Category: Oakland Coliseum

Friday roundup: Rays stadium deal falls apart more completely than their roof, San Antonio considers massive tax subsidy for new Spurs arena

access_time personNeil deMause

Sorry that this has turned into Tampa Bay Rays week here, but stuff keeps happening. And last night, perhaps the most happeningest stuff happened, with the St. Petersburg city council meeting and 1) voting 4-3 to approve spending $23 million toward repair of the Tropicana Field roof; 2) voting 5-2 to put off selling $450 million in bonds for a new stadium and surrounding infrastructure; then 3) voting 7-0 to undo the vote to spend on fixing the roof, after Rays co-president Brian Auld declared “our agreement effectively died” with Tuesday’s county commission vote to delay issuing bonds and “I don’t believe we can make the economics around this arrangement work any more.”

A new council vote on the city bonds is now possible for January 9, assuming the county re-votes to approve its own bonds on Dceember 17. But even in the unlikely event that that happens, two new anti-stadium city councilmembers will have taken office by then, making city approval unlikely. Plus there’s increasing expectation that Rays owner Stu Sternberg will officially cancel the stadium plan anyway in the interim; Auld said that he didn’t even care about the roof repair vote, saying wasn’t confident repairs could be completed by 2026 he would “have more certainty” working out a settlement with the city instead. (Auld also apologized for “the tone” in which team execs’ letter before Tuesday’s county vote declaring the stadium deal “suspended” was received, saying it wasn’t meant to be a threat — whatever it was, it clearly backfired.)

This is crazytown, especially when you consider that this whole thing was set off by the four county commissioners who joined two prior stadium deal opponents in voting to delay the stadium bond sale in October, in order to be all respectful of the losses to Hurricane Milton and everything, apparently without considering that they might lose their pro-stadium majority on election day before their next meeting. As unlikely as it may have seemed at the time, it looks like unless Sternberg and his cronies can find a way to flip one county commissioner by December 17 — and threatening to move the team sure didn’t do the trick — everything is going back to square one now, with Sternberg shaking trees to see if anyone else wants to give him $1 billion for a stadium somewhere, while MLB has to go back to sitting on its hands waiting for this mess to be resolved before discussing expansion. Not to mention that without a repaired Trop, the Rays could be playing indefinitely in a minor-league stadium in Tampa, even as the Oakland A’s are playing indefinitely in a minor-league stadium in Sacramento. Cutting off your nose to spite your face comes at you fast.

Meanwhile, that wasn’t even the only big city council meeting about sports venues yesterday: In San Antonio, the city council held hearings on using tax money to help fund a potentially $4 billion redevelopment including a new Spurs arena. I didn’t watch the meeting, but fortunately University of Colorado Denver sports economist Geoff Propheter did and liveposted about it on Bluesky, so let’s just revisit some of his highlights:

Leading finance mechanism for the district will be a hotel tax and sales tax TIF that will span 3 mi from the district center. The zone can capture all of the 6% hotel tax and 6% sales tax. Holy sh*t that's a lot of money that can be captured. Doesn't mean they will use the full amount.

— Geoffrey Propheter (@gpropheter.bsky.social) 2024-11-21T17:02:39.800Z

Without evidence, the assistant city manager says that most people that went to a Bad Bunny concert at the Alamodome weren't from Bexar County. Did they survey every attendee and double check their addresses against IRS or DMV records?

— Geoffrey Propheter (@gpropheter.bsky.social) 2024-11-21T17:12:25.690Z

"locals bring visitors because of the authenticity"…I don't understand what this means.

— Geoffrey Propheter (@gpropheter.bsky.social) 2024-11-21T17:17:22.930Z

Showing potential funding sources…and as usual, tax expenditures aren't on the list. When you give tax breaks, you are spending money. We know the team and others will end up with tax breaks. Those should always be part of funding discussion.

— Geoffrey Propheter (@gpropheter.bsky.social) 2024-11-21T17:18:51.102Z

courage: how does more tourists lead to better homelessness solutions? better housing solutions? better paying jobs–not just low wage ushers or retail workers? How many residents will be able to attend a spurs game compared to today or stay at a hotel in the district? great questions.

— Geoffrey Propheter (@gpropheter.bsky.social) 2024-11-21T18:30:35.069Z

courage strikes me also as cautiously optimistic, which puts the council tally at 8-3 if a vote were held today is my guess. I'm assuming the mayor would support.

— Geoffrey Propheter (@gpropheter.bsky.social) 2024-11-21T18:33:16.645Z

and the special session is over. Overall thoughts: lots of ideas, nothing concrete, and a lot of silly reasoning. A sport entertainment district is not a novel idea despite some members believing so. Members seem to believe that diverted tax dollars to the project don't hurt existing services.

