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September 30, 2004
Baseball At Any Price?
With the official announcement of the Expos move to D.C. out of the way, the hard work of getting the stadium financing package through the D.C. City Council, closing the deal on the appeasment of Orioles owners Peter Angelos and getting RFK Stadium ready to host a baseball game in time for an April 15, 2005 season opener with the Arizona Diamondbacks, all begins. Not to be a party pooper in the midst of the hoopla, but shouldn't somebody be asking whether or not this is a good idea for the District financially? Click here to read the Post's account of the negotiations -- one that seems to suggest that the District's offer -- described as the most lucrative in all of baseball -- was far higher than it needed to be: In defense of the deal, negotiators point out that the $440 million stadium financing package crafted by District leaders had to be favorable enough to the Expos to win the approval of Major League Baseball, which exercises monopolistic control over team locations. It also had to trump a rival bid from Northern Virginia and compensate baseball for the financial damage claims that were expected from Baltimore Orioles owner Peter G. Angelos. Hmm. Those "moral obligation" bonds again. So what you have here is a state that is relatively wealthy, with a rapidly growing population and a long history of fiscal probity getting outbid by a city with less wealth, a far smaller population and a recent reputation for fiscal profligacy. As another observer notes later in the Post story, the District's offer has essentially removed all the risk from this move from the eventual owners of the team. But what the Post story doesn't spell out is that risk is now firmly planted on the shoulders of the District's taxpayers. Which means you better hope this team hits all of its financial projections, because if it doesn't, the shortfall will have to come out of the pockets of District residents. WTOP is asking its listeners what they want to name the team. The crowd at DCist has other ideas. Find the rest of their summary of yesterday's events, here. More later. UPDATE: Let's go to Sally Jenkins, the only columnist at the Post with the guts to call out this deal for exactly what it is: Because MLB intimidated the city into building it a free stadium. The blind acceptance of that is amazing. Here's the worst thing about this deal: It creates no incentive for the owners of this team to stay in Washington. They will be getting the short end of the TV stick; they will be paying a premium for the team, and they have no vested interest in the real estate. They'll enjoy big crowds for a season or two but the novelty will wear off, and then what? When the team isn't very good and they don't have enough TV revenue and the crowds stop coming out, what keeps them from pulling up stakes? And going to Charlotte, or Vegas, or San Juan? Bingo. Meanwhile, Major League Baseball has already set aside some Web real estate for D.C. Baseball. Jayson Stark, straining to be funny at ESPN.com: Well, now there may be no reason to recite every event in English and French. But in a cosmopolitan town like Washington, there's no reason to stop using two languages. We suggest a guest language of the day. And someone from the local embassy could stop by and make all p.a. announcements in the language du jour. We hope someone thinks about that. Hasta manana. Looks like Stark has never been to a D.C. United match. Better than 31,000 showed up in Montreal last night for the Expos final home game. With current Expos GM Omar Minaya decamping for New York, there's some speculation that current Yankees GM Brian Cashman, alumni of D.C.'s Catholic University, might be ready to jump ship. And as always, special thanks to go Bill Yurasko, who has been doing incredible work on compiling every conceivable link on the deal.
Eric
06:52 AM
Trackback PingsTrackBack URL for this entry: CommentsSomeone is indeed asking if this is a good move for D.C. Her name's Sally Jenkins. Posted by: at September 30, 2004 08:33 AM D.C. may be paying too steep a price for a ballclub, many of whose more well-off fans will drive in from Montgomery and Fairfax County. But the price was going to be high because MLB has had to carry the team for a while, and has to guarantee Angelo$ a certain amount of annual profit, a sale price on the Orioles, and develop a regional sports network for both clubs. Bud stuck it to us, but I'm still gonna go see Bonds, Sammy and Pujols. Like the MCI Center in Chinatown, the stadium will pay off in several ways. Posted by: at September 30, 2004 08:34 AM Many posters at baseballthinkfactory.org like the name 'Grays' for the team (or is that 'Greys') due to the history of that name in the Washington era. I've grown to like it, especially over choices like the Senators (zzzzzz) and Generals. Posted by: at September 30, 2004 11:03 AM I applaud Jenkins' column (she's the "good" version of Christine Brennan), but I would dissent from the opening line of the paragraph Eric cited, namely, "MLB intimidated the city into building it a free stadium." Until someone shows me evidence Bud Selig held a gun to Tony Williams' head or Bob DuPuy took hostages, it's flat-out wrong to state baseball "intimidated" or "coerced" (a word used in an ESPN report) D.C. into doing anything. Major League Baseball cannot impose taxes or seize land. The D.C. government can. They alone are the initiators of force here. Baseball took advantage of the situation, for which they deserve criticism, but city officials always had freedom of action. Posted by: at September 30, 2004 04:12 PM Post a commentThanks for signing in, . (If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.) |