12/21/24
February 20, 2015
Chargers, Raiders Pursue Shared Stadium in Los Angeles: The San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders say they'll share a new $1.7 billion stadium in Los Angeles if they don't get a stadium deal in their current cities. The teams issued this statement: "We are pursuing this stadium option in Carson for one straightforward reason: If we cannot find a permanent solution in our home markets, we have no alternative but to preserve other options to guarantee the future economic viability of our franchises." Another move-to-LA bid is being explored by St. Louis Rams owner Stan Kroenke, who has a joint venture to build a stadium in Inglewood.
Pro teams are so good at these stadium extortion schemes I'll be surprised if L.A. gets any of these teams. If St. Louis loses the Rams I fear that Shahid Khan will be tempted to move the Jaguars out of Jacksonville, since his Flex-N-Gate auto parts company is based in Urbana, Illinois, and he originally sought to buy the Rams.
But Khan put a lot of money into huge videoboards and other improvements at Everbank Field and he just unveiled a shipyards development project that would turn the grimy industrial zone around the stadium into a hotel/restaurant/entertainment district and no doubt make a lot of money for him. If that idea gets anywhere he'll need the Jaguars to stay around.
posted by rcade at 12:26 PM on February 20, 2015
It's becoming more and more clear that major sports corporations are becoming more and more of a plague on the cities they're in, or could be in. It's akin economic development* in general - every place's willingness to sweeten the deal through investment and tax breaks to get someone to come to town makes the upside for the broader public a heck of a lot smaller, and then people make deals that work politically in the short-term and where the suffering comes in over the long-term.
There's no benefit to Goodell stepping in, nor would he have the backing of an ownership that makes off like bandits in this game of Russian roulette. Anything he does reduces the leverage that owners are currently using to stranglehold cities into better deals and decrease their capital responsibilities. Yeah, it's a bit embarrassing and chaotic and the media will have a field day in the short-term, but ultimately Goodell makes his coin if the league owners makes theirs - and this is big coin negotiation for 10% of the owners, plus those looking at their own stadiums and leases in the near future.
Like the Olympics, the only real opportunity for reform is a collective spinal-installation procedure for elected officials to be able to walk away from marketable shit because the dollars and cents don't make sense. Too many of them see the big headline and don't care what it costs because it temporarily bumps them up in the polls.
I predict nobody ends up in LA in the next couple of years - one, because California is broke and the public money is still going to be required for a shared stadium, and two, because deep-down there's a ton of risk moving into a market potentially at the same time as another team. Is constantly dysfunctional Oakland really reveling at the prospect of trying to rebuild the other 75% of their fan base (they estimate 25% of their fan base is in Orange County/LA) in a market they're likely to be the second best team in at least for a while? You can't even get people hyped about it being Brooklyn vs. Manhattan, or Manhattan vs. Queens, because it's the same geographic location in Carson everyone goes to.
You've got to captivate a market, one now you're sharing with another brand-spanking new team, and it's been a while since you did anything worth marketing on the field. Not exactly a market that screams "get at me, bro."
* I spent much of my career to date in economic development. It's game theory where only some of the people have gone past watching A Beautiful Mind in their studies, and unfortunately all those people are employed by the one side who's winning left, right, and centre.
posted by dfleming at 12:33 PM on February 20, 2015
the only real opportunity for reform is a collective spinal-installation procedure for elected officials
I don't know if that's the answer: because they're only elected for a short time and because people tend to vote against their long-term interests for this kind of crap, isn't it more of an education issue? I do hold out some hope when I see outlets like deadspin constantly calling out stadium deals but it's unlikely to seep into mainstream nightly news when each of the channels is beholden to the NFL.
Hey, that's a pretty impressive piece of evil dealing by the NFL, getting their hands in the pockets of all 4 major networks. Plus Rupert Murdoch owns a bunch of papers and radio stations. It's almost like we had those laws against this kind of crap for a reason.
posted by yerfatma at 01:12 PM on February 20, 2015
It's becoming more and more clear that major sports corporations are becoming more and more of a plague on the cities they're in ...
They aren't just a plague. A stadium project can revitalize a downtown. Baltimore's Inner Harbor is a good example. Having Camden Yards and the Ravens stadium in the area instead of somewhere in the 'burbs has made a huge difference there.
I don't see cities or states ever stopping these stadium deals. It would have to come from the federal government or possibly a state voter referendum.
posted by rcade at 01:44 PM on February 20, 2015
I don't know if that's the answer: because they're only elected for a short time and because people tend to vote against their long-term interests for this kind of crap, isn't it more of an education issue?
