stadium-financing Page 1 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Report: MLS Will Expand To St. Louis, Might Not Completely Fleece The City For A Stadium
Congratulations, St. Louis! According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the city has successfully thrown enough money around and greased the right wheels to win economic promotion to MLS!...
A new analysis of the deal to build a stadium for MLS’s FC Cincinnati shows it will cost taxpayers $213 million, or more than four times what was described in the 2017 agreement between city and county leaders and the team’s ownership. Even “favorable” public-private stadium deals wind up screwing t...
Calgary Cut $60M In Social Services One Day After Endorsing $275M For A New Flames Arena
The Flames’ new arena deal, endorsed by the mayor and city council just a week before a (rubber-stamp) vote to be held Tuesday, is a great deal for the Flames and their billionaire ownership, and thus not a good deal for the city of Calgary. It looks even worse after what the council did about 24 ho...
Calgary Really Doesn't Want To Let The Public Have A Say On New Flames Arena Deal
Calgary was—was—one of the success stories in the stadium scam. The city’s leadership had stood strong against a 2017 push to replace the Saddledome with a new arena for the Flames, and, ultimately the city residents made the decision. Amid an unprecedented attempt by the NHL and Gary Bettman to for...
Officials Respond To Public Records Request On Bengals' New Stadium Deal With 275 Pages Of Redactions
It is not exaggeration to say that the Cincinnati Bengals’ revised stadium lease with Hamilton County, agreed in November 2018, is still largely secret. Among the many figures that weren’t released at the time the agreement was announced was how much the county—and thus, taxpayers—will be spending t...
The Madman Theory Of The Montreal/Tampa Bay Rays
Any self-respecting student of insane Machiavellian gambits should be familiar with the Madman Theory, Richard Nixon’s self-invented strategy for winning the war in Vietnam. The theory, as recounted by Nixon chief of staff H.R. Haldeman after he got out of jail for his role in Watergate, went like t...
Rays Suggest Playing Half Their Home Games In Montreal: Seriously, What The Hell?
Given all of the problems with the Rays—and there are many—dire situations call for nontraditional thinking. Like hanging out with your friends and smoking a ton of weed and wondering aloud Dude. What if a team could play in two cities? That is probably not how this proposed solution to the Rays’ at...
Pay-To-Play Is The Stadium Grift That Keeps On Giving
Sometime in the next few days, Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb—aka the guy who took Mike Pence’s job when Pence ascended to the Old Executive Office Building—is expected to sign a bill extending the Indiana Pacers’ lease in Indianapolis through 2044. In exchange for agreeing to have his team play where it...
Who's Keeping The NHL Out Of Quebec City?
Go to a New York Islanders game at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, and you will be treated to a relatively quiet evening. One whole end of the arena sits empty because it overhangs one of the nets, making it impossible to see the action from that vantage point. The rest of the arena isn’t lac...
The 7 Laws Of Vaportecture, Stadium Art's Fever Dream
For sports team owners seeking new stadiums or arenas—which is to say, for sports team owners—there are certain tools of the trade at their disposal for convincing fans and politicians to support (and pay for) a new building. They have economic impact studies, ideally compiled by friendly consultant...
Where Do The Islanders Belong?
The New York Islanders have had one of the odder trajectories of any pro sports franchise. Winners of four straight Stanley Cups within 11 years of arriving on Long Island as the NHL’s protection against WHA incursion into the New York area, the Isles never approached those heights again, winning on...
What’s The Matter With Tampa Bay?
It’s not like everyone hadn’t been thinking it, but it took Tommy Pham to mention the elephant in the room. The outfielder, who one year earlier had celebrated his 6-WAR season in his first year as a starter at age 29 by publicly tearing down Cardinals management for not calling him up sooner, was s...
Well, The Phoenix Suns Arena Financing Vote Got Weirder Than You Can Possibly Imagine
By a vote of 6-2, the Phoenix City Council approved public funding for renovations to the Suns’ arena and a lease that will keep them in town through 2037. The negotiations over the arena deal were short, shady, and resulted in the Suns getting one of the cushiest deals in recent times. And, because...
The Biggest Backer Of A New D.C. Stadium For Dan Snyder Appears To Be In Some Serious Shit
A massive majority of D.C. residents want to give Dan Snyder nothing, save their middle finger. But a few of the most powerful folks around town have been conspiring for some time behind closed doors to refute the will of the people and give the Skins owner choice public lands for a new stadium. A k...
Cubs Owners Discussed Moving Team Out Of Chicago During Beef With Mayor
In the nine years since Monopoly-man-come-to-life Joe Ricketts and his cartoonishly wealthy progeny purchased the Chicago Cubs from the Tribune Company, the Ricketts dynasty—publicly represented by 55-year-old investment banker and public transit enthusiast Tom—have found themselves in repeated disa...
Former Marlins President David Samson Taunts Fleeced Taxpayers: "$1.2 Billion. Fuck You!"
Miami has arguably been hit harder by the pro sports stadium scam than any other city in America. When former Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria managed to get a publicly financed stadium built in 2012, he stuck Miami-Dade County with a stupefying bill that will eventually cost taxpayers $2.4 billion. Give...
Reports: Dan Snyder Is Conspiring With Congressional Republicans And The White House To Screw D.C. Residents
Eventually Dan Snyder is going to get around to demanding public money for a new stadium for his crappy team, and brother, when he gets there, it’s going to be huge. But between now and then he has to figure out which plot of land in which municipality will become the site of his obscene moat-encirc...
Suns Owner Robert Sarver Refutes Report Of Relocation Threat, Says The Suns "Are Not Leaving Phoenix"
Reports yesterday had Suns owner and overall dingus Robert Sarver threatening to relocate his shoddy-ass basketball operation to Las Vegas or Seattle if the city of Phoenix didn’t get behind a public financing plan to renovate the team’s current home. Also yesterday, Sarver was thrashed at a city co...
Suns Owner Robert Sarver Threatens To Move The Team If He Can't Bully Phoenix Out Of More Money
This afternoon, the Phoenix City Council is set to vote on a mysterious bill that would authorize $150 million in funding for extensive renovations to the Phoenix Suns’ arena, which was most recently remodeled in 2003. The plan was apparently unveiled less than a week ago; it involves the city payin...
Oakland Sues Raiders And NFL, Which Could Bring An Even Earlier End To Team's Time In Bay Area
This afternoon, Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker announced that the city of Oakland had filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against the Raiders, the NFL, and the league’s 31 other franchises. The subject of the suit is the Raiders’ forthcoming move out of Oakland to Las Vegas....