I’m sure this has something to do with website building, but how does Armenian get plugged into KMBC’s article about Royals stadium? Curiously, Google says the same typo appeared in a Business Insider Africa article two days ago. Not sports related; just curious.
NASA sounds like cell phone customer service.
NASA: “Just to confirm you are pressing the PTT (push to talk) button?”
Astronaut inside voice: “Really? I just came back from the f’ing moon and you’re asking me if I’m pressing the walkie talkie button?”
Astronaut outside voice: “Yes.”
Illinois state lawmakers willing to log roll Bears support for property tax relief clearly have no f’ing clue what the megaproject bill does. Any project’s EAV gets included in taxing authorities’ debt limit. This means tax rates can (and will) increase. capitolnewsillinois.com/news/house-r...
Show Me Act covers 50% + $50m in tax credits. That’s $1b of the proposed $1.9b (a little less in npv). The city kicks in $600m upfront, getting to $1.6b. JackCo probably kicks in the rest? Free stadium for Sherman?
A whole week to evaluate a financing plan that would give billions to a billionaire? Missouri lawmakers, you are so generous! For a reference point, as of today state and city lawmakers have had 60x more time to debate whether to ban liquor stores from selling mini liquor bottles in KC.
Oh wow, I mean OK is behind the times in a lot of ways, but I just assumed everyone by this point was using drones. I wonder if they still use cobol and mainframes.
Fun fact: Oakland Coliseum consultant in 1963 projected $6.3/yr avg (in 2026$) if it got an MLB+NHL team. It got MLB, NFL, NBA, and NHL (for a little bit), and still never hit the projection---the annual average through '95 before debt was -$400k (in 2026$). After '95, debt and subsidies explode.
The only way this bill would make sense is if it revolved around the idea that teams shouldn't leave communities until all taxpayer costs associated with a team is paid off; a public fisc hold harmless principle. Making this a national policy rather than ad hoc state/local one seems reasonable.
Also, the penalty for violating the legislation is $30k a day, or $11m a year. Dude, we live in a world where locals and states without thought agree to give billions to teams. If I'm an idiot lawmaker trying to attract a team, the $11m a year penalty is simply part of the subsidy package.
The legislation completely glosses over the difficulty of defining "fair price" for a team, particularly given leagues are legally sanctioned cartels. The leagues determine team prices by controlling supply. By putting up barriers to mobility, the legislation will just push up prices.
This won't stop subsidies, and probably would increase them, but the one piece of the legislation that would have intriguing effects is prohibiting leagues from prohibiting governments from owning teams.
About to watch Congressman Greg Casar and Bernie talk about the new Home Team Act, which would require a team owner to sell a team locally before moving across state lines or across MSAs. www.sanders.senate.gov/wp-content/u...
Remember that Sam Darnold jock tax story that went viral a month back? Folks with basic state inc tax knowledge knew it was wrong bc it excluded bonuses, ignored local inc taxes, and made residency assumptions. Here’s a great article explaining that bad viral tax math. www.cfo.com/news/what-cf...
Was cleaning out some files from a box @neildemause.bsky.social gave me a decade ago and found this 1979 Topps Jamie Easterly card. Assuming I remember to bring it, you’ll be receiving a gift at the sports econ conf @jcbradbury.com
Quote fixed. Just a reminder that when the Cowboys moved to Arlington, Irving's sales tax revenue increased (holding rates constant). fox4kc.com/sports/chief...
No reason for the author to exaggerate here. I collect the data on this. It’s more like a coin toss with direct democracy, but yeah, it’s all but certain the representative democracy route. www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootb...
My univ is on the verge of a 3yr contract with OpenAI, which will now give the feds access to anything emps/students use ChatGPT for w/o subpoena/CORA. Contract was in the works before the anthropic news, but I don't trust my leaders to care about such trivial things as academic freedom and privacy.
Seriously. I don’t think people realize the handful of us in this policy analysis space spend 98% of our time thinking about and studying this crap. Well, 98% for me because the Kings are having a terrible year.
To be fair, you issue debt, you build something. That something could be an amenity that boosts values. But that really depends on what you (taxing dists) buy and how it and the debt is managed. If you buy stuff, stuff needs to be maintained and replaced, which again needs tax dollars to support.
This means that if a taxing district treats the new EAV as windfall, it'll issue more debt, which will cause ptaxes to increase in the not-so-long run. Ptaxes capitalize into lower values, which means less equity. This mechanism will make prop owners poorer. It is such a stupid clause in HB0910.
If you live in Illinois, you have my sympathy for what your state lawmakers are about to do to you. If HB0910 passes as is, any megaproject's EAV will be allowed to enter a taxing district's debt capacity limit even though those projects won't be paying ptaxes on post-con EAV b/c of the freeze.
Given all the attention on the Bears, it’s easy to miss voters in my neighbor to the north, Greeley, overturning a local law giving taxpayer resources for a sports and theme park anchored mixed use development. www.9news.com/article/news...
Based Bears proposed uses at AH, I estimate the value of the property assessment freeze to the Bears in HB2789 is worth about $2b over 30 years, or $67 million a year before PILOT. I low ball multiple things to create lower limit. I wouldn't be surprised to see the est closer to $3b at build out.
On IN Bears fiscal note: worth pointing out my local tax $ ests from last week are close to this week's LSA numbers. I think they low ball (not unreasonably) ticket tax. Biggest unknown is district size. Taxpayer resources easily past $4b with current knowns. DC still holds on to the crown for now.
Add another $2.5b nom to that $4b est. I priced out just the countywide F&B sales tax in Lake and Porter, Lake doubling of innkeeper tax, and ticket tax and these come to $2.5b over 35yrs. To be clear, how you pay for debt is a separate policy issue from how much to go into debt & who pays for it.
IN offering Bears mega TIF through its PSDA program. PSDA’s are 1mi straight line from the PSDA border, so lots of cannibalization will occur. Lawmakers say it’ll cost $1b, but that’s only if you count like a politician. Debt service, mid-lease reno , tax exp, debt capacity opp cost alone are ~$4b.
Hahaha! I’ve had a night to sleep on this news, and still my only thought is laughter. www.wqad.com/article/news...
Here we go again. STAR bonds (but in IL), "transformational", politicians changing their minds...taxpayer dollars for sports facilities and data centers (and others ofc), so f'ing stupid.
www.ksdk.com/article/news...
My favorite part of this article is where the author opines Portland has been mismanaged and then argues that a partial solution would be to give the Blazers' billionaire owner hundreds of millions more in city and county taxpayer resources. www.oregonlive.com/blazers/2026...
“Just local sales tax” is false. Olathe levies a ptax millage, and rezoning the parcel away from ag and making it exempt creates a ~$1.7m/yr cost for city residents; $37m in pv over 30 yrs. The county, schools, and state also will face ptax costs. www.kansascity.com/news/local/c...