I don't think so, at least not more so on this topic than any other relating to how our democratic institutions would be better if we had a more informed voter.
I think, in theory, it's a great idea for a politician to say "I want to bring a professional sports team to town" and for the public to say "I want that too!" The devil is in the details of the deal, which i s what we send elected representatives to do for us. We can vote 'em out, but for the people of Miami, that's little consequence when you're financing the deal for the next 50 years.
I was in the room for a lot of discussions about a CFL stadium (as an economist who brought in a lot of the great economic work being done on how the infrastructure and development promises rarely come to be) - and often, I felt like for the elected officials, you could move a decimal point and it doesn't matter. They're there to make a deal, and unless that happens, it's a failure. They don't negotiate well because, deep down, they're not very willing to say no.
A stadium project can revitalize a downtown.
I think, for the most part, those days are gone - at least in the sense of sustainable growth.
The last decade of fiscal constraint means we're putting these things in suburbia because the land value is lower and there's more of it. This is theorized in Carson, not downtown LA. That puts huge pressures on transportation, planning and county infrastructure to make it work. Roads need to be built and adjusted; public transportation now has huge swaths of people moving from one place to another it didn't before. Costly water, sewer, and environmental impacts as well.
It will also revitalize an area if the stadium is occupied for decades (like Camden) - so when the Braves go ahead and move out of Turner Field after 19 years, and the whole area declines, it's a problem. It's not a great city planning tool unless you know it'll be there for the length of time it takes to truly build great infrastructure.
Again - I think under the right circumstances, a stadium could be a good thing. Camden Yards, in today's dollars, cost $185 million and is likely paying dividends now that it's into its third decade of occupancy.
Marlins Park cost 4 times that, meaning in order to realize equivalent dividends, either they need to stay there 4 times as long, or do a lot more for the surrounding area each year. Lots of that ancillary investment and improvement is public, to which the public has less money due to the deal than it had before.
So - I do get what you're saying, but the nature of the current stadium deal isn't likely to do to many places what Baltimore's has, unless the collectively political realm gets a hell of a lot better at negotiating.
posted by dfleming at 02:05 PM on February 20, 2015
It will also revitalize an area if the stadium is occupied for decades (like Camden)
That is a fantastic point. In 1992 teams didn't really move. We were only 8 years removed from the Colts packing up in the middle of the night and causing a scandal when they left Baltimore. Nowadays all but the most well-established teams seem to be carpetbaggers constantly eyeing a better deal in Shelbyville or points South. How excited are fans in Oklahoma City to have a good team come to them from Seattle and now there are already grumblings about market size?
Sports teams, the Olympics, etc can revitalize an area, but I don't think it's currently likely. I feel like they've used the fact teams have revitalized downtowns to leverage giant pots of cash out of municipalities and the cost-benefit ratio doesn't make sense anymore.
posted by yerfatma at 02:48 PM on February 20, 2015
Again - I think under the right circumstances, a stadium could be a good thing.
Coors Field in Denver seems like another positive example, though it might be the end of the LoDo revitalization rather than the beginning.
Many in Dallas are still grumbling that Mayor Laura Miller helped kill any idea of the Cowboys building downtown. It seems to me there was plenty of opportunity there -- some parts of downtown are pretty raggedy -- but Arlington happily took on the tax burden of JerryWorld.
posted by rcade at 07:09 PM on February 20, 2015
Pro teams are so good at these stadium extortion schemes I'll be surprised if L.A. gets any of these teams.
I actually wouldn't be surprised if they got the Chargers, who have been threatening to leave for LA for a looooooooong time (around ten years) and San Diego's done basically nothing about it. At this point, after poisoning the well with their moving threats and their prior lease contract with the city (where all their games were basically sellouts, with the city picking up the tab for any unsold tickets while the team went 1-15) the owners don't really have the backing of the public. San Diego's most recent response was to put together a committee to try to find a site for a new stadium, which in SD terms means they're not doing anything, just punting the issue down the road for the next administration to handle. There's just not any kind of political will for a stadium and SD politicians are too cowardly to really make a move one way or the other, so unless there's a way to get one built with public money without having it go to an election referendum it's not going to happen.
posted by LionIndex at 07:16 PM on February 20, 2015
Arlington happily took on the tax burden of JerryWorld
Arlington TX became infamous for deciding to fund stadiums for the Cowboys and Rangers instead of investing in municipal infrastructure, and until recently was the largest US city or town without any sort of public transportation system.
