Slow news week, busy Friday roundup, as the saying goes. (I didn't say it was an old saying.) Roger Goodell and a Chicago Bears minority owner met this week with Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and state le...

There are, when it comes down to it, really only two ways to conduct a campaign for public money for a sports facility: good cop, and bad cop. You can work to field a winning team, and then argue that...

Kansas City has revealed the dimensions of the mega-TIF district where all increases in sales and income tax receipts, and half of all increases in hotel tax receipts, would be siphoned off and given ...

Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx owners Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez have been muttering since buying the teams in 2021 about wanting a new arena, and team officials just started muttering louder and i...

Is there any journalism trope more tiresome than bothsidesing? Ducking the hard task of investigating the facts by just throwing up your hands and saying "different people disagree" is so plainly egre...

I mentioned briefly here the week before last that Brook Park had designated the land around a planned new Cleveland Browns stadium to be "blighted," which Mayor Edward Orcutt said “gives us the oppor...

Running late today, let's do a speed round: Upkeep costs for the Cleveland Guardians stadium and Cavaliers arena continue to climb, with one estimate placing them at $261 million, and the county-run G...

Kansas City NPR station KCUR, which has a pretty bad record of trying to explain stadium financing, set out to do an explainer today on the city's plan to spend $600 million toward a new Royals stadiu...

Speaking of bad math, an economic analysis of the impact of the 2028 Olympics on Los Angeles, conducted by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. on behalf of the city's Olympic organizing ...

For some inexplicable reason, the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle got an interview with New York state governor Kathy Hochul that ran this morning, and decided to spend it asking her all about how mu...

The Chicago Sun-Times has a long explainer up about Justin Ishbia's proposed White Sox stadium, and while it gets off to a shaky start — "Why do the White Sox want a new stadium?" "The team is under l...

Washington, D.C. council chair Phil Mendelson's proposal to give D.C. United's owners $300 million for upgrades to their eight-year-old stadium is facing opposition from Mayor Muriel Bowser, who has a...

It’s been a while since I’ve thanked everyone who makes this site possible through their generous donations, so: Thanks, everyone, who makes this site possible through your generous donations! I hope ...

With the Athletics seemingly settled on setting the Fisher family fortune on fire in Las Vegas, and Tampa Bay Rays owner Patrick Zalupski about to receive the spendiest gift stadium in history, the th...

What's worse than a Friday news dump? A Saturday news dump on a three-day weekend: Canal Edge LLC – a Chicago-based development and investment firm owned by White Sox minority owner Justin Ishbia – re...

Welcome to the end of another programming week, one that was way busier than you'd expect for the dregs of summer. Let's get through the rest of the week's news and get you out of here for the long we...

Following Tuesday's announcement of the sale of controlling interest in the Los Angeles Angels to multi-sport team owner Stan Kroenke, Forbes baseball writer Barry Bloom wrote this: Kroenke intends to...

Arizona Diamondbacks stadium renovation talks appear to be at a standstill again, with team CEO Derrick Hall telling Axios that lease talks with Maricopa County have been "non-productive to date" and ...

Los Angeles Angels owner Arte Moreno announced yesterday that he is selling the team to Los Angeles Rams/Denver Nuggets/Colorado Avalanche owner Stan Kroenke, and most of the news coverage has — right...

The Hillsborough County Commission voted 5-2 on Friday to approve a new Tampa Bay Rays stadium development on the current campus of Hillsborough College, making the team's long-running saga all over b...

YouTube video by Hillsborough County Meetings

The Tampa city council spent all day meeting yesterday about the Tampa Bay Rays stadium deal, but honestly they could have saved time and just voted first thing in the morning. Public speakers were sp...

With the Tampa city council set to vote today on its share of $2 billion–plus in subsidies for a $2.36 billion Tampa Bay Rays stadium, councilmember Lynn Hurtak has posted a video "busting myths about...

The Beacon ran a long article late last week about the Kansas City Royals stadium proposal that includes a bunch of worthwhile analysis of the deal, including why using taxes from in and around the stadium isn't really the project "paying for itself." ("Some ballgame attendees might be going to a Crown Center restaurant instead of...

Also on Friday, the Kansas City TIF Commission issued its Downtown Stadium TIF Plan, spelling out in a bit more detail — though still far from complete detail — what public money will be going to a ne...

The revised Tampa Bay Rays stadium plan paperwork was released on Friday afternoon, in a classic Friday news dump. The idea behind these is to dominate the discourse just as everyone goes home for the...

First things first: The Kansas City council voted on a proposed city funding package for a new Royals stadium yesterday, and as expected, it sailed through, with councilmembers voting 11-2 to approve a series of agreements promising $600 million in cash plus at least $500 million in tax breaks toward a new $1.9 billion stadium at...

The $1.5 billion–plus Kansas City Royals stadium subsidy plan sailed through its first city council committee hearing yesterday, with the Finance, Governance and Public Safety Committee voting unanimo...

A Kansas City council committee is set to vote today on approving city money toward a new Royals stadium, so naturally the actual legislation didn't get released until yesterday, providing everyone in...

The San Antonio city council has completed its hearing on Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones' proposal to put a measure on the November ballot on whether to devote $489 million in city money to a new Spurs arena,...

False Promises and Fiscal Realities of Publicly Funded Stadiums, by economist J.C. Bradbury.

In case you missed it, sports economist/meme master J.C. Bradbury has a new book on sports subsidy deals due out soon: This One Will Be Different details the latest in stadium and arena deals and why ...

City and host committee leaders declared Houston’s role in the 2026 FIFA World Cup an overwhelming success, drawing over 1.1 million total participants and half a million out-of-town visitors across s...

The standard stadium playbook was laid out by Joanna Cagan and myself back in Chapter 4 of Field of Schemes, “The Art of the Steal,” and hasn’t changed much since. The move threats, promises of illuso...

After months of public debate, the Portland city council voted 8-4 yesterday to approve spending $120 million toward renovations to the Trail Blazers arena, plus $275 million for upgrades over the nex...

Ever since Tampa councilmember Bill Carlson announced a few days ago that he'd be willing to consider casting a swing vote for a Tampa Bay Rays stadium if the city's share came out of a different pot ...

The Portland city council is set to vote on a term sheet today for the proposed $600 million Trail Blazers arena renovations deal, and it may not look like the one that was initially proposed. Late ye...

A Kansas City council committee was all set yesterday to consider allocating $20 million to a Royals stadium fund for something unspecified, when Mayor Quinton Lucas abruptly pulled it from the meetin...