Neil deMause
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Writer about things. Also, stuff. Author of @fieldofschemes and @brooklynwars. "Surprisingly levelheaded" —Publishers Weekly neildemause.bsky.social
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Articles by Neil deMause
Monday roundup: Royals issue fresh vaportecture, LA sues Olympic committee for financial documents
Last day of my trip, regular programming resumes tomorrow. The Kansas City Royals have released new stadium renderings, and Kansas City Star sports columnist Vahe Gregorian says they “conjure something both beyond the imagination and entirely easy to envision” while Star development writer Chris Higgins says it’d be nice to know what team officials plan on demolishing and building around the stadium, please.
Final Chiefs STAR district retains 293 square miles that will divert $3.1B in taxes to NFL stadium
The final STAR district boundaries are in for where state sales tax revenues will be handed over to Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark Hunt to help pay for a new stadium, and they look pretty much like the initial boundaries: OLD: NEW: There are a few carveouts to exclude the University of Kansas Medical Center and some existing STAR districts, but it still looks like roughly the same 293 square miles where any increased sales tax revenues — whether thanks to the Chiefs’ presence or other...
Plano approves taking $250m from schools to give to Dallas Stars owner for arena
The Plano, Texas school district has agreed to provide up to $250 million in property taxes over 25 years to the Dallas Stars for a new arena, but don’t worry, local school would be getting something for their money: The agreement would allow Plano ISD to host graduation ceremonies and other events at the arena. Well then! If that’s not worth a quarter-billion dollars, I don’t know what is. More to the point, the $250 million wouldn’t actually come out of Plano schools’ budget.
Monday roundup: Royals stadium could cut into KC police budget, leave old site “blighted”
Like I promised you, posts at unexpected times! Let’s kick off the week with the news of last week, extended: The Kansas City council has approved plans to use sales tax money for a new Royals stadium that would normally be set aside for public safety expenses, which could end up cutting into avaible public funding for things like a new jail and police body cameras.
D.C. to spend $410m on Nats stadium upgrades because “teams rely on happy players”
The Washington Nationals‘ stadium won’t even turn 19 years old until next spring, but the D.C. city council already approved spending tax money two years ago for renovations, including such important upgrades as “wrapping the exterior of the parking in a more visually appealing material.” And we’re now finding out how much it will cost Washingtonians to have prettier parking garages, and that figure is $410 million: D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s bill to fund the renovations was formally filed...
New clown document claims Royals stadium will generate $1.4B in vapordollars
Kansas City released a consulting report it commissioned on a new Royals stadium yesterday, with the intent of showing how it will pay off about $1.4 billion in taxpayer costs while team owner John Sherman is on the hook for less than $600 million. Let’s see how it compares to the typical clown documents: Questionable authorship? The report is unsigned, so we don’t know exactly who at Chicago-based real estate consultants Hunden Partners actually wrote it.
New Seahawks owner says “never say never” on moving team, blames media for accurately reporting what he said
Vinod Khosla, who bought the Seattle Seahawks for $9.6 billion last month, was asked by Axios last week if he would “formally commit” to “keeping the team in Seattle long-term,” and while there were lots of fan brownie points to be earned by saying “yes” or at least “that’s our plan,” the venture capitalist billionaire decided to go in a different direction: “I will never say never. Will this team be in Seattle 500 years from now?
Bears reportedly seeking $1.5B+ in tax money from Illinois
Crain’s Chicago Business has some (rumored) details of what NFL and Bears execs talked with Illinois officials about last week, and it’s a new way to give the team a heaping helping of tax breaks: The Chicago Bears’ potential path to building a new stadium in Arlington Heights is veering toward a model that would leave ownership of the venue to a new public authority rather than the team itself.
Friday roundup: Goodell meets with IL leaders on Bears, KC okays public vote it says won’t apply to Royals
Slow news week, busy Friday roundup, as the saying goes. (I didn’t say it was an old saying.) Roger Goodell and a Chicago Bears minority owner met this week with Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and state legislative officials, and if you want to take that as a sign that the league and team want a better option than moving to Indiana, go for it. If you want to take it as a sign that they’re trying to create leverage on Indiana counties to approve all the requested tax subsidies, that works too.