— Geoffrey Propheter (@gpropheter.bsky.social) 2024-11-21T18:38:41.620Z

 

After all that, do we still have the stamina for the week’s bullet points? Let’s try a couple, at least:

  • Athletics owner John Fisher pulling out of his stadium deal with Oakland to instead move to Las Vegas (maybe) might have blown up his plans to get discounted land in Santa Clara for a San Jose Earthquakes practice facility as well, with the city board of supervisors slamming the brakes on the deal after retiring supervisor Joe Simitian said he’s “not convinced [the Earthquakes] would be a good-faith partner” and warned that the sweetheart land deal represented “essentially a $100 million giveaway to a private enterprise.”
  • Speaking of Oakland, the city finance department issued a warning last Friday that the city is on the brink of bankruptcy and can’t count on money from the on-hold sale of the Oakland Coliseum to bail it out — then reversed course and quietly replaced that report on the city’s website with a new, less apocalyptic one.
  • This week was so nuts that a piece of the Dallas Cowboys roof falling off barely even makes the small print. Team owner Jerry Jones doesn’t want a new stadium, at least, or else we know where this would be headed.
  • And we haven’t even gotten to voters in Forsyth County, Georgia approving a TIF district to kick back tax revenues to pay for $225 million in bonds toward an NHL arena, assuming Forsyth County, which is 30 miles north of downtown Atlanta, can land an NHL team. We will revisit this if an Atlanta expansion team gets past the dreaming stage, or if this firehose of Rays stadium news ever stops, whichever comes first.
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Friday roundup: Rays to play 2025 in Tampa, and other things to make people mad

access_time personNeil deMause

The verdict is in for where the Tampa Bay Rays will play the 2025 season while waiting for their roof to be (probably) repaired, and the answer is: Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, spring-training home of the New York Yankees and rest-of-the-time home of the Tampa Tarpons. I’m going to go ahead and call this a fine enough decision: The stadium holds 11,000 people, not too far off of the Rays’ average 2024 attendance of 16,515; as a spring training site, it has major-league amenities; and it’s still in the Tampa Bay region, so Rays fans won’t have to drive across the state or the country to get to games. Plus, there are multiple fields on the site, so there’s no worry about schedule conflicts, since the Tarpons can just play on one of the back fields while the Rays take over the main one.

Of course, it’s also not in Pinellas County, which is already ticking off Pinellas County commissioners who already held up a vote on approving bonds for a new Rays stadium last month amid concern that the team might play elsewhere for a season or three. Commissioner Chris Latvala, who voted against the stadium deal in July, called the decision “unfortunate,” saying, “there’s going to be over $1 billion public funds dedicated from Pinellas residents to the Tampa Bay Rays, and the thank you that the Rays gave them was to play the games across the bridge in Hillsborough County.” Commissioner Rene Flowers, meanwhile, who voted for the deal in July, told the Tampa Bay Times she’s now not sure if she’ll change her vote, saying, “I’m waiting to see how it looks for us financially” — spoilers, Rene, it still looks just as bad as it did then.

And then there’s this tidbit:

The Yankees will receive about $15 million in revenue for hosting the Rays, a person familiar with the arrangement told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because that detail was not announced. The money won’t come from Tampa Bay but from other sources, such as insurance.

Um, Associated Press, you drunk posting? First off, “Tampa Bay” is not a government entity, it’s a collection of disparate municipalities and counties, so who isn’t the money coming from, exactly? And “such as insurance” is both awfully vague and puzzlingly specific, as the only insurance policy that’s been discussed is that held by the city of St. Petersburg, which is already committed to paying for a chunk of the estimated $55 million cost of repairing the Tropicana Field roof.

Still many questions, in other words. Anyone else want to chime in?

“I’ll be excited to set a record for rain delays in a season,” Rays reliever and union player rep Pete Fairbanks said.

And as for the week’s other news:

