing. I really do hope that this politician understands that while the sales tax will not increase, the money that it brought in to MANY state functions (like public education, facilities, etc...) will now be diverted to the Chiefs project.…
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…
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…
Michael Bidwill and his family are what I call a Rake Family. They love stepping on rakes and then seem surprised when it comes back and hits them in the face. The Bidwills first few years in Arizona are a perfect example of this. When the Bidwills moved the Cardinals from St. Louis to Arizona in 1987, they did so because St. Louis wouldn't build them a brand-new stadium. Cardinals executives claimed that people in Arizona would. Therefore, the team moved to Arizona, and nothing was built. The stadium builders never came through, and the team was stuck for…
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…
In 2017, the International Olympic Committee awarded the City of Los Angeles the 2028 Olympics. Right after being awarded the 2028 games, the mayor of Los Angeles signed a host contract, which forced the city to be the "financial backstop" and therefore responsible for "paying off any debts" that arose from the games. Even better, as the Los Angeles Times wrote in a 2017 story, the city will have "more than a decade to prepare." Most importantly, the Olympic Committee from Los Angeles was clear that taxpayers would not pay for the games and that instead "they expect to cover all…
Over the last few months, plenty of articles have been written about how exactly the city of Cleveland is going to pay for the millions and millions of upgrades that their local sports owners are demanding. Gateway Economic Development Corporation, the owner of the Cleveland Indians ballpark (Progressive Field) and the Cleveland Cavaliers arena (Rocket Arena), is supposed to pay for venue upgrades with revenues from a 1990 voter-approved sin tax. But the sin tax has never come close to producing the revenue needed for venue updates. This means that the city has been forced to pay for venue…
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…
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…
The Denver council delayed voting on the release of the $50 million because of a “lack of key information.” For example, council members still do not have a specific breakdown of how and where the money will be spent. The council president seemed flustered that she “had to ask several times” why the team wasn't giving them all the information. When the team's attorney was asked for the project's final cost numbers, she told the council that she didn't have them due to their construction estimates not being finished.
