Tag: John Fisher

St. Petersburg, Oakland, and public subsidies

A reminder that cities, counties, and states giving up hundreds of millions of dollars (or even over $1 billion) in public subsidies to stadiums can hurt those places far more than a new stadium can help.

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We’ve spent a whole lot of 2024 talking about the Tampa Bay Rays and the Oakland A’s, as well as how the former was set to stay that way while the latter wormed their way into just being the A’s, no hometown, for a few years. Those stories aren’t just covered because they involve the obscenely wealthy casually and easily lying in order to avoid spending their money as much as possible, but also because the thing they’re going for is public subsidies.

These subsidies don’t exist in a vacuum. If they go to a stadium, they aren’t going to something else. This is why Schools Over Stadiums formed in Nevada after state, county, and city politicians got into bed with the A’s: Nevada’s public schools were in desperate need of financial assistance, and, once again, everyone with the power to give those funds to a billionaire for a new stadium wanted to do that instead. As Chris Daly, the Deputy Executive Director of Government Relations for the Nevada State Education Association, told me last September:

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Phillies, A’s open up about spending, could not be more different

The Phillies and A’s both talked recently about the need for spending, but for some weird reason it’s a lot easier to believe one of them than the other about actually doing it.

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The Philadelphia Phillies are in the postseason, preparing to head to Citi Field to take on the Mets in their home after evening up the NLDS 1-1 on Sunday. Before the series began, Sports Illustrated’s Stephanie Apstein ran a story on the team and its owner, John Middleton, saying that he provides “an unsparing blueprint for his peers.”

The gist of the feature is that Middleton not only spends on payroll at a higher rate than most of the league — and does so consistently, with the team ranking fourth in opening day payroll in each of the last four seasons — but that he’ll invest in the players off the field, too. The food the players want? That’s what the team chefs make. When J.T. Realmuto said the team’s jet was behind the times enough that even the lowly Marlins had a better one? The Phillies got a new, much fancier aircraft. Clubhouse accoutrements, better equipment, an entire hibachi spread when Kyle Schwarber mentioned having a craving for that — if the Phillies want it, Middleton lets them have it, with Dave Dombrowski feeling confident enough in not even going up the ladder for the stuff that isn’t jet-sized to just authorize it himself.

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The Oakland A’s are no more, and here’s why

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We’ve known this was coming for some time, of course, but it’s official: the Oakland A’s have played their final games in that city, as they’ll close out the 2024 season on the road. The next time they play a home game, it will be in Sacramento… assuming that park does end up with the necessary renovations to appease the Players Association, anyway.

The shock of this has, unsurprisingly, hit hard, both for people who have known this day was coming and for those who were sort of forced to recognize what’s been going on for the better part of the last two years. I wanted to address something Buster Olney posted on Twitter, though, since it feels like a too-common sentiment both for some media and fans who haven’t been locked in on this whole saga.

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Notes: A’s and Las Vegas timeline, Reinsdorf’s stadium gambit, incompetency

The more things change? No, just the more things stay the same.

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You will be shocked, but the A’s are in the news again for their planned move to Las Vegas. You will be even more surprised by this, but it’s more like “news” where information we’ve already had access to is being presented as if it’s new, in such a way that makes it seem if progress is being made. Ah, well, nevertheless.

Here’s an Oakland Fox affiliate, KTVU, doing that very thing earlier this week:

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Notes: Kansas City gives up on Royals stadium(?), A’s ballpark financing, trading picks

The Royals get cut out of the public subsidy game (for now), the best an A’s lobbyist can muster is that things are probably on schedule with financing, and my latest at BP.

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Back in April, a referendum was introduced to the voters of Jackson County, Missouri, letting them decide whether or not the public should fund a $500 million subsidy for new stadiums for both the Kansas City Chiefs and Kansas City Royals. The public said no, resoundingly so with 58 percent against.

