Did you catch John Oliver last night? He realized what many of us realized long ago - one can make true sport out of "taunting taxpayer-funded stadiums":
John Oliver may not break much new ground on his weekly show, but he shines an important spotlight on watchdog journalism from around the U.S. and beyond.
Time's summary included:
Why are tax dollars being used to fund stadiums? “Sports teams are wealthy businesses with wealthy owners and they still get our help,” Oliver said. “Pretending you’re poor is wrong. It wasn’t okay when Mary-Kate Olsen went through her hobo phase, and it’s not okay now!”
To prove his point about how cities like Cincinnati and Milwaukee have bent over backwards to keep sports teams happy, Oliver noted that just six days after Detroit declared bankruptcy, they got approval to spend more than $280 million in taxpayer money for a new arena for the local NHL team — even though the Red Wings owner, Mike Ilitch, is the founder of the Little Caesar’s pizza chain and worth an estimated $5.1 billion. As Oliver noted, “That’s a little hard to swallow.”
Neil deMause, the Sultan of Subsidy-Smacking, tweeted:
Btw, as someone Last Week Tonight contacted, I can say their piece was way more thoroughly fact-checked than 99% of stadium news reporting.
The piece was really well done and it's worth 19 minutes of your time...but if you prefer condensed summaries, here's our 2-minute-long version of the stadium subsidy game in Florida.
The good news is the Rays' attendance has been ticking upward a little bit since the end of the Lightning playoff run, but the team's recent two-week slump could mean hopes of a huge recovery due to an MLB playoff run are getting dimmer.
There are lots of reasons contributing to the team's struggles at the gate, but the first explanations I've always turned to is the team's self-fulfilling prophecy and the region's lack of ability/interest in supporting three pro teams at once.
It's been an impressive 2015 for Hillsborough County tourism, with recently-reported bed tax receipts up 15% from the same time last year. The growth is so explosive, it could have an immediate impact on Rays stadium talks.
Hillsborough County is on-pace for $27 million in bed tax collections this fiscal year - short of what its beach-benefitting counterpart, Pinellas County, routinely draws - but increasingly close to the magic $30 million figure that would designate the county a "high-impact" tourism center, eligible to increase its bed tax from 5% to 6%.
The extra penny on hotel room stays could conceivably fund $75-80 million in stadium construction (although it could also fund a number of other beneficial programs). Pinellas County already reached the milestone and is preparing to extend its bed tax to 6%.
Hillsborough County may not continue its explosive tourism growth at the current pace, which would put it on-pace to achieve "high-impact" status by 2017-2018, but either way, it's encouraging news for baseball fans in Tampa.
Sometimes, you gotta wonder who writes Florida Governor Rick Scott's material.
This morning, after he held a "ceremonial" signing for a bill that allowed the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros to move forward with a lucrative trip on the spring stadium subsidy train, the Governor's office released the following quote:
“Spring training and Major League Baseball are a major reason why Florida continues to welcome record numbers of tourists. Last year almost 99 million people visited Florida - and we’re on pace for even more visitors this year. With the Nationals and Astros announcing their spring training operations will remain in Florida for the next 30 years, and the news that our state will host the MLB All Star Game in 2017, it’s clear that Florida is the number one state for baseball in the country.”
I'm guessing this blog's readers have plenty of opinions on the "number one state for baseball" comment...but let's humor the governor for a moment and acknowledge that the Grapefruit League draws a lot of visitors to the Sunshine State each spring.
The bigger problem with his quote is his guarantee that the Nats and Astros will remain in their $135 million stadium for 30 years. If you're of the belief the Rays' contract isn't perfectly ironclad, you certainly don't believe a spring training deal is ironclad....
That's because last year, Governor Scott signed a bill making it easier for Florida's spring training teams to break their leases. It was nothing more than a giveaway to powerful franchise-owners by specifically limiting their damages if they break their spring training leases. Scott has repeatedly dodged my questions about pro teams' reliance on taxpayer subsidies.
