The Blazers’ $4.25 billion buyer owes team more than bargain-basement management | Bill Oram If paying for the upkeep of an NBA franchise is more than you can afford, then you shouldn’t be in the business of buying an NBA team.

This is what $600 million of taxpayer money gets you. Seriously, stop electing the jock-sniffers that give your tax dollars to these assholes.

Look at Salt Lake City and Portland, too. Both had passed funding for MLB stadiums (perhaps not great markets). Now that the NHL and NBA have secured subsidies, the tax dollars and political appetite likely isn't there. Charlotte, too: both NFL and NBA teams got big public money.

The Nashville experience shows the capabilities of NFL and MLB commissioners. Goodell recognized a cash-poor owner in an MLB-less market and pushed to grab a subsidy while Manfred encouraged Fisher to wallow in his fantasies out west. The A's could be in Nashville right now.

For reporters around the country who keep listing Nashville as a viable MLB relocation/expantion target. IT'S NOT!

"No shortage of potential options"? Why did the A's end up in a lukewarm smaller market with a deal so bad it's still unclear how the owner will pay for it? I swear, if someone mentions Nashville, I'm going to lose it.

The second phrase from Babby: “Should this commitment ultimately not be achievable, we would have no choice but to evaluate alternatives; however, that is not our desired outcome. Time and action are of the essence going into Thursday’s workshop.” That, too, seems clear, that if this project doesn’t happen, with votes slated for early next month, the new owners will start to look for a new home elsewhere. With a number of markets gearing up for MLB’s planned expansion following resolution of the Rays’ 20-year stadium quest, there will be no shortage of potential options for a new home, with the benefit of getting an up-and-running organization and team.

2) Ah yes, the veiled and unspecific relocation "threat," another subsidy pretext classic. The team has been using this one since it was the Devil Rays. Where? What better market has a massive stadium deal on the table? Until there is, there's no point in worrying about it.

Here's evidence from the last four decades. New stadiums did not result in improved team performance, which is consistent with the economics of team investment flows. This doesn't stop owners from claiming it will happen, though. bsky.app/profile/jcbr...

The first: “This level of investment is necessary to sustain a championship-caliber organization year after year, a commitment we have upheld since acquiring the team.” That certainly suggests the additional revenues from the new stadium would support a higher payroll than their usual bottom-five commitment (roughly $85 million this year).

1) Novelty & development revenues aren't needed to invest in talent. If winning generates revenue, the billionaire owner has the funds to hire better players. These revenues are pocketed by the owner, not reinvested. It makes no sense to cross-subsidize your less profitable team.

These are the same old BS talking points that team officials have been repeating for years.

Oh no. Well, does he do economic impact consulting?

The fictional racoon penis guy is no less credible than the Rays stadium "study" commissioned by the Tampa Sports Authority.

There is nothing to suggest *this* stadium will be "a sound project." 50 years of research consistently shows that stadiums are bad public investments that don't pay off.🎶This One Will Be Different🎶 is the siren song that has crashed many stadium projects on the fiscal reality.

This assertion is just flat wrong. The urban surroundings myth was debunked 20 years ago (Cleveland, Baltimore, etc.). It doesn't change the economics of stadiums, it just reshuffles local commerce from one part of the city to another, and not necessarily in a positive way.

As we explain here, there is no free lunch of funding to be collected from taxing the surrounding area. The funding has to come from local taxpayers. This is falling for a fiscal illusion. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author...

Stadiums have positive and negative spillovers, and thus it's wrong to assume even the local benefits will be positive. And those that exist go to certain types of establishments, at the expense of similar businesses further away. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author...

It's good to seek out expert opinions, but in this case, the person consulted doesn't appear to be familiar with the research. This statement is uninformed conjecture. Sports venues DO NOT increase the value of the tax base. At best, it's an intrajurisdictional reallocation.

Me, every day.

To show you what a generous guy I am, if anyone ever gives me $1 billion, I will cover all cost overruns.

Sure was nice of San Diego taxpayers to not only build the team a new stadium, but give the owner development rights to the surrounding area that was "emerging as San Diego’s most desirable real estate investment opportunity." doi.org/10.1177/1078...

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Cobb's CFO Bill Volckmann basically served as the research assistant for Andy Zimbalist, whom the Braves hired to defend their precious "game-changer" development.

And here is Cobb County Manager Jackie McMorris falsely stating that Truist Park is paid for by "transportation taxes." It's almost all property taxes, plus two hotel taxes and a car rental tax. How does the County Manager not know this? ajc.com/opinion/2025...

And to follow up further, Cobb County officials are not reliable on the financials. They continue to report select figures in a way that makes it appear that the deal was a success, even though the numbers show the opposite. I explained in this Twitter thread. x.com/jc_bradbury/...

But that's not right either. $2.6 mil is just the revenue collected at The Battery (in 2023). Even though that's not all new (some of it is reallocated) the County needs ~$19 million/ year to cover its obligations. The annual deficit is ~$15 million/year. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

You're absolutely right. I was writing too quickly and misread my notes in a report from a Cobb County administrator. The correct figure is $2.6 million, which makes $577 million sound, um, asinine.

UPDATE

Does hosting a professional sports team benefit the local community? Evidence from property assessments Local governments often justify subsidizing sports stadiums as economic development projects that have positive returns on investment. If this is true, economic and quality-of-life spillovers that are capitalized in local property values ought to generate additional tax revenue for host municipalities through increased property assessments. This analysis uses the synthetic control method to estimate the effect of a new publicly-funded professional baseball stadium and team relocation on property assessments in Cobb County, Georgia. Cobb assessment values did not increase relative to other metro-Atlanta counties following the stadiums’ announcement or opening, which is inconsistent with the stadium having a positive fiscal impact, even with its desirable location and accompanying mixed-used development. The findings are consistent with past economic studies and are likely generalizable to other stadium projects.

I directly looked at this, and property values in Cobb County did NOT increase because of the stadium. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

This statement from John Romano is factually incorrect. Truist Park absolutely has NOT added $577 million in property taxes and other revenues to cover bond payments. I have no idea where such an asinine assertion even comes from.

Rays throw down ultimatum on stadium deal ahead of county workshop - Tampa Bay Business Journal Rays CEO Ken Babby sent an email to Hillsborough commissioners telling them that "time and action are of the essence" ahead of a workshop scheduled for Thursday afternoon.

"Build us a stadium or we'll continue to threaten to leave for another 20 years."