Does anybody know currently how many professional sports teams and owners, NFL/MLB/NBA/NHL, are currently pushing the “build us a new facility or we may move” agenda?
Seems to be a common ploy by owners to guilt local governments into handing over tax dollars.
How many teams are currently pushing this and are there really that many cities willing to build something “now” to get a team into their town?
I know the Minnesota Viking are currently pushing the stadium agenda.
Off the top of my head, in the NFL: Chargers, Vikings, Jaguars*, Bills**, Jets/Giants***, Saints****, Rams*****, 49ers, Raiders.
*They’re not agitating for a new stadium; they’re just not sure that Jacksonville can support an NFL franchise. Which it can’t.
**As soon as Ralph Wilson dies, anyway.
***Stadium already under construction; the Jets were trying to build their own in Brooklyn or somewhere like that but decided to stay in NJ and share with the Giants again.
****They threatened to move after Katrina but ticket sales have gone way, way up since then (better than before the hurricane, in fact!) so they probably won’t now.
*****The Rams can void their lease at the Edward Jones Dome in 2015 if a huge refurbishment project doesn’t take place (which it won’t).
Really Not All That Bright:
You’re confusing them with the NBA’s New Jersey Nets, who are planning a move to Brooklyn. The Jets wanted Manhattan or nothing.
MLB: Oakland A’s and Florida Marlins are the only ones I know of who are pushing for a new stadium and for whom construction has not yet started. The Twins have a new stadium already under construction.
NBA: As mentioned earlier, the Nets are attempting to build a stadium in Brooklyn. Though that’s not so much a “Build or we will move” threat as opposed to “Let us build so we can move in (and so that our owner can score a really sweet real estate deal), we’re not staying in New Jersey no matter what”.
NHL: The Islanders.
The Islanders, to my understanding, are proposing to build the arena themselves as part of a huge redevelopment somewhere(the Lighthouse project). They’re waiting on the plan to be approved by the municipal government.
Nah, I just couldn’t remember exactly where they wanted to build. As far as I’m concerned NYC is all the same.
The [del]Devil[/del] Rays want a new stadium too (and really ought to get one because Tropicana Field sucks donkey balls) but aren’t threatening to up sticks or anything.
Rysto:
True, but it still amounts to the essentially the same thing: “Do what we want (which will in part involve a new arena for us, whomever the specific arena money comes from), or we will move the team.”
Just Oakland. The new Marlins park, on the former site of the Orange Bowl, is a done deal.
Seriously? I just looked it up, Tropicana Field isn’t even 20 years old.
If a stadium is truly dilapidated and unusable, that’s one thing. To spend a few hundred million for the latest bells and whistles is ridiculous.
It was built to pretty low standards since there was no guarantee that there would be a team to put in it (and as it turned out, there wasn’t). Anyway, you just can’t understand how crappy it is unless you actually go there. It’s dingy, full of weirdly placed girders and catwalks which pop flyballs are always hitting, and baseball in a dome is just wrong.
I will say that the tank full of rays in the outfield is pretty cool. You can feed them and pet them!
Anyway, the big problem is not the stadium itself- it’s the location. It’s in St. Petersburg, which means 90% of the fans are coming from other bits of the Tampa area; there’s nobody in St. Petersburg except pensioners.
The Edmonton Oilers’ owner has said he will put up $100 million (or something like that) for a new arena, and there have been feasibility studies and stuff, but I don’t think it’s gone much further than that so far.
I don’t think people here will be too happy about tax dollars subsidizing it, but I suspect that’s what will end up happening. City council doesn’t seem to care an awful lot about what the citizens think, they’re too busy trying to “put us on the map”.
Well, it is more that it isn’t really built to be a baseball stadium then it is out of date. They have a long lease though that they aren’t able to get out of easily, dso they will likely be there for a while. The Marlins and A’s are the only baseball teams left working on getting new stadium, mostly because every other team has successfully blackmailed their cities into giving them one already.
Their lease is with the City of St. Petersburg, since the Trop is city-owned, and they can move to a different facility within the city limits more or less at will.
The Marlins new ballpark is already under construction and will open in 2012.