After the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 to end a 16-month legal fight with the Diamondbacks on Wednesday, the team will now be allowed to leave their current ballpark for a shiny new stadium as early as 2022, five years before their 30-year agreement to play in their current ballpark was set to…
The people of Cobb County, Ga., have a budget conundrum on their hands, thanks to craven former county chairman Tim Lee’s insistence on spending almost $400 million in public money for a stadium without giving the public a chance to vote on it. Despite a record-high tax digest, the county is $30 to 55 million in the…
There’s one MLS expansion slot left, and it’ll soon be awarded to Cincinnati, Sacramento, or Detroit. Sacramento once looked like a lock to get an expansion spot, but it’s now rather uncertain, likely because Sacramento’s ownership group isn’t as flamboyantly wealthy as their competitors.
Carolina Panthers owner Jerry Richardson, who was recently accused of sexual harassment and getting racist with team employees, will soon sell his stake in the team. It’s not clear who will buy the team yet, though the end of the Panthers’ season on Sunday means that the process is now underway. Diddy offhandedly made…
The Columbus Crew’s season is over, but the fight over where they’ll play the 2019 season is becoming increasingly heated. Despite it being a horrendous breach of trust with the city of Columbus and an affront to MLS’ bizarre, artificially deflated business model, MLS czar Don Garber is apparently content with…
The Oakland A’s have been trying to leave their sewage-logged digs for a new ballpark for what feels like decades now. In September, they expressed their desire to build a new, privately financed stadium near Laney College, right in the middle of Oakland next to Lake Merritt. They’ll have to pick a new site now.
The Deadspin Awards are this month, and we need our readers to decide the winners of these prestigious honors. Today, we ask you to help us determine the answer to an important question: What is the worst stadium scam of them all?
There has been much fanfare in Metro Detroit about the $863 million new stadium downtown that serves as the new home for both the Red Wings and the Pistons, which was paid for in part by $324 million in public money from the city and the state. The stadium, which is named after cheap pizza, is by all accounts…
MLS is not and for the foreseeable future will not be one of this country’s so-called Big Four, but let no one say the scrappy upstart doesn’t extort American cities like a big-boy league. The league’s rapid expansion—someone without a stake in the matter would say too rapid—has cities from Cincinnati to St. Louis to …
If you read the press release announcing the construction of a new ballpark out in Summerlin, Nev. for the Las Vegas 51s, you might have thought that the construction would mercifully be completed without use of public money. The Raiders’ stadium deal is the worst heist in American history, and one may have thought…
Let’s cut through the sports angle and put in plain terms exactly what’s happening here:
The Calgary Flames announced today that they’re done trying to bilk hundreds of millions of dollars from the city to pay for a new arena, again suggesting that they’re ready and willing to relocate if that’s what it takes to get a new stadium that they don’t have to fund themselves—unless, that is, citizens speak up…
Nine years ago, Seattle’s sports scene was in about as dire circumstances as a city can get. The owner of the SuperSonics, Starbucks mogul Howard Schultz, had thrown a hissy fit over Washington’s refusal to gift him $220 million to renovate an arena that had just been renovated 11 years earlier, and sold the team to…
Eighteen days after Ohio’s Supreme Court decided that the Cleveland Cavaliers’ proposed $140 million arena renovations merited a referendum and the public’s input, the NBA team has decided to pull out of the project.
The New Orleans Pelicans will launch a developmental-league team before the start of the 2018-19 season, but first, they have to decide where it’ll go. Five cities were initially vying for the right to join the NBA’s minor league (which recently rebranded to serve as an advertisement for a sports drink company), and…
The Cleveland Cavaliers’ arena was renovated 12 years ago, but team owner Dan Gilbert has spent almost a year fighting a pitched battle to divert millions of dollars in public money towards extensive arena renovations. The proposed slate of renovations would cost $140 million, with half the tab being picked up by…
In 1965, voters from the five counties that still make up metro Atlanta—Cobb, Fulton, Gwinnett, Clayton and DeKalb—went to the ballot box to decide the future of the region’s public transportation system. The counties that voted “yes” would begin planning a regional rail system that would eventually be called MARTA…
The Brewers want a new spring training park. Gilbert, Ariz., would like to give it to them. The stadium would cost $90 million; the Brewers offered to pay $20 million of that. The adjoining mixed-use “village,” including retail and hotel, would cost another $70 million; the Brewers offered to pay none of that.
The Diamondbacks are bringing Major League Baseball into their ongoing attempt to fleece taxpayers out of more money to get a new ballpark. An attorney for the D-backs is claiming that MLB has claimed that if they don’t get a new ballpark or major upgrades to their current park, the league “might” force the team to…