Of course, two years ago, I wrote Scott should have cut a deal with Arizona to stop the spring stadium arms race where the only winners are MLB teams and the only losers are taxpayers. How hard would it be for the two states that host all 30 spring training stadiums to agree to simply stop the handouts?
Apparently very hard, because...jobs! And photo opportunities!!
The Tampa Tribune splashed another stadium story across its front page today, this time focusing on how a next-generation Rays stadium could be built in conjunction with other retail, residential, and entertainment options, just as the Braves are doing in Metro Atlanta.
It's really not a new idea - the Blue Jays incorporated some of those ideas into the SkyDome, and the Red Sox realized a decade ago there was a ton of money to be made by building new bars on the streets outside Fenway.
But it's interesting to hear Hillsborough Commissioner Ken Hagan, Tampa's single-biggest stadium proponent, suggest the process for a Rays stadium could mirror that of the Braves' new deal in Cobb County:
Hagan said the speed with which the deal between the Braves and Cobb County was approved — commissioners signed off on it just eight weeks after it was announced — shows that it need not take up to two years to get a deal done once the Rays get permission to look. “The Atlanta model was very different,” he said. “That is encouraging to me, that with all the due diligence we’re doing on the front end, once we’re given the opportunity to sit down with the team, it will not take as long as it historically has to determine a location and a fundraising package.”
Let's remember the expedited timeline for moving the Braves to Cobb Co. was due to secret dealings behind closed-doors that caught taxpayers off-guard. It also prohibited any real public input, prevented taxpayers from getting a better deal (they're forking over $300M+), and negatively impacted other essential county budget items, like parks.
Oh, and as a kicker, the Braves' new stadium deal will also lead to 45% higher ticket prices! But that would never happen in Tampa, right???
UPDATE: Good synopsis from Field of Schemes on other flaws with development assumptions:
If development around a stadium were profitable enough to pay off a stadium, teams would be able to pursue this strategy without public subsidies. Not to mention that if stadium-related development is profitable it could be pursued without the money suck of a new stadium attached...it could just end up displacing development that otherwise would have taken place somewhere else in town...development around stadiums has typically appeared years late when it shows up at all, etc., etc.
With fans, elected leaders, and the Tampa Bay Rays anxious to commence a stadium search in Hillsborough County, the top elected official in St. Petersburg says he's anxious too: so he can prove to the region that the current stadium site, near Downtown St. Petersburg, would make an ideal site for the Rays' next stadium too.
"I don't know anywhere else that really has the land; has the funding; and has the highway access," St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman said of the 85-acre Tropicana Field site. "The last piece is the (development) happening in that area."
Kriseman has been pushing his city council to let the Rays look at stadium sites across the bay, confident his city's stadium potentials will stack up better. The mayor points to Downtown St. Pete's explosive growth, particularly in the "Edge" and "Grand Central" districts, immediately adjacent to Tropicana Field. Activity around the stadium is no longer limited to just Ferg's Sports Bar.
"You're talking about an area within walking distance of the heart of your downtown," Kriseman said, adding that 85 acres offer double the redevelopment potential of Jeff Vinik's 40-acre, $1 billion plans in Downtown Tampa.
Furthermore, building a new - but better - ballpark on the current stadium site would mean little-to-no land acquisition cost and outstanding infrastructure with two highways, I-375 and I-175, feeding straight from I-275 into St. Petersburg's downtown.
But Kriseman has not been able to convince a majority of councilmembers to let the Rays first look in Hillsborough County. The team, locked into its current use agreement through 2027, has said it will not consider any stadium sites in Pinellas County until it can consider all stadium sites in Tampa Bay.
Meanwhile, the Rays' attendance continues to flounder, leading the league in futility again, with an average of 14,686 fans per game (lowest since 2005) heading into Tuesday night. Kriseman blames the troubles on Tampa highway construction and says despite the low attendance numbers at Tropicana Field, Hillsborough residents are warming up to the idea of crossing the bay for baseball.
"I think there's that pushback right now because it still isn't easy to get here because of the roadway system in Tampa," Kriseman said. "But I do think, like I said, that's going to be gone in another five years."
St. Petersburg's Chamber of Commerce, which has spent much of the eight-year-long stadium stalemate on the sidelines, is also getting behind the idea of a new, next-generation downtown St. Pete baseball stadium.
"You've got the fifth-largest city in the state of Florida. You've got the most Fortune 500 companies in the region located right around here," said the Chamber's chair-elect Greg Holden. "(But) I think St. Pete is a community that has to train its businesses (to support MLB)."
However, Holden said Pinellas County's available bed tax revenues and available land could make other sites along St. Petersburg's Northern border just as interesting for a new stadium.
DERBY LANE
For years, speculation and rumors have circulated that the downfall of greyhound racing in Florida could prompt the private owners of Derby Lane to sell their 130 acres along Gandy Blvd. Although the track is in the middle of its 90th racing season, its ownership is now acknowledging it would welcome bids to redevelop the property.
But whether anyone is interested in paying their yet-to-be-determined price is unknown.
"The door is open," Derby Lane spokeswoman Vera Rasnake told 10 Investigates, "but (the owners) have not been approached."
Derby Lane offers outstanding highway access, just a few miles from the Gandy Bridge.
Additionally, several miles of overpass construction should give drivers a seamless exit from I-275 to the track's front door. If the Selmon Expressway is extended Southbound along Gandy Blvd. in Tampa, drivers could soon reach Derby Lane from East Hillsborough County without encountering a single traffic light.
While the track's footprint is big enough for countless mixed-use development concepts, the price tag for the land alone would likely be in the tens of millions of dollars. Employing 544 people, the track isn't exactly "turn-key" ready for baseball. And if the legislature ever warms up to the idea of slot machines at the track, its value could explode.
Derby Lane also isn't within St. Petersburg's city limits, so it is unclear if the city would be willing to continue funding stadium bonds at the same – or increased – levels.
For now, with no developers eager to jump on the opportunity, it appears the party most-willing to talk about Derby Lane's redevelopment potential is Derby Lane's ownership.
TOYTOWN
The Toytown development, located just East of I-275 and just South of Roosevelt Blvd., offers up 240 county-owned acres of almost-prime real estate, just 10 minutes from Westshore.
Why "almost-prime?" Toytown used to be a landfill and lots of questions remain about the ability to build on it. While the land may be free for the right developer, there's no telling how much extra it might cost to build on the unstable debris.
Yet just last week, Pinellas County commissioners voted last week to put out a Request for Negotiations (RFN) on the site.
"Interest in the development of the Toytown site has increased in recent months," the county's economic development director, Mike Meidel, wrote in a memo. He also told commissioners the county was recently approached with offers (WATCH – item 23b).
The last time the property went out to bid, developers had to include a sports complex in designs, which could include baseball.
"(The Rays) are a regional asset," Kriseman added, saying he could support whatever site the Rays determined to be the best. "So if that means they relocate to Toytown...it simply means I have 85 acres now (at the current stadium site) that I can put back in play and redevelop."
FUNDING
But Kriseman knows Pinellas County sites have a big advantage over Hillsborough County sites because of robust tourist tax revenues and the ability to finance hundreds of millions of dollars in new construction without creating "new" taxes.
As 10 Investigates reported several times over the years, St. Pete and Pinellas County could likely cover upwards of $150 million in new construction just from existing revenue streams. The county is also on the verge of increasing its bed tax to 6% - a luxury afforded only to the state's top tourism destinations, of which Hillsborough County currently is not.
The additional 1 cent tax - primarily paid by tourists - could bond an additional $90 million or so for stadium construction. That could put public contributions at $240 million locally, quite possibly enough to help the team build a new stadium.
While all the aforementioned tax dollars could go toward other city and county projects, elected and business leaders seem to have an appetite for more baseball and the fans it draws from all over the region.
