Tag: MLS

Arena Ballpark Stadium

Yet another “historic” community benefits agreement…this time in Chattanooga

In July, the Chattanooga Lookouts, a minor league baseball team, reached an agreement with the city to build a new ballpark. Although the price was originally going to be $79.5 million, the final price tag was actually $120 million. Not to worry, though, as the public contribution amount is capped at…$112 million? Ever since 2022, local groups in Chattanooga have been pressuring local officials to make sure that the community was represented whenever a community benefits agreement (CBA) was discussed.

William Neilson Jr.
Stadium

Detroit City FC continue pushing for a new stadium, yet give almost no details about the project

Ok, but is Detroit City FC going to ask the city or state to give any money for this project? This will be “finalized in the coming months”. In the last few weeks, DCFC leaders have publicly claimed that when it comes to taxpayer money, the team “will be civic with how they finance the stadium” and will not be “asking for a large sum of public money to fund it”. They will be needing something from taxpayers. Since the team is likely going to use the city's Community Benefits Ordinance process for building the stadium, this means that…

William Neilson Jr.
Stadium

Rhode Island taxpayers are now paying off $130+ million in debt payments for their soccer stadium

When the new stadium was first announced in 2019, the state of Rhode Island would give $27 million to the developers for development of housing units around the stadium. The stadium developer claimed that the cost of the project would be just over $80 million. But after some time passed, the developers claimed that construction costs were too high and that the deal wouldn't work. The Governor cast a tiebreaker vote to allow the taxpayers' costs to shift from housing to the stadium. At this time, the State expected the project to cost $59 million over 20 years, annual…

William Neilson Jr.
Stadium

Negotiations continue to happen in secret across the country, all without the public seeing or hearing about it

This is not going to shock anyone. Sports owners hate when their plans are released and looked at intensively. Have you ever read a sports venue agreement? Try reading the Potomac Yard Economic and Fiscal Impact Study from the failed Capitals/Wizards to Alexandria, Virginia proposal. The agreements are almost impossible to read and understand unless you read these types of documents daily. This is why billionaire owners aren’t always forthcoming with initial sports venue details. A professor of sports management was a bit more straight-forward when talking about taxpayers being left out of the venue negotiations by stating that…

William Neilson Jr.
Stadium

Minnesota United FC had grand plans outside their new stadium in 2016. Now? Not so much

Fans coming to the stadium for this year's Minnesota United FC home opener found “very little changed” from past years. Additionally, the stadium was still surrounded by a “barren landscape of surface parking lots”. This is likely why fans continue coming to games and complaining about the “lack of activities around the stadium for before and after games”.

William Neilson Jr.
Stadium

St. Louis MLS owners required no “direct taxes” in 2019…now they are increasing the sales tax rate to 12.7%

The ownership group of St. Louis FC is increasing the sales tax rate to almost 13%. If the city board approves a new sales tax district near the stadium, then the sales tax rate will increase 1% because the team was recently forced to pay “extraordinary costs” to fix their field. The stadium land contained “contaminated groundwater” that was quite a pain to fix and replace. The team claims to have numerous and expensive costs to fix the field. Yet, they have not been asked to detail any of the expenses. So the public has no clue what the…

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

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.