Blazers exec declares Dundon “committed to Portland” but won’t commit to accepting arena deal
There are, when it comes down to it, really only two ways to conduct a campaign for public money for a sports facility: good cop, and bad cop. You can work to field a winning team, and then argue that it deserves a stadium to match; or you can field a terrible one, and warn that it will never be any good without a new home.
Royals mega-TIF district to divert taxes from much of downtown KC to pay for stadium
Kansas City has revealed the dimensions of the mega-TIF district where all increases in sales and income tax receipts, and half of all increases in hotel tax receipts, would be siphoned off and given to Royals owner John Sherman to pay off a new stadium, and it looks like this: The city didn’t provide an exact size for the district, but it looks to be a little over five square miles of downtown Kansas City.
Friday roundup: Rays stadium sticks Tampa students in trailers, Wyden wants Blazers owner to accept arena money or else
After a summer where the owners of the Kansas City Royals and Tampa Bay Rays each landed, in quick succession, about $2 billion apiece in public stadium funding despite widespread public opposition, I’ve been thinking even more than usual about what this site is hoping to accomplish. To report on and analyze sports subsidy shenanigans, obviously, but to what end?
T-Wolves exec, Minneapolis mayor float using public money to replace one downtown arena with another
Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx owners Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez have been muttering since buying the teams in 2021 about wanting a new arena, and team officials just started muttering louder and indicating whether they’ll be seeking public money, three guesses what the answer is: CEO Matt Caldwell did not promise to keep the venue in downtown Minneapolis and implied the project would seek some form of public assistance — a subtle but notable shift from previous statements that ownership...
BREAKING: $700m Stars arena subsidy is endorsed by advocates, opposed by critics
Is there any journalism trope more tiresome than bothsidesing? Ducking the hard task of investigating the facts by just throwing up your hands and saying “different people disagree” is so plainly egregious that even the dictionary calls it out as reprehensible, and yet it’s still a staple of our daily news coverage.
Tax district to fund Browns upgrades could push public stadium cost to $2B
I mentioned briefly here the week before last that Brook Park had designated the land around a planned new Cleveland Browns stadium to be “blighted,” which Mayor Edward Orcutt said “gives us the opportunity to be able to maintain this site in the future.” It’s now becoming clearer where that maintenance money would come from, and as Cleveland Plain Dealer columnist Leila Atassi explains, it’s Cuyahoga County property tax money that would otherwise go to pay for public services: Here is how it...
Friday roundup: Cleveland, Nashville keep throwing good stadium money after bad
Running late today, let’s do a speed round: Upkeep costs for the Cleveland Guardians stadium and Cavaliers arena continue to climb, with one estimate placing them at $261 million, and the county-run Gateway Economic Development Corp. still doesn’t have money identified to pay for them.
KCUR gets Royals stadium math all wrong (again)
Kansas City NPR station KCUR, which has a pretty bad record of trying to explain stadium financing, set out to do an explainer today on the city’s plan to spend $600 million toward a new Royals stadium, and how’d that go? The plan to pay the $600 million Kansas City plans to borrow for or spend on the downtown Royals stadium relies on tax revenue that wouldn’t exist without the new ballpark.
No, the 2028 Olympics won’t be a $20B boon to the SoCal economy
Speaking of bad math, an economic analysis of the impact of the 2028 Olympics on Los Angeles, conducted by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.
Hochul says $1B Bills stadium spend was to meet fan demands, make “better deal for taxpayers,” other things that aren’t true
For some inexplicable reason, the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle got an interview with New York state governor Kathy Hochul that ran this morning, and decided to spend it asking her all about how much she loves the Buffalo Bills.
Ishbia to ask for taxpayer “infrastructure” spending for White Sox stadium
The Chicago Sun-Times has a long explainer up about Justin Ishbia’s proposed White Sox stadium, and while it gets off to a shaky start — “Why do the White Sox want a new stadium?” “The team is under lease at the state-owned Rate Field only through 2029” nonresponsive, move to strike — it eventually gets around to talking about some of the wide-open funding questions about the project: The ballpark itself would be privately financed, a source with direct knowledge of the planning told the...