"We all know there's a financial advantage here," Holden said, indicating businesses and developers might share in the cost of a stadium. "You share some of the infrastructure cost and you look at the ingress/egress here and the potential for tying in...transportation, it really presents a compelling position location-wise and financially."
HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY
The Tampa Bay Rays declined comment on this story and have repeatedly said they wouldn't consider any sites in Tampa Bay until they could consider all sites in Tampa Bay. There are no signs St. Petersburg's council will allow a region-wide search before the team changes its offer or several councilmembers are term-limited out of office later this year.
But behind-the-scenes, Hillsborough County Commissioner Ken Hagan has said the county is "ready" with search and finance teams the minute they get the go-ahead.
Free, undeveloped land appears scarce in prime areas, although rumors continue to fly around potential property for sale in the city's urban core.
Foster saw the offer as a compromise to the team's complaints that the Trop was too remote of a location. But his olive branch was soundly rejected by the Rays, and five years later, the stalemate continues to drag on.
This weekend, the Tampa Tribune plastered the resurgent rumors on its front page: "From racing to Rays? Dog tracks eyed as stadium sites." The story explained how the decline of dog racing in Florida has the privately-owned Derby Lane open to a buyout.
Derby Lane is a centrally-located piece of land that would make a much more-appealing stadium location for most Hillsborough County fans. And, Pinellas County's existing revenue streams give it a significant leg-up on funding a stadium.
Except when I spoke to a track representative earlier this week, she confirmed nobody from the Rays, the city, nor any private developers has had even a preliminary conversation about buying the property.
It's a story my WTSP colleague, Kendra Conlon, reported on back in February. But it appears the only thing that's changed since then... is some folks are working behind-the-scenes to drum up more talk of Derby Lane's potential.
Any chance it could be the track, rather than the Rays?
I had a good chat last week with Mayor Kriseman about stadium possibilities in St. Pete and I will post more on it later this week.
Stu Sternberg says he doesn't like to talk about the Stadium Saga during the season...but that wasn't always the case.
Five years ago today, Sternberg delivered his ultimatum to St. Petersburg, basically saying "let us look for new stadium sites in Hillsborough County, or we won't look at new stadium sites anywhere at all here."
Five years later, the team still hasn't (publicly) looked at new stadium sites, even though several have been offered and the team insists Tropicana Field is not an adequate home for the 13 more seasons remaining on the contract.
I've always said Hillsborough doesn't have the money to make a new stadium work on the Rays' (publicly-funded) terms...but it offers significant leverage to the team in order to get a possible new stadium in the Mid-Pinellas region, closer to the bay bridges.
In case you missed it, Joe Henderson's post-playoff piece about how the Lightning's bid for the Stanley Cup explored the emotional side of sports subsidies and our intrinsic desire to keep our teams - often at any cost. He spells it out:
Name something else that could cause an estimated 19,000 fans
to come to Amalie Arena on Monday night to watch the game on the mammoth
scoreboard. That was nearly double the crowd the Tampa Bay Rays drew
for a home game about 20 miles away in St. Petersburg, and that raises a
question Tampa and the surrounding area have grappled with for years:
Are these teams worth the cost? A point needs to be made up front about the economic impact big-time sports has on a community: ‘Tis a trifle. I get it. Eventually we’ll get down to dollar-crunching in the effort to
get the Rays a new stadium in the right location, and the price tag
will be alarming. They’ll toss around economic impact studies to justify
the expense, and most of those will be shot full of holes by people who
understand spending that kind of money for a sports team makes no
fiscal sense.
Or cents, either. But I suspect it will happen anyway, on one side of the Bay or
the other, and the area will be better for it — and not because of the
money they bring here. The Lightning just spent the last month reinforcing that point.
It's a point that's been made before - my favorite example is the "mailman in the driveway" example from Pete Kerasotis. Here is an excerpt from his piece in 2010:
"How about that game last night?"
It was my mailman, with me standing at the end of my driveway, chatting about the Orlando Magic's dominating Game 1 win against the Atlanta Hawks the night before.
