With both Kansas and Clay County backing out, KCMO should be in the driver's seat to limit subsidies for a Royals stadium — though Chiefs owner Clark Hunt didn't have anyone else offering him $4B, and that didn't stop him from fleecing Kansas.

Of the couple billion dollars the Bears would require for a new stadium, Indiana has so far identified (checks notes) $0, which may be another reason Illinois officials feel confident about telling the team to pound sand.

The trademark fiasco adds one more note of hilarity to the A's relocation dumpster fire, but temporarily not being able to rein in bootleg "Vegas Athletics" t-shirt sellers doesn't seem likely to be the biggest roadblock to the team moving to Vegas.

The Devils extended their lease on their now 19-year-old arena until 2038 — in exchange for city-built parking garages — but the $300m subsidy package is still moving forward now, for unexplained reasons.

The issue is not that by subsidizing a Chiefs stadium, Kansas will lose money it gets now, but rather that it will lose money it would otherwise get in the future — which still has the potential to blow a huge hole in the state budget.

Finally, an economic model that adds up!

When owners of teams like the Bears and Royals can point to previous deals handing over $4B+ in land and tax money as the cost of doing business, it makes it easier for state, county, and city officials to say, "Sure, do we at least get a luxury box?"

Also, development expert Patrick Tuohey estimates that total sales within the entire 300-square-mile Chiefs stadium district would have to more than double just for the state to break even, making it likely that Kansas would have to dip into its existing tax base.

Economist Geoff Propheter: "Chiefs games and concerts, using the stupidest, most unreasonably generous assumptions I can't justify without laughing, only gets the state to 33% of the way to the annual debt service needed under existing tax policy."

This all seems destined to end with the Cavs and Guardians owners signing new lease extensions in exchange for more public cash. You'd like to see Cleveland officials drive a hard bargain, but if they could write good leases, they wouldn't be in this mess.

To pay off stadium bonds, Chiefs-related new spending would need to be $2.7B a year — for a team whose total revenue is less than a quarter of that. Each and every Chiefs fan would need to spend an extra $4,000 per game for Kansas to break even.

To pay off $3B in STAR bonds, all increased future sales and liquor tax proceