The Yankees and the Mayor's Office

posted by Will Wilson

When the stories began leaking out about New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's office pressuring the Yankees for a luxury suite in the new Yankee Stadium, the New York Times found one thing puzzling, "It is hard to determine the precise value of what the city gave the Yankees as part of the exchange."

How about a billion dollars in tax-exempt bonds? It seems city finance department officials put the squeeze on a city assessor to inflate the value of the land under the stadium from $27 million to $204 million. State Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, who is leading the probe into the stadium fiasco, describes the tidy division of labor, "The professionals did their job. The political appointees then ordered them to change the assessment -- and they did."

The Yankees moved $968 million in bonds in 2006. They are presently seeking another $260 million in tax-exempt bonds and $110 million in taxable bonds.

Many e-mails have yet to come out -- and the first game hasn't even been played -- but it looks as though the new Yankee Stadium has a lousy foundation. Say it ain't so, Babe.

The Curse of Corporate Sponsorship

posted by Alan Greenblatt

Unlike my colleague Chris Swope, I still am uncomfortable with the whole trend of corporate naming rights -- naming stadiums and high school hallways after some big company that paid for the privilege.

My hurt feelings notwithstanding, this obviously is a phenomenon that now has taken deep root. But I wonder whether the companies involved really get much for their money.

Sure, every sports broadcaster gives them daily plugs in talking about the doings at Phone Bank Arena or Multinational Bank Field. But I can't help but be struck at how many companies that put their names out there have turned out to be losers themselves.

Out in San Francisco, the celebrated Pacific Bell Park has since been renamed after SBC and then ATT as one merger followed another. There have also been plenty, though, where the company in question has simply gone under. Think of Enron Field or PSINet Stadium.

All this is brought to mind by the news that AIG and Citigroup are sticking with their naming rights contracts -- arguably even a worse use of their money at this point than a luxury spa retreat for the executive suite.

Here is the irony that governments that sold naming rights to pay for stadiums they couldn't afford themselves are now getting their money indirectly from the national government's taxpayers.

ABC News:

Struggling Citibank just sealed a multi-billion-dollar emergency "backstop" deal with the U.S. government. The financial behemoth, suffering with billions in bad mortgage-related assets on its books, recently shed 53,000 workers and saw its stock price lose over half its value. Yet it's in a 20-year contract to pay the New York Mets $400 million to name the team's new stadium "Citi Field."

"This type of spending is indefensible and unacceptable to Citigroup's new partner and largest investor: the American taxpayer," said Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., in a statement Monday.

Citi isn't alone: Imploding insurance giant AIG is paying the British soccer team Manchester United $125 million for the privilege of having its logo appear on Man U's uniforms. That, despite the fact the firm is standing largely thanks to a $150 billion lifeline from the U.S. Treasury.

"A friend of mine joked they should put 'US Treasury' on the front of their uniforms," said Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington, D.C.-based nonpartisan watchdog group which is outraged by the expenditures.

Where Do Old Ballparks Go When They Die?

posted by Will Wilson

Detroit can't decide whether to blow up the old Tiger Stadium in order to make room for new development or to renovate the old stadium for use as -- surprise! -- a minor league baseball stadium.

I don't really know enough about this issue to comment, so here I go:

On the one hand, the folks supporting renovation of the stadium for use as a minor league park just don't seem to be thinking with their fiscal caps on. Renovating and maintaining a big old building takes a lot of money. And I imagine even more so for a building that was constructed in 1912. The stadium has been unused since 1999 and has cost the city over $4 million.

Even if future maintenance money was falling from the sky, the return Rock City would get on a minor league team in the same city as a major league team would likely be tiny. In fact, I can't think of a similar situation off the top of my head, with the sole exception of the Brooklyn Cyclones -- which play way out in Coney Island and properly fall under New York-exceptionalism.

I've never been to Tiger, but I've often been to Wrigley (Chicago's historic park) and I can't shake the feeling that the historic value of the structure -- the sense of place in the place -- has everything to do with the team playing in it. Ontologically speaking, would it still be Tiger Stadium without the Detroit Tigers?

That said, the development plan, as it stands now, leaves a lot to be desired.

The Bear Facts

posted by Josh Goodman

Here's something that perhaps no municipal official has ever asked: Which is a better bargain, a baseball team or a giant panda cub? But that's the question that Washington, D.C. has spent the last two years answering.

In April 2005, the Nationals arrived, bringing major league baseball back to D.C. for the first time in 34 years. Three months later, Tai Shan (a.k.a. Butterstick), our panda cub, was born. I feel I can impartially judge the relative impact of these two events, as an Arlington, Virginia resident whose two primary reasons for venturing into the District, other than work, are to see the Nats and to go to the National Zoo.

To woo Major League Baseball, the D.C. city council approved $611 million in public funds for a new stadium. The Nats drew 2.7 million fans in 2005 and 2.2 million in 2006.

In 2000, the National Zoo, which is part of the Smithsonian, paid the China Wildlife Conservation Association $10 million to rent Tai Shan's parents, Tian Tian and Mei Xiang, for ten years. Most of that money came from Fujifilm, which sponsors the pandas -- there weren't any public funds involved. As part of the agreement, the zoo paid $600,000 more after Tai was born.

Tai went on exhibit in December 2005. Zoo attendance in 2006 was 2.6 million, up from 1.9 million the preceding year. If you doubt that one plump little panda could have caused that change, consider that in 2001, the first year that Tian Tian and Mei Xiang went on display, visitation spiked to 3.8 million, a 1.3 million increase over the preceding year (it leveled off around 2 million the next four years).

In other words, D.C. paid $611 million to annually draw 2.5 million people to an attraction, give or take, and $0 to draw 700,000 visitors to another one. Advantage: panda.

There are a couple of reasons that comparison isn't entirely fair to the Nats.

Sell Out Already

posted by Christopher Swope

The selling of naming rights for stadiums, arenas and other public buildings is not nearly as controversial as it used to be. I'm not sure if that's because we've all grown accustomed to the weird ring of venues such as Quicken Loans Arena and Merchantsauto.com Stadium. Or maybe in a world saturated with advertising we've all become pros at tuning out corporate gobbledygook. Either way, our tolerance for sponsorship seems to be growing.

Just look at what's happening in Boston. There's a naming rights controversy brewing in Beantown--but not of the "Oh no, not Depends Undergarments Park" variety. Rather, the issue in Boston is that the city's new convention center, which opened in 2004, remains without a sponsor.

It seems Boston's new meeting space continues to go by the boring and unlucrative name of the Boston Convention & Exhibit Center. According to this story in the Boston Globe, the state convention center authority may be leaving as much as a million bucks on the table. The story on naming rights is no longer about pangs of civic guilt over selling out. Now, the story is: what are you waiting for? Sell out already!

This being Boston, there's also politics involved. Republicans suspect that convention officials are deliberately forfeiting sponsorship revenue because they want to save the nameplate for their Democratic pal, Mayor Tom Menino. Convention officials deny that. So does Menino's office.

It'll be interesting to see how this one plays out. Will your next Boston meeting be at the Menino Center? Or Highest Bidder Hall?

Cities to Sports Teams: Good Riddance

posted by Josh Goodman

Earlier this year I wrote a feature on baseball stadium financing, with the premise that it's getting harder for teams to win funding from state and local governments.

As I saw it, public officials and the public themselves are increasingly aware that baseball teams almost never switch towns (only the Montreal Expos have in the last three decades). Therefore, the "Give us a new stadium or else" threats of owners are beginning to fall on deaf ears.

However, this premise is questionable from a couple of directions. Since I wrote my article, Minnesota culminated a fifteen-year debate by signing off on a new stadium for the Twins, showing, perhaps, that public financing still has some life yet.

Perhaps more interestingly, though, I may have overestimated the extent to which opposition to public funding for stadiums hinges on the perception that the team is staying in town no matter what.

Naming Wrongs

posted by Alan Ehrenhalt

It's been amusing to watch the Minnesota university system and state legislature squabble over what to call the new stadium that will be built on the U of M campus. TCF Financial Corp. is willing to contribute $35 million to the project if the school will agree to call it "TCF Bank Stadium."

Some legislators have introduced a bill to stop this, on the grounds that such a name would be demeaning to the institution. At first glance this sounds a little odd. Colleges have been selling naming rights to contributors since Harvard opened in 1636.

What's so bad about doing it now?

Well, I'm not sure, but I think it's just that we're used to naming school property after people, not corporations.

Kirbyyyyyy Puckett Field?

posted by Anne Jordan

In "Skybox Skeptics" [Governing, March], my colleague Josh Goodman writes about the growing difficulty baseball teams are having leveraging public money for new stadiums. "The Minnesota Twins have spent a decade trying to win public funds for a new ballpark," he notes, "but have been rebuffed by the legislature every time, most recently last year."

But the stadium debate in my native state may take an unexpected turn following the death of Hall of Famer Kirby Puckett. Lawmakers already are getting phone calls from the public calling for a new stadium to be built and named for the Twins' beloved center fielder. 

In my book, the odds in favor of this happening are 34-to-1. 

Baseball's Big Test

posted by Josh Goodman

If you're curious about the future of public financing of Major League Baseball stadiums, keep a close eye on the Minnesota legislature over the next few weeks. Lawmakers, whose 2006 session begins today, will likely once again be debating whether to build a new ballpark for the Minnesota Twins.

Minnesota legislators seem as though they've been discussing moving the Twins out of the more football-friendly Metrodome forever (in reality it's only been a decade). What could make this session different -- and what makes it an interesting test of the willingness of governments to provide funds to baseball -- is that a court ruled in early February that the Twins aren't obliged to stay in the Metrodome beyond the 2006 season.

That ruling was significant because, as I note in a feature on baseball stadium financing in the March 2006 issue of Governing, public officials have become increasingly skeptical when baseball teams suggest they might leave town.

Kelo's Effect on Stadiums

posted by Josh Goodman

While working on an article for Governing's March issue on financing sports stadiums, one question I've asked a couple of sources is whether last year's Supreme Court decision on eminent domain, Kelo v. New London, will affect government support for stadiums.

The answer seems to be that the court's decision probably won't have much impact--but that the backlash against the decision might.