This, I thought, is what a sports team does. It brings people together with a common topic, and even a common sense of pride. It does it in boardrooms and family rooms, at the water cooler and at the checkout line.
Actually, Henderson's prose was eerily similar. This week's piece continues:
Talk about the latest action by the county commission doesn’t
dominate the water cooler conversation. People won’t tell their
grandkids years from now about the great regulations enacted by city
council, but they will recall that year Tampa was turned on its ear by
its hockey team.
At the end of the day, Henderson acknowledges stadiums are very expensive and cities should spend wisely. But........
There is something else to remember, too. About midway through
the third quarter of that Super Bowl game, do you think anyone cared
about the terms of the Bucs’ lease at Ray Jay? Some people say Tampa is not rich enough, large enough, or
passionate enough to support three pro sports teams. I think they’re
wrong. People used to say hockey would never work here, either. These
teams are part of the city’s fabric and identity. And when times are
flush, like now, they bring people together like nothing else can. As the Lightning just proved, you can’t put a price tag on that.
Unfortunately, municipalities DO have to put a price tag on it as pro teams have become fiercer than ever at the negotiating table and ruthless as ever in demanding public subsidies. At some point, pro sports is not worth the cost. But Henderson is right - few fans in Tampa Bay are worried about that this week.
WTVT's Steve Nichols reports the Pinellas County Tourist Development Council is asking county commissioners to raise the "bed tax" (aka "tourist tax") from 5 percent to 6 percent. It would be worth an additional $7M/yr:
"If
you go to Clearwater Beach, there's six cranes in the air right now,"
TDC member and hotelier Russ Kimball said. "We're going to need money to market and promote that area, and I think downtown St. Pete and St. Pete Beach are right behind us."
Tourism
director David Downing emphasized a growing audience for Pinellas
tourism advertising. The TDC uses some of its marketing dollars to
underwrite expanded air service
to Tampa International Airport from Latin America and Europe, and
recently targeted China and the West Coast as potential growth markets. ... Pinellas
qualified for the extra bed tax last year after collecting more than
$30 million in 2013 from its 5 percent bed tax. However in 2014, the TDC
was reluctant to make the recommendation.
Nichols reports state law restricts how the sixth cent can be spent, limiting it to marketing, beach renourishment, and non-professional sports facilities. But much of the $7M/yr - which could be bonded into a new $90 million chunk of cash - could ultimately go toward a new pro sports facility with the right accounting measures.
Since this as seen as "making the tourists pay," there's a good chance Pinellas County Commissioners will approve the measure in August. I reported last year how many of the current commissioners have supported using the sixth cent to pay for new stadiums, possibly even for the Rowdies. But how would the county's tourism board feel about that?
Well, this isn't good. Through 35 home games, the Rays are drawing a MLB-low 14,326 fans per game.
At the same time last year, their disappointing-at-the-time number stood at 18,444 and columnist John Romano wrote the team's typical second-half bump was dependent on them being in contention (the team wasn't; attendance was flat - and disappointing - the rest of the way).
Well, the Rays are somehow in first place right now, and their long-suffering competition with Lightning playoffs are over...so time to drop a hundred grand and flood the airwaves with commercials reminding your fans of what they've missed recently at The Trop! Disclosure: I work for a TV station, but that's not a reason I'd advocate an ad-buy
What say you, Stu?
Actually, very little, according to the Times' Marc Topkin. But Sternberg did point out attendance was worse than he (or anyone) probably expected this year and while it was "nobody's fault," he reminded St. Pete's council "the clock (is) ticking."
There's a lot to be said for St. Pete's opportunity to turn Tropicana Field into something other (something better?) than a retail business with large parking lots. But it's also a convenient talking point the Rays turned to in January 2013 when it became clear the team couldn't cry poor anymore.
The Rays are clearly hoping to wait out the changing political winds until there are five friendly faces on city council - possibly this coming offseason. They may even have a little extra juice at that time with some really ugly attendance numbers to compliment their really impressive team.
