Color me enlightened.
surprise breaking news–Sixers new arena will be “self-funded” (I assume with tax breaks). A far as I remember, only Pac Bell stadium in SF was self paid
Links are helpful!
They’re uncommon, but there are a few other examples.
almost 30 years ago a Local group formed a single-A baseball team and most of the town was for it … The two city council members who were against it were out of town on a rail because they predicted the "Entertainment and shopping district " created for it wouldn’t be enough to pay for the stadium …They were right the "mall " they built for it was/is never more than 40 percent full
Most the businesses (mainly “outlet” stores of big-name places that were supposed to come never did and the ones who did left the minute their leases were up and to add further insult about 5 or so years ago MLB cut 40 teams from its minor leagues and we were one of them
So I don’t know if the million or so of construction that was city-funded ever made up the money …
Now it gets used a few times for different things and there’s been discussions of tearing it down …
Kansas gets the Chiefs for around $4 BILLION.
Googling, the current stadium is in Kansas City, Missouri and the new one is to be in Wyandotte County, Kansas. Google Maps says that’s a distance of roughly twenty miles. I can sort of see why a city or state would want to see a team move in from another city or state, but to have one move a half hour away?
It’s a major deal with a fancy indoor stadium, headquarters and practice facility with generous funding while maintaining the same fan base. It opens in six years with minimal disruption in the interim. What’s not to like?
Exactly. No matter how you feel about the Chiefs, they are a successful franchise. The deal means they get to keep everything they have now, even the name, but get to play in a shiny new stadium, with minimal risk. It’s a pretty good deal for the team.
How good is the deal for the taxpayers?
KCTV5 showed a woman saying she may not go to games anymore because it’s too far. I laughed.
It’s entirely because the Chiefs weren’t able to get a deal they liked to stay in the state of Missouri (and build a new stadium there), but neighboring Kansas was willing to throw money at them. So, yes, they are technically moving states, but staying in the same metropolitan area.
It’s extremely similar to the fact that the Chicago Bears, which have been dickering with the City of Chicago, the suburban city of Arlington Heights, IL, and the state of Illinois, over a new stadium for years, are now suddenly talking about moving over the border, to northwestern Indiana (which is still in the Chicago metro area).
Probably a very good deal for Missouri taxpayers, and not a good deal for Kansas taxpayers; that link says that 60% of the cost of the project is being publicly funded, through sales taxes, revenue from the Kansas lottery, and taxes on sports betting in Kansas.
Probably shitty for taxpayers - these deals always are. We’ll see if the tens of thousands of jobs materialize, and if the taxing of beers in the surrounding “entertainment district” really make those rosy tax benefits come to fruition (of course, no one will be checking!). I expect much of the promised benefits to be pure vapor and hope. It’s not like the people of that metro area aren’t already spending whatever on the Chiefs today - where is all this new money coming from? I could almost see those arguments better if they were penetrating a new market, but not KC. But you cannot deny it’s a great deal for the team!
As a Kansan I was hoping it stayed in MO.
Things are so much better in the USA than here in the UK.
Take for example my soccer team Everton who this year moved into a new £800m ($1.08bn). This had to be financed by the billionaire owners and form a variety of loans. With no support from Government.
Threatening to move location doesn’t work, one team (Wimbledon) did it about 30 years ago but there was such uproar from fans the the league decided that if any team tried to move out of the metropolitan area their current ground they would e kicked out the league.
For some reason over here government have decided that taxpayer money is better spent on things like healthcare rather than lining the pockets of the billionaires that fund their elections.
Regarding the idea that it’s a “successful franchise,” I get that they won the Super Bowl in 2019, 2022 and 2023 (along with 1969) but my impression as a non-sports fan is that this sort of dynastic success is fleeting and that teams can go from repeated success to mediocrity pretty much overnight. So spending lots of taxpayer money on a team for that reason may not be worthwhile.
The taxpayers shouldn’t care if they are a winning team or not. They want the economic activity shifted from MO to KS. Maybe even the income tax from the players.
Honestly, it’s about perceived prestige – and, yes, success in professional sports in the U.S. tends to be transitory, and true “dynasties” (teams which are continually successful for many years) are rare. Part of the reason that cities and states have (historically) spent to attract major sports teams to move is that they have believed that having a big-league team located in your area signals that your area is similarly “big league,” that you are up-and-coming, etc.
Promises about job creation, improved economic activity in the area, etc., which come from attracting a team, and throwing public money at building a stadium for them, are, IMO, frequently overstated, especially now that the cost for building a modern arena or stadium has become absurdly expensive.
In the case of the Chiefs, I think that no small amount of this is also driven by a rivalry between the states of Missouri and Kansas, which dates back to the 1850s, and the “Bleeding Kansas” border war over slavery; the Kansas City metropolitan area straddles the state border, and, as noted, there are cities named Kansas City on both sides of that border. But, of the two, the Missouri city has historically been bigger and more prominent, and the Kansas City-based teams have, historically, played on the Missouri side of the border (though fans of the teams live in both states).
Similarly, with the Chicago Bears, though the counties and cities of Northwest Indiana (Gary, Hammond, etc.) are part of the Chicago area, they have long been seen as the area’s red-headed stepchildren, and looked down on by their neighbors on the Illinois side of the border. Stealing the Bears away from Illinois would be something that a lot of people (and politicians) in Indiana would see as proving that they’re not second-class citizens of the region.
One of the complaints about the Truman Sports Complex (the stadiums for the Chiefs and Royals) is that the hoped-for restaurant/entertainment developed never developed despite the stadiums having existed for more than 50 years AND being located at the intersection of two Interstate highways.
So very true.
Good point, besides the games on on giant TVs all the time.
Well, kinda-
When the Giants built then-Pac Bell Park, they received $0 million in public money.
That’s incredible. It’s practically a miracle. Now, don’t discount the many financial benefits the Giants get for being the Giants – back in 2005, a study estimated that police/fire/trash services, the cost of the land, and the property taxes the team doesn’t have to pay add up to around $140 million. Additionally, the city’s redevelopment agency contributed $15 million to move a transit station, which I should have mentioned in the previous paragraph, but saying it cost nothing was a lot punchier, so I did that instead. Ethics!
Take that one as an example-
The $5 billion SoFi Stadium was privately financed by Rams owner Stan Kroenke (Los Angeles–area municipalities are notoriously reluctant to mete out public funding) but garnered the support of Inglewood’s political leaders with promises of reviving the surrounding community. But nearly four years on, its economic benefits have yet to “trickle down” to residents of the surrounding area, many of whom have been pushed out by rampant real-estate speculation. Inglewood, whose population is largely Black and Hispanic, was once an affordable bastion in L.A. county. But between 2016, when the first component of the new development opened and the stadium’s construction was announced, and 2022, average rents spiked by 59 percent—compared to a 17 percent increase across the region. In the same period, the median sales price of Inglewood homes jumped 90 percent, from $345,000 to $655,000. Residents’ daily movements are disrupted by unprecedented traffic congestion, which also impacts revenue to local businesses. “[There’s] a large population of folks that are a paycheck away, a hundred-dollar increase away from having to move because the cost of living continues to go up,” Inglewood resident and activist Estefany Castaneda told Sports Illustrated in 2022.
Always bad.
Correct.