  • Orlando’s stadium formerly known as the Citrus Bowl is set to get $400 million in county-funded renovations, something that Orlando mayor-for-life Buddy Dyer first proposed last year and which the county gave preliminary approval to back in January. The money would come from the “tourist development tax” — the same pool of hotel-tax money that Pinellas County is currently debating whether to hand over to the Rays — which according to the authorizing legislation can be used for building stadiums, or building auditoriums, or funding aquariums or museums or zoos or beaches or advertising tourism or a whole lot of other things, so long as the purpose is to get more tourists coming to your county. It’s actually somewhat difficult to argue that renovating a stadium that hosts a handful of college football games each year in order to make it “fully symmetrical” is what’s needed in order to encourage tourists to go to freaking Orlando, but this is what the county commission is being asked to vote on in the next couple of weeks, with a straight face.
  • A report by consultant Econsult Solutions Inc. commissioned by the city of Cleveland claims that the Browns leaving downtown would cost the city $30 million in annual economic activity and $11 million in annual tax revenue, which on the face of it doesn’t make any sense since Cleveland doesn’t have any taxes that are at 36.7%. A quick look at the report itself doesn’t reveal any more methodological details, except that Econsult apparently calculated its estimate that Cleveland would lose 29% of Browns-related spending by dividing the population of the city by the population of Cuyahoga County, LOLconsultants.
  • Personal seat license prices at the new Tennessee Titans stadium are in some cases going up from $750 per seat to $10,000 a seat, and season ticket holders are not pleased. But at least the PSL money will help pay off the public’s $1.2 billion share of the construction — oh, what’s that, the seat license money is entirely going to pay off team owner Amy Adams Strunk’s share of the costs? The Hog Mollies didn’t mention that part!
  • The city of Oakland’s sale of its half of the Oakland Coliseum site to private developers is on hold, apparently because Alameda County is dragging its feet on the transfer of its half of the site which it had previously sold to A’s owner John Fisher. No, that doesn’t make sense to me either, it looks to involve a lawsuit in progress charging that the sale violates the state’s Surplus Land Act requiring that public land first be offered up for development as affordable housing — similar objections were raised about the Los Angeles Angels deal, you may remember, but that fell apart before it was ever resolved, so who knows what’ll happen here.
  • One long-rumored stadium site the Kansas City Royals definitely won’t be moving to is the old K.C. Star building, because it’s being converted into an “AI innovation facility.” A local wine bar owner called this “not the most exciting thing for the neighborhood” but at least a plan that wouldn’t require displacing local businesses, which is probably about right.
  • Diamond Sports Group, aka Bally Sports aka FanDuel Sports, has emerged from bankruptcy reorganization, with lots of consequences for the MLB, NBA, and NHL teams it formerly provided cable broadcasts of. ESPN has a rundown, but the main takeaway is that a bunch of teams are going to getting less TV money than they expected, which will effect everything from their player budgets to the relative importance of market size in terms of team profitability, while fans will get some new options including the ability to do pay-per-view of single games for a mere (?) $7 a pop. More on this as more dominoes fall, maybe, or check Marc Normandin’s Marvin Miller’s Mustache newsletter later this morning, if I know him he’ll be weighing in on this.
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Friday roundup: Houston readies stadium upgrade cash, Oakland Coliseum buyers seek new payment plan

access_time personNeil deMause

Thanks for your patience while I’ve been traveling this week (and watching Mets playoff games at 3 am), though honestly it’s been a pretty slow news week as well. Not completely dead, though, so let’s get to the weekly roundup:

  • The Houston city council is refinancing its bonds for the Astros and Texans stadiums and Rockets arena, which will let it spend an additional $150 million on renovations. The Houston Chronicle says the money is expected to be allocated as part of lease negotiations — the Texans’ is up in 2031, the Rockets’ is up in 2033, and the Astros’ not until 2050 — but also that the bond money is expected to “be split between the three venues evenly,” so maybe the city plans to set aside $50 million for each team, then see what it can get in lease extensions for that? The Houston Business Journal also reports that the Astros and Rockets leases require “renovations to maintain the first-class status of the venues” — the Astros can terminate their lease in 2035 if the additional spending isn’t made, though there’s no estimate provided of how much maintaining “first-class status” is expected to cost. Friends don’t let friends sign state-of-the-art clauses, let’s just leave it at that.
  • The city of Oakland has rearranged the payment schedule for the African American Sports and Entertainment Group to supply $105 million for the city’s half of the Oakland Coliseum, and the Oakland police union wants answers, calling the change in timetable “strange and weird.” Apparently the new payment schedule also still needs to be approved by the city council before it’s final, so I’m going to go ahead and say that the whole thing is strange, though “weird” will have to wait until we have further information.
  • Destruction from Hurricane Helene is expected to cut into hotel tax revenues earmarked for paying off the Tampa Bay Rays‘ new $1.3 billion stadium, though it’s too soon to predict by how much. Sports economist Geoffrey Propheter notes that if bond buyers balk at purchasing bonds because the tax revenues don’t seem sufficient, Pinellas County could have to allocate more public money to reassure them and keep interest rates from soaring, this should be fun.
  • If the prospective owners who want to get an expansion franchise in Portland, Oregon are successful, and if they then are able to build a stadium where they want, it could have the side benefit of shoring up the approach ramps to a neighboring bridge so they don’t collapse in an earthquake. Neither the earthquake nor the expansion team appears imminent, but this is still news, apparently, so consider yourself informed.

If there’s anything else up, it can get discussed in the comments, or else wait till Monday when I’m back on a normal schedule. See you then!

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