This weekend, the Tampa Bay Times editorial board opined how the city of St. Pete was losing hundreds of millions of dollars (in opportunity cost) by choosing to keep the Rays at Tropicana Field rather than redevelop the stadium's 85-acre footprint into something else.
I wrote how the editorial was rife with huge - and all-too-convenient - assumptions to bolster the paper's cheerleading for a new stadium in Tampa.
But, for fun, let's use the Times' same assumptions and look at a different chart - one they didn't publish (click to enlarge):
Disclaimer: This uses the same flawed assumptions the Times used in its Sun. editorial Disclaimer 2: Don't confuse transparency and perspective for advocacy.
Economic assumptions aside, if the Times contends St. Pete would be better off without baseball, you have to assume the same for Downtown Tampa - a city that already has Lightning games, major concerts, arena football, and convention events 75+ times a year.
If St. Pete stands to lose economic impact by simply keeping the Rays, Tampa would stand to lose even more by keeping the Rays and having to pay for a new stadium. That goes especially for the 2017-2019 years, where the city might potentially be spending money to build a stadium without holding a single event there.
So readers, before you click that "comment" button, remember, this isn't advocating anything other than transparency and perspective. But if you're going to jump on the Times' editorial bandwagon, you'd better have some better reasons to do so than a silly graph.
A brief history of Times editorials on the Stadium Saga:
The Tampa Bay Times editorial board came out with is now-monthly criticism of the St. Petersburg councilmembers who oppose loosening up their grip on the Rays' long-term contract.
The latest installment maintains St. Pete would profit by letting the Rays leave and redeveloping Tropicana Field into something else. The\ board said delaying the process of letting the team leave is "financially irresponsible."
This editorial comes with a pretty graph too!
It's not the most outrageous claim since some economists believe anything other than baseball is a better use of land than baseball. But in supporting its claim, the editorial board makes a LOT of assumptions to substantiate it:
Assumption 1: St. Pete would be able to replace Tropicana Field with a huge development within three years of the Rays leaving in 2020
Remember how big of a deal Tampa made about it's $1 billion Jeff Vinik/Bill Gates redevelopment news? That's a lot of spending. So even though 85 urban acres in St. Pete is promising and exciting, St. Pete doesn't exactly have anyone lining up yet to drop $1 billion in development right now. If it did, getting that fifth vote from city council would be a cinch.
The Times is wrong to assume $1 billion in development is automatic; it's wrong to assume there's a limitless demand for new residential, commercial, and retail in St. Pete; and it's wrong to assume there's zero chance of another building bubble that could derail development.
Assumption 2: Any developer interested in the Trop site would not consider building anywhere else in St. Pete
The Times is assuming the huge benefits from new development would only come once the Trop site is cleared. But if a developer with money has in interest in Downtown St. Pete, he or she will likely find a smaller piece(s) of property to work with in the meantime. That means the city isn't missing out on the entirety of the guesstimated $1 billion worth of development by keeping MLB right now.
Assumption 3: Trop redevelopment would bring $30M/yr to the city by 2023, climbing to (and past) $100M/yr in 2027
To the Times' credit, the editorial includes significant sourcing of its methodology. But these numbers are just guesstimates and don't factor any potential risk from an economic slowdown.
Assumption 4a: The Rays would not relocate anywhere else within the City of St. Pete
The Times calculations assume the economic benefit from the team would cease in 2027. However, if the city retained the Rays by building a new stadium in the Gateway/Mid-Pinellas region a decade from now, the assumed revenues from MLB-related activities would continue past 2027.
Assumption 4b: The Rays would not relocate anywhere else within the City of St. Pete
On the other side of the coin,
if St Pete lets the Rays start planning for a new 2020 stadium and the city has to spend new tax dollars on a stadium in a few years - something that's a real possibility given the advantages of the Toytown, Derby Lane, or other mid-Pinellas sites - any economic improvements from redeveloping The Trop would be negated by the tens of millions spent from 2020-2027 on a new stadium. Of course, the Times didn't factor this into its graphic.
