The mayor of Albuquerque wants a soccer stadium. He wants it badly. Since 2021, he has been begging city leaders and the public to let him help New Mexico United build a new stadium with taxpayer money. Two years ago, he finally got the city to put up a stadium proposition for a public vote. He spent weeks begging residents to approve the proposal.
The Buffalo Bills forgot to involve minorities and locals when building their stadium. Whoops.
The Buffalo Bills public answer to all of this continues to be part laughable and part tone-deaf. On one hand, they continue to put out this idiotic PR language that just makes them look like idiots. The construction group for the stadium told the Buffalo News that, contrary to almost all evidence currently, they are in fact “working a well-developed plan.
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.
Remember all of the promises made about the Wichita Ballpark and surrounding area?
After the city of Wichita and the ownership group came to an agreement behind closed doors, numerous months passed. During this time, the city began to tear down the old ballpark and began to build the new one. Keep in mind that at this moment, residents still had no idea what the city had agreed to in this deal.
San Antonio Spurs have been secretly negotiating with city officials for quite awhile on a new arena
San Antonio Spurs have been secretly negotiating with city officials for quite awhile on a new arena
In September of last year, the San Antonio Spurs General Manager and City Manager met to discuss improvements to the city-owned Alamodome, where the Spurs play home games. We know this because the San Antonio Express-News has text messages showing the GM asking to meet the city official to discuss "facility infrastructure".
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 that the Super Bowl benefits are overstated and not worth the cost of hosting.
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.
The Washington Commanders/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) would receive a $30 million upgrade, some of this was to be paid for by Virginia taxpayers.
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.
The Phillies will ask Clearwater for public money in two weeks. Two weeks after that. Some time later. Maybe?
The Philadelphia Phillies have a history with Clearwater, Florida. Since 1947, the Phillies spring training facility and ballpark has been found here. But over the last decade or so, the Phillies have struggled to get money out of local city leaders. In early 2019, the Phillies asked for $40 million from tourist taxes for ballpark renovations and were flatly rejected. But now they are trying again. Maybe. We think.