DC officials battle over giving United owners $300m to upgrade 8-year-old stadium
Washington, D.C. council chair Phil Mendelson’s proposal to give D.C. United‘s owners $300 million for upgrades to their eight-year-old stadium is facing opposition from Mayor Muriel Bowser, who has argued that she already gave a pile of public money to one 20,000-seat venue in the district — the Wizards and Capitals arena, which is in the midst of getting a $515 million facelift courtesy of D.C. taxpayers — and doing so for the United stadium would be “cannibalizing one for the other.” And...
Friday roundup: Nobody in media or politics can math or word right edition
It’s been a while since I’ve thanked everyone who makes this site possible through their generous donations, so: Thanks, everyone, who makes this site possible through your generous donations! I hope you are all still enjoying this journey through the world of sports venue shenanigans, if “enjoy” is the right word for it. Sometimes it feels more like a group therapy sessions for survivors of sports fandom (our own or other people’s or both), but there’s value in that too, right?
MLB expansion talk focuses on Salt Lake, other cities with major question marks
With the Athletics seemingly settled on setting the Fisher family fortune on fire in Las Vegas, and Tampa Bay Rays owner Patrick Zalupski about to receive the spendiest gift stadium in history, the thoughts of bored baseball writers are turning toward expansion. Sure, there’s the little matter of a new union contract first, which could have monumental impacts in terms of incentives for MLB expanding or not.
White Sox owner-in-waiting reveals pictures of what proposed “Railyards” stadium probably won’t look like
What’s worse than a Friday news dump? A Saturday news dump on a three-day weekend: Canal Edge LLC – a Chicago-based development and investment firm owned by White Sox minority owner Justin Ishbia – revealed renderings of a potential stadium and mixed-use development along the Chicago River that would also include residential, commercial, retail and healthcare space.
Friday roundup: Vegas stadium board approves Raiders cash after “fastest meeting in the history of $75m giveaways”
Welcome to the end of another programming week, one that was way busier than you’d expect for the dregs of summer. Let’s get through the rest of the week’s news and get you out of here for the long weekend: Also eager to get out of town for the long weekend, apparently: The Las Vegas Stadium Authority, which voted unanimously Wednesday to give $75 million from a “waterfall” reserve fund of hotel tax mpney to the Raiders, to be used mostly toward a $158 million upgrade of an entry plaza.
New Angels owner plans $2.5B Anaheim stadium, according to nobody at all, apparently
Following Tuesday’s announcement of the sale of controlling interest in the Los Angeles Angels to multi-sport team owner Stan Kroenke, Forbes baseball writer Barry Bloom wrote this: Kroenke intends to build a new $2.5 billion ballpark to replace aging and decaying Angel Stadium, which opened in 1966 and has been refurbished at least twice. Bloom gave no source at all for this information, which was rapidly repeated across the journotweetosphere.
D-backs exec calls lease talks “non-productive,” “draconian,” would like his $600m check already
Arizona Diamondbacks stadium renovation talks appear to be at a standstill again, with team CEO Derrick Hall telling Axios that lease talks with Maricopa County have been “non-productive to date” and that “we need language that is not draconian in nature and reflects the spirit of that legislation without renegotiating it.” The legislation in question is last year’s bill providing $500 million in state sales and income tax money for renovating the D-backs stadium, though the total could end...
What does $4B Angels sale mean for team’s stadium future, MLB expansion plans? Some investimagations
Los Angeles Angels owner Arte Moreno announced yesterday that he is selling the team to Los Angeles Rams/Denver Nuggets/Colorado Avalanche owner Stan Kroenke, and most of the news coverage has — rightly — focused on Moreno not letting the door hit him in the butt on the way out.
County officials cite AI, “The Giving Tree” as reasons for approving Rays’ $2B stadium subsidy
The Hillsborough County Commission voted 5-2 on Friday to approve a new Tampa Bay Rays stadium development on the current campus of Hillsborough College, making the team’s long-running saga all over but the postmortems.
Friday roundup: Tampa council approves plan to give $2B in public money to Rays stadium, says it’s not really public money
The Tampa city council spent all day meeting yesterday about the Tampa Bay Rays stadium deal, but honestly they could have saved time and just voted first thing in the morning. Public speakers were split in their opinions — public speakers are always split — and as for councilmembers themselves, there was little actual discussion for most of the day, with elected officials mostly talking past each other, knowing that everyone’s vote was already decided going in.