Assumption 5: There is no better deal available to St. Pete than the one currently on the table.
The editorial writes, "It is foolish to harp on how much the Rays should pay to for the
opportunity to look, or to focus solely on the team's economic impact on
the city. The big money is in the economic impact of redeveloping 85
acres." While a few million dollars here or there seems petty in the big picture, those who aren't convinced redeveloping the Trop is a guaranteed billion bucks (for any of the above reasons) may have good reason to hold out for a more legit business offer from the Rays.
Assumption 6: Just about anything other than baseball would be more profitable to the city than baseball.
The Times' most convincing case is that St. Pete businesses may be better off without baseball. It's a topic this blog has delved into at great length. The Rays even admit professional baseball is a retail business, suggesting poor jobs and wages compared to year-round businesses.
So under those assumptions...how about a similar chart with Tampa's opportunity costs with and without a stadium? Would baseball be the highest-and-best-use of Tampa land? Using the same metrics from this editorial, the answer is a resounding "no."
Then again, it's never hard to find certain sets of statistics and assumptions to support your argument.
A brief history of Times editorials on the Stadium Saga:
Neil deMause writes on Vice.com more and more cities are starting to push back against the seemingly unstoppable march of pro teams toward bigger and bigger stadium subsidies:
(Calgary) Mayor (Naheed) Nenshi, however, appears ready to buck the trend of democracy being the first casualty in stadium deals. More remarkably, he's one of several mayors—most newly elected to office—who seem eager to tell sports team owners to take their subsidy demands for a long walk off a short pier.
"As a social scientist, I'm not quite ready to pull the trigger and say it's a trend," says Villanova sociologist Rick Eckstein, co-author of Public Dollars, Private Stadiums, the definitive book on why mayors so often bend over backwards to meet local team owners' subsidy demands.
Still, Eckstein calls it heartening that even a handful of elected officials are acknowledging two oft-ignored truths:
a)As innumerable economists have yammered about for decades, stadium subsidies rarely pay off;
b)As keepers of rare and valuable sports business commodities—namely, places to play sports, and large, ticket-buying and television-watching populations—cities and municipalities have the leverage to just say no.
"It's refreshing that after 20 years of yelling about this stuff, five or six people are starting to listen," Eckstien says.
It's a little bit of a different situation in St. Petersburg, where Mayor Rick Kriseman has struck a deal with the Rays that some critics call a "short sell" on its existing contract. Kriseman says he expects St. Pete to be able to put up a competitive new deal that could keep the Rays long-term...but that, of course, would mean new tax dollars going to the team.
But deMause continues with an interesting concept:
Having other mayors on his side "helps tremendously," Tait says. "In Anaheim, I was absolutely alone, and the pressure was tremendous. You do question, gosh, by relying on math and stuff, am I crazy?"
The notion of elected officials being driven by peer pressure, like so many overgrown high-schoolers, may sound crazy to anyone who thinks of people in power as, well, powerful. Only mayors are people, too. Eckstein recalls a conversation he had with then-Dallas mayor Laura Miller during her battles with Jerry Jones over subsidies for a new Cowboys stadium. (Jones ended up building it in nearby Arlington, in exchange for $325 million in city sales tax receipts.)
"I talked to the mayor of Dallas a few years ago, she said basically she was alone and she would call other mayors to see if they would also oppose stadium plans in their cities," says Eckstein. "And they were really reluctant to, because no one wanted to be the first."
There's still a long way to go—at this month's national mayors' gathering, Tait expects, any panel on sports stadiums will still be about how great they are for economic development, not how to cut a deal that's worth it for your city and its taxpayers.
St. Pete has made it clear it would take legal action - if necessary - to protect its contract and prevent the Rays from talking to other baseball markets. And while many Tweeps brought up the precedent of the Orlando series the Rays played a number of years back...there's one more problem...
Confirmed - regular season "home" games away from Trop are prohibited unless mutually-agreed upon. #Rays@BizballMaury