Area voters have repeatedly refused to allow earmarked tax revenues to be used to fund public transportation, thereby fully reversing the Jagger/Richards theory which states that you don't always get what you want, but you do get what you need.
posted by beaverboard at 11:59 PM on February 20, 2015
Baltimore's Inner Harbor is a good example. Having Camden Yards and the Ravens stadium in the area instead of somewhere in the 'burbs has made a huge difference there.
The Inner Harbor had been "renewed" before Camden Yards and the Ravens' Stadium were built. It has been a continuing effort in Baltimore to build on what had been started with the Pratt Street and Light Street Pavilions and the Aquarium. The pavilions offered some good restaurants and shops, and the Aquarium attracted a lot of people to the area. Over the years historic ships and other things have been added. The point is that Camden Yards replaced a chunk of underutilized land with a baseball park, thereby bringing a lot more people to the Inner Harbor shops and restaurants on game days. I'm sure the Ravens do the same. The point is that the Inner Harbor development was well underway before either stadium was built. It moght be that the stadia were located as they are because of the Inner Harbor's success.
posted by Howard_T at 12:09 AM on February 21, 2015
I don't think the Inner Harbor would be successful without those stadiums. It was declining as a tourist and local draw, dropping from 18 million visitors in year one to 11 million in year two.
The link calls Camden Yards the "first true urban ballpark constructed in almost a century." Though a lot of stadium revitalization claims end up bogus, that's one I'd call massively successful.
posted by rcade at 10:18 AM on February 21, 2015
What is a "true urban ballpark"? One that is in the city as opposed to suburbs? Has to be baseball-only as opposed to dual-use? Has to be retro in styling? Has to not be surrounded by parking lots?
posted by holden at 12:47 AM on February 22, 2015
Over the years historic ships and other things have been added.
Not to quibble, but I think they moored the Chesapeake around when Harborplace opened, and the Torsk and the Constellation were there much longer. They do keep adding new ones from time to time, and there are always those big weekends when the Danish fleet comes for a visit.
The big reason they put Camden Yards down there was that the harbor crowds would benefit the ballpark and vice versa. I mean, nobody was making a day of it out at Memorial Stadium, but you can go down early and get overpriced lunch at Harborplace and then walk up to see the O's play. Anyone with their head on straight goes to Lexington Market for crabcakes, though.
But the Inner Harbor was totally a tourist attraction for a long time before the Camden Yards refit -- it was the Baltimore tourist attraction, I should say. Sure, building ballparks helped business, but Mr. Rouse's Harborplace development was the earlier revitalizing element that set the stage for bringing the stadiums, which of course in their turn helped bring gameday crowds to the inner harbor.
I'm sure the AVAM brings in hordes of football fans slavering for outsider art, as well.
I think the biggest success of Camden Yards and PSINet Stadium is the nice egress to streets and highways. Compared to other local football venues, traffic is a breeze.
posted by Hugh Janus at 01:17 AM on February 22, 2015
The thing I like best about that area is the Fells Point pub crawl.
posted by rcade at 09:24 AM on February 22, 2015
Not to quibble, but I think they moored the Chesapeake around when Harborplace opened, and the Torsk and the Constellation were there much longer.
Yeah, but what about the giant cigarette boat playing just the "WHO LET THE DOGS OUT?!" part of "Who Let the Dogs Out?" on an endless loop while idling near the docks looking for tourists? Without Camden Yards you don't have that.
posted by yerfatma at 10:00 AM on February 22, 2015
Yeah, but what about the giant cigarette boat playing just the "WHO LET THE DOGS OUT?!" part of "Who Let the Dogs Out?" on an endless loop while idling near the docks looking for tourists?
Are there verses (other parts) to that song?
posted by holden at 02:45 PM on February 22, 2015
There may be a few woof woofs in there that the boat captain thought was superfluous.
It's a thinly veiled reference to Benedict Art Modell and the Dawg Pound.
posted by beaverboard at 04:21 PM on February 22, 2015
Hot day in the city
Running out to grab a beer
My baby don't mind, cause I got the time
Been outta work a year
Roll on up to my favorite joint
Head on in, gonna open that spout
Bartender smiles, cause together we been miles
Then I hear that familiar shout
WHO LET THE DOGS OUT...
posted by holden at 09:06 PM on February 22, 2015
LA Chargers? LA Raiders? LA Rams?
From zero teams to three teams in the blink of an eye?