…and the public will pay for most of it. Realistically, that was the only way to keep the team in Western New York, and New York State and Erie County made that decision.
Here is one take from a retired sports writer who covered the Bills for many years. That no doubt affects his opinion.
And, here is a totally different take from another writer. She makes some good points but also goes off on a few irrelevant tangents. I mentioned in another thread that she has an axe to grind.
The Royals floated a downtown stadium a few months ago and now the Chiefs leaked thus they may move across the State Line to the Kansas side
Their leases go until 2031 and there is almost zero public support for any tax money going to the teams.
Buffalo Bill? It puts the lotion on it’s stadium.
My problem with cities and states paying for stadiums is that it always seems to be a sweeter deal for the team than it is for the taxpayers. They get to sell naming rights - they shouldn’t. They get to keep the bulk of parking. They shouldn’t. They get to keep the bulk of concessions - They shouldn’t.
The other thing is that a lot of the people paying to build the stadium can’t afford the game day experience. Between $35 and $50 for parking, Between $90 and $120 for tickets to the game. One beer for the price of a six pack. One COKE for the price of a 12 pack. A $10 hot dog. Two people going to an NFL game can easily be out $300 for the afternoon.
How would the public react if the Chiefs were going to leave the area without a new stadium? I don’t mean just across to Kansas but totally out of the Kansas City area all-together.
That is what Buffalo faced. Without a new stadium the team would have certainly been gone. And, according to reports the current stadium will be structurally unsound in about five years, and the costs to upgrade it would have been about as much as a new stadium. So, continuing to play there long-term was not an option.
As a Buffalo Bills fan my heart wants the team to stay there.
As for my logical side, it is easy to talk about how these deals are better for the owner, but on the flip side in most cases, especially in smaller markets, it would not be a money-making proposition for the owner to fund a football stadium himself. And, most owners are not in the habit of losing money just for the sake of keeping a football team in a local area.
Terry and Kim Pegula have already made a commitment to keeping the team in Buffalo. I think it is safe to say that they could do a lot better if they were to either move the team themselves or sell it to somebody who will move it. They are foregoing more money by staying in Buffalo, but I doubt anybody expects them to lose money out of the goodness of their hearts for Buffalo.
The cold hard fact is that for small markets it does not make sense from the owner’s perspective to fund a stadium himself. I also recall reading an article a while back which made the point that the smaller the market the higher the public portion of funding will be. A larger market such as Los Angeles may offer other opportunities to create revenue streams associated with such a project, but not so for a place like Buffalo. Thus, if a smaller market wants to keep an NFL franchise, it will have to pony up a good amount of money for the stadium to do so. If it does not, it will most likely lose the franchise and had better be prepared for that outcome.
From a market POV, you’d never put a team in Buffalo. Fresno is almost the same size and Buffalo is shrinking. But it’s there and there’s something to be said for maintaining existing teams.
Same with Green Bay.
That can be said of several teams now in all professional sports. The professional sports industry and many markets have changed since those franchises were established.
It almost certainly won’t happen.
Hunt doesn’t have Kroenke money.
Yes, it probably made sense at the time the teams were formed.
When Lamar Hunt passed, I was a little bit worried that he would come in and make demands of a new stadium or threaten to move. I was surprised (and pleased) that he didn’t . I sometimes wonder if there is something in his will stipulating that the team remain in KC. I believe Ewing Kauffman had a stipulation like that for the Royals.
They can squawk about moving to Kansas, but Kansas City, Kansas doesn’t have a lot of money to throw around, and the money that they do throw to lure business goes mostly to the Western part of the county. Residents in the eastern part of the county wouldn’t go for paying for a stadium (and a stadium would definitely be built in the Western part of the county. Johnson County is much wealthier, but I don’t think they’d be willing to use tax breaks to build a stadium there. And there’s no way that the state would help.
That doesn’t answer my question. How would Kansas City react if the Chiefs did threaten to move out of the area. And, if Kansas City were to hypothetically say to Hunt that they were not going to spend one dime of public money for a new stadium and put it solely on Hunt, that could very easily happen.
Edit: This assumes that the situation is similar to Buffalo where the current stadium would not be viable long-term and the choice was either a new local stadium or a new location.
I don’t have a dog in that hunt, but I think people would say “Thanks for the memories”. One drive down pretty much any street in KCMO and you’ll see hundreds of different uses for tax money besides a stadium.
Before Ralph Wilson passed he signed a fairly iron-clad lease that would keep the Bills in Buffalo through 2023. There are also reports that he stipulated that the team not be sold to somebody who would move the team. At the same time, he also knew that the stadium would eventually be an issue, which is why he had the 2023 expiration date.
As much as I hate to say it, the NFL business model is what it is and complaining about it will not change it. If a small market like Buffalo wants to keep its NFL franchise it will have to pony up a good amount of money for the stadium. If Ralph Wilson were still alive today this would be playing out the same way.
I’m thinking of starting my own business and lobbying the city to build my office for me. I’d promise them all sorts of great new jobs. I’m not a fan of taxes being used to build stadiums, but if they had build one, I’d rather pay for a basketball arena (and I don’t like basketball). Sprint (now T-Mobile) Center was built in part to lure a pro basketball team. That didn’t pant out. But there is something going on in that building pretty much every week. And that benefits the city. Arrowhead Stadium usually sits empty - save for an extremely rare concert.
I read that football stadiums cost the most to build and are used the least, That does not make them good business propositions on their own.
I still remember the old proposal for Farmers Field, the proposed football stadium that would have been built next to the Los Angeles Convention Center such that it could have been used for convention business along with football. AEG was going to build it, and it didn’t go anywhere when AEG said it wanted to buy a piece of the NFL team that moved there at a discount.
I will tell you in ten years.
That is when the lease is up.
Green Bay is a very different situation. The Packers have sold out every game since 1959. People wait years, if not decades, for season tickets, and sign up their children and grandchildren. When the team needs cash, they sell some ‘stock.’ Well, it’s more like psuedo-stock.
From my understanding, that is essentially public money the team is raising. The only difference between that and other stadiums is that the people are willingly contributing their funds through the purchase of that “stock.”
Here is what Wikipedia says about that:
Green Bay Packers, Inc. - Wikipedia.
Shareholder rights
Even though it is referred to as “common stock” in corporate offering documents, a share of Packers stock does not share the same rights traditionally associated with common or preferred stock. It does not include an equity interest, does not pay dividends, cannot be traded, and has no protection under securities law. It also confers no season-ticket purchasing privileges. Shareholders receive nothing more than voting rights, an invitation to the corporation’s annual meeting, and an opportunity to purchase exclusive shareholder-only merchandise.
Shares cannot be resold, except back to the team for a fraction of the original price. While new shares can be given as gifts, transfers are technically allowed only between immediate family members once ownership has been established.
For practical purposes, that does not sound like anything beyond a contribution to the Green Bay Packers for whatever they need the funds for.
That model is also grandfathered in and would not be allowed today. MCarley is correct that Green Bay would not be considered as a potential market for an NFL franchise if it did not already have one.
A poster from the CH boards (the bunny) was a Green Bay fan and has been on the waiting list for something like 11 years. I believe her current position on that list (as of a few years ago) was still in the thousands. That may be pseudo-stock, but that type of ownership may well keep the Packers in GB forever.