Tag: Seattle

Arena Ballpark Stadium

Team owners continue to get out of paying for venue upgrades when they are responsible for keeping it at a “First-Class Condition”

The new owner of the Portland Trail Blazers, Tom Dundon, told Portland city leaders that he won't negotiate with them until language is changed in the lease agreement between the city and the team. Dundon is demanding the removal of language that requires the team to keep the Moda Center in first-class condition. When an agreement includes a “First-Class Condition” or “State-of-the-Art” clause, it requires the facility owner (either the city/county or the team itself) to maintain, repair, and upgrade the venue so that it remains comparable to top-tier facilities in the league. This means Dundon is responsible for…

William Neilson Jr.
Stadium

FIFA made $15B from this World Cup. Actual businesses near the matches? Not so much…

Now that the World Cup is over, I went looking to see how businesses did in host cities. FIFA made $15B in revenue from the current World Cup. That is a considerable amount of money to be taking in from this event. Surely the host cities will see some of that money, right? No, host cities get none of this money. Before I could even look into how local businesses did during the matches, I found FIFA continuing to do everything they could to make it seem like this event was a massive success for everyone involved.

William Neilson Jr.
Stadium

The San Francisco 49ers promise to pay for all World Cup expenses…somewhat…kind of…maybe?

Last week, the San Francisco 49ers publicly vowed to cover Santa Clara’s expenses for the World Cup games. The 49ers will use money that they received from their NFL operations to cover the costs. One estimate claims that it will cost Santa Clara about $50M to stage the games. Except, as the mayor reminded everyone, the 49ers promised to only cover all “approved costs”. That can be interpreted many ways, considering the terrible history between the 49ers and the mayor. Keep in mind that the people of Southern California have been told next to nothing about the local finances of…

William Neilson Jr.
Stadium

The World Cup is going to make everyone billions and billions of dollars

Mexico, the United States, and Canada will jointly host the 2026 World Cup. As the event approaches, cities are getting prepared for the upcoming games. It is rather surprising to see how different cities are reacting to the World Cup approaching. Some cities are outraged at the rising costs, some cities are falling in love with their economic impact projections, and some are just happy to have the games coming to their city. Unfortunately, some cities now realize that the expense of staging these games can massively outweigh the so-called benefits. Most leaders in host cities do not fully…

William Neilson Jr.
Stadium

Vancouver’s mayor plays the quiet game when asked about World Cup expenses

Last year, 16 cities, including Seattle and Vancouver, were selected to be hosts for the 2026 World Cup matches. Then FIFA told every city to just shut up if anyone asked about expenses. FIFA was tired of answering questions from cities. It is well-known that the hosting cities are expected to pay most of the costs. But when cities like Chicago, Vancouver and Minneapolis tried to get a basic level of certainty on some major unknowns, FIFA ignored them. Cities had to decide whether they could figure out a number of huge and unpredictable costs without FIFA help.

William Neilson Jr.
Ballpark

Worcester was promised that Polar Park would pay for itself, it has not and will not

In 2018, Worcester, Massachusetts, agreed to finance a substantial portion of taxpayer money to build a brand-new ballpark. Although the city would be borrowing around $100.8 million for this project (making it the 4th most expensive minor league ballpark to be built), city leaders justified this expense by stating how the ballpark would fund itself, if not make the city money in the long term. At the press conference announcing the deal, the city manager told everyone outright that “in essence, the project pays for itself”. What if there are cost issues after the ballpark is built?

William Neilson Jr.