Atlanta Braves Morning Chop: Shuffling and Getting Shuffled
A Tale of Two Cities: the Consequences of Standing Your Ground… and of ‘Buying In’
Phoenix, Arizona and Atlanta, Georgia.
Cobb County Commission Chair Tim Lee. Chose to make a deal with the Braves to move them to Cobb while supporting their need for a new stadium. $400+ million in new taxpayer commitments that frugal Cobb residents did not know about until after the fact.
He’s out of a job today.
Maricopa County Supervisor Andy Kunasek. Basically told the Arizona Diamondbacks where they could shove their request for $187 million in maintenance and stadium improvements over the next 12 years (plus a request to be reimbursed for $65 million of previous maintenance). It was an extraordinary tirade of a letter, particularly coming from a public official.
He could lose his city’s team.
Actually, he pretty much kicked them out of town all by himself.
About the Economy and Baseball
Derrick Hall, President and CEO of the Diamondbacks, wrote a reply (which quoted some of the jaw-dropping comments from Kunasek).
In Hall’s reply, he went to some length explaining the economic benefits that his team provides to Maricopa County, notably that their initial investment of $238 million in Chase Field has resulted in $507 millions in direct taxes paid…not counting the satellite benefits, which they estimate at $7.5 billion over that period of time.
He goes into great detail showing dollar figure after dollar figure about his team and the ballpark have substantially added to the economy of Phoenix. I won’t bore you with the detail here – it’s all laid out in that letter, but it’s fairly remarkable: even if you might believe that the numbers are embellished high by 100%, the county easily got their money back… and much more.
Certainly, those numbers can be used as a starting point to draw parallels to SunTrust Park and the new Cobb stadium… and indeed to the lost benefits to Atlanta that will now move North with the club.
Public ballpark financing schemes – even in partnership with the teams – are never popular. But frankly, I have to suggest that those opposing such deals (certainly for baseball, which has 81 home dates per year while the NFL has fewer than 10) have not dug deeply into the numbers to realize that there’s actually a real benefit to the investment.
Next: The Week That Was in the Minors
Meanwhile, I would have to wonder now where the DBacks might end up? Charlotte? Portland? Montreal? Las Vegas? San Antonio? Orlando? Vancover? Nashville? Certainly all bridges to Phoenix are now imploded, burned, buried and now being hauled to a landfill out in the desert.
Maybe some of those politicians will do the math… right after the November elections.