That story isn’t quite over yet, though, as now a second referendum is being prepared, but this time it will only involve the Chiefs. As Neil deMause put it at Field of Schemes:

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Notes: ‘Media disruption distribution’ fund, The Wilpon Zone, Billy Bean

A workaround for RSN troubles, answering a John Fisher-related question, and the passing of an MLB executive.

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Per the Athletic’s Evan Drellich, the collective bargaining agreement has been altered by MLB and the Players Association, as a reaction to the current issues in the regional broadcasting landscape. It’s not something that every team will have access to, since not every team is struggling with their RSN, but it’s meant to assist the clubs that are dealing with any of that fallout. As Drellich put it:

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MLB reportedly has ‘gag order’ on interested A’s buyers

It’s not that the Bay Area lacks people who want to buy the A’s, it’s that they’ve been ordered to be quiet about it until MLB says it’s fine to speak up.

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I had missed this originally when it ran in the San Francisco Chronicle back on July 17, but Noah Frank’s recent Baseball Prospectus column linked to and quoted it, bringing it to my attention. Apparently, MLB has a “gag order” out on anyone in the Bay Area interested in purchasing the Athletics from John Fisher.

Scott Ostler of the Chronicle wrote about how John Shea, another Chronicle journalist, had asked commission Rob Manfred if a potential mayoral change in Oakland could bring the city back into contention “if the Las Vegas deal falls apart,” or just as a potential expansion location in the future, and then, well, here you go:

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The A’s still don’t know where Las Vegas stadium funds are coming from

The Las Vegas Stadium Authority had a big meeting on Thursday, and you’ll never guess what happened next.

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Good news, everyone. The Las Vegas Stadium Authority held a meeting on Thursday to clear up all kinds of financial details about how the A’s stadium is going to be paid for. In typical A’s/Vegas fashion, the only thing that’s clearer after this is that no one knows what they’re doing or what’s happening.

As stated before, $380 million is coming from Nevada — though there was once again a claim that the A’s won’t use the full $380 million allotted them, as they’ll supposedly leave $30 million on the table, how generous of them — with the rest coming from personal seat license sales — PSLs — and the rest from financing. As Neil deMause noted on Thursday before the meeting when looking at the documentation released to the public beforehand, we didn’t get clarification on what John Fisher is actually paying for this stadium, or where he’s getting the money from:

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Notes: The Las Vegas A’s stadium is on track unless it isn’t, Yankees sustainability, MLB absorbs Negro League stats

The Las Vegas A’s remain more conceptual than anything, the Yankees utter a word that would have killed The Boss, and Negro League statistics are now MLB statistics.

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If you ask the people behind the Las Vegas A’s stadium push, everything is great! There’s no need to worry; everything is happening as it’s supposed to, we’re happy to take questions so long as they aren’t about where A’s owner John Fisher is going to get the additional financing needed to actually build the thing. If you ask people who know how these things work, though, who aren’t unregistered lobbyists, well. Neil deMause handled that at Field of Schemes already this week:

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Notes: Tax loophole, MLB realignment, Oakland sells Coliseum, NCAA settlement

More on the tax loophole, a couple of thoughts on realignment, Oakland’s stadium situation gets additional wrinkles, and the NCAA is primed for a major change.

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Lots to get through today, so let’s get to it.

I went in deeper on the billionaire sports owner tax loophole news for Baseball Prospectus earlier in the week, getting into the origins of the loophole, what it is, why it’s a problem, and why we should hope the IRS decided to remove or rewrite it. The shorter version of it is that it would keep, say, a team that costs $2 billion from pretending 80 percent of the team’s valuation is going to lose value instead of gaining it like what happens with sports franchises simply for existing, allowing them to avoid $650 million in taxes over the next 15 years that they really should have paid. The longer version, well, I wrote that for BP, and while you need a subscription for that, at the least, you could always read the ProPublica reporting from three years ago on the subject.

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