Fact-checking Tampa councilmember’s “busting myths” video about the Rays stadium proposal
With the Tampa city council set to vote today on its share of $2 billion–plus in subsidies for a $2.36 billion Tampa Bay Rays stadium, councilmember Lynn Hurtak has posted a video “busting myths about the Rays stadium proposal.” Let’s see what she came up with: “I’m a huge baseball fan.” When she and her husband got married, they skipped a honeymoon so they could use the money on Rays season tickets instead. TRUE.
KC to spend extra $7m a year on paying off Royals bonds just to avoid public vote
The Beacon ran a long article late last week about the Kansas City Royals stadium proposal that includes a bunch of worthwhile analysis of the deal, including why using taxes from in and around the stadium isn’t really the project “paying for itself.” (“Some ballgame attendees might be going to a Crown Center restaurant instead of a Waldo restaurant that day.
Royals mega-TIF could see Missouri taxpayers covering John Sherman’s entire $1.9B stadium tab
Also on Friday, the Kansas City TIF Commission issued its Downtown Stadium TIF Plan, spelling out in a bit more detail — though still far from complete detail — what public money will be going to a new Royals stadium if and when it gets final approval following the city council’s yes vote on Thursday.
Friday roundup: KC approves $1B+ in Royals stadium subsidies over calls for public vote, independent analysis
First things first: The Kansas City council voted on a proposed city funding package for a new Royals stadium yesterday, and as expected, it sailed through, with councilmembers voting 11-2 to approve a series of agreements promising $600 million in cash plus at least $500 million in tax breaks toward a new $1.9 billion stadium at Crown Center.
KC committee approves city $1B+ Royals stadium subsidy after security arrests opposition speaker
The $1.5 billion–plus Kansas City Royals stadium subsidy plan sailed through its first city council committee hearing yesterday, with the Finance, Governance and Public Safety Committee voting unanimously to approve $600 million in city funding plus hundreds of millions more in tax breaks. The vote sent Mayor Quinton Lucas into paroxysms of metaphor, declaring that “today is a home run for Kansas City” and that the approval “ensures today that we can walk and chew gum,” among other things.
KC council set to vote on city giving Royals owner $600m plus a crapton of tax breaks, getting almost nothing in return
A Kansas City council committee is set to vote today on approving city money toward a new Royals stadium, so naturally the actual legislation didn’t get released until yesterday, providing everyone involved approximately no time to read and understand it.
San Antonio council votes not to let city residents vote on $489m in Spurs arena funding
The San Antonio city council has completed its hearing on Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones’ proposal to put a measure on the November ballot on whether to devote $489 million in city money to a new Spurs arena, and their verdict is nope: The San Antonio City Council batted down Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones’ attempt to get the city’s funding for a downtown Spurs arena onto the November ballot in a 5-6 vote Monday morning….
Friday roundup: Plano residents to vote on $700m Stars arena subsidy, Bears still playing hard to get with IL and IN
In case you missed it, sports economist/meme master J.C. Bradbury has a new book on sports subsidy deals due out soon: This One Will Be Different details the latest in stadium and arena deals and why they never pay off for the public, with a particular focus on the Atlanta Braves‘ extraction of money from Cobb County for a new stadium just 17 years after getting their last one, which he had a front row seat for.
Free Money [subscribers-only]
The standard stadium playbook was laid out by Joanna Cagan and myself back in Chapter 4 of Field of Schemes, “The Art of the Steal,” and hasn’t changed much since. The move threats, promises of illusory fiscal windfalls, warnings of obsolescence (whether physical or economic) and so on have… To keep reading this Field of Schemes minibook minichapter, sign up as a FoS Supporter at the Regular level or above!
Portland okays spending $120m on Blazers arena renovation if Dundon agrees to pay rent and PILOTs
After months of public debate, the Portland city council voted 8-4 yesterday to approve spending $120 million toward renovations to the Trail Blazers arena, plus $275 million for upgrades over the next 20 years.
Councilmember says his Rays stadium tax plan would leave Tampa “not involved in the financing,” except for all the financing
Ever since Tampa councilmember Bill Carlson announced a few days ago that he’d be willing to consider casting a swing vote for a Tampa Bay Rays stadium if the city’s share came out of a different pot of property tax money, I’ve been engaged in a weird, slow-motion discussion with Carlson on the former Twitter about what exactly his plan is, and how it could possibly save Tampa any money.
Portland may ask Blazers owner to pay rent in exchange for $395m in city arena funding
The Portland city council is set to vote on a term sheet today for the proposed $600 million Trail Blazers arena renovations deal, and it may not look like the one that was initially proposed. Late yesterday, four councilmembers issued a proposed amendment with revised terms that include team owner Tom Dundon paying $2 million a year in rent plus $3 million a year in payments in lieu of property taxes.
KC mayor postpones Royals stadium funding vote after failing to tell council what they’d be voting on
A Kansas City council committee was all set yesterday to consider allocating $20 million to a Royals stadium fund for something unspecified, when Mayor Quinton Lucas abruptly pulled it from the meeting agenda because democracy: “I believe that even in representative democracy, i.e. going through city council meetings, you have a fair opportunity not just for our review, but for the public’s review on that, which we’re working on,” Lucas said about the agreements with the Royals.
New taxpayer-funded Bills stadium features record number of state-of-the-art obstructed-view seats
Buffalo Bills ownership held an open practice on Sunday to show off their new $2.1 billion stadium (public cost: $1 billion and change), and it did not go well: Other Bills fans pointed out that many of the new stadium’s seats are not obstructed, but that didn’t do much to quell the online furor, especially after Buffalo residents had to both help pay to build the thing with state and county tax dollars and then cough up for personal seat licenses, only to discover that the designers appeared...
Multnomah county chair hires Blazers negotiator who heads pro-arena lobbying group, sees no conflict of interest
Uproar continues to grow over Multnomah County hiring a negotiator in the Portland Trail Blazers arena renovation fight who has a curious resume: Chair Jessica Vega Pederson disclosed Thursday that she had tapped former Trail Blazers executive Chris Oxley to represent the county as it worked with Portland officials on a framework aimed at keeping the NBA franchise in town for at least the next 20 years. Okay, that’s a little weird, hiring an ex-Blazers exec.
Tampa swing vote says he’ll okay Rays stadium if city spends from different pot of tax money
I’m on the road today, but did want to briefly note that Tampa councilmember Bill Carlson, the likely swing vote on any Tampa Bay Rays stadium deal, has come out with his plan for a new way of funding the team’s $2 billion stadium district subsidy demand: Tampa City Councilman Bill Carlson has proposed a new financing structure for the city’s investment in a Tampa Bay Rays stadium project that requires only the property taxes generated by the team’s privately funded multiuse development...
Friday roundup: County commission approves $100m in Blazers arena money, doesn’t actually have $100m
One of several remaining shoes dropped in the Portland Trail Blazers arena renovation saga yesterday, as Multnomah County commissioners voted 4-1 to approve team owner Tom Dundon’s term sheet for $100 million in county funding for the project. Or maybe just half a shoe, as three of the five commissioners voted not to use $35 million in county taxes from the sale of the Blazers to Dundon to pay for the county’s costs, and the commission doesn’t have a substitute source of those funds.
Arenas that have lost NBA or NHL teams turn out to have done just fine
For anyone who holds to the belief that sports fans are mindless boosters who want their elected officials to keep their beloved team owners (or just beloved team’s owners) happy no matter what the cost, I present you with Blazer’s Edge, the SB Nation fan site for the Portland Trail Blazers.
Does Tom Dundon really want to move the Trail Blazers, or he just creating leverage?
One of the persistent themes in the ever-non-evolving Portland Trail Blazers arena saga has been the question of what new team owner Tom Dundon really wants. Oh, he’s made clear enough what he’s asking for: $600 million in taxpayer money to spend on upgrading his 31-year-old arena, in exchange for which he’ll keep paying (some) taxes. But does he really want Portland officials to give in and cut him a check?
Broncos execs tired of waiting for someone to give them land and money for stadium
It’s been almost a year since Denver Broncos owners Greg and Carrie Penner, Mayor Mike Johnston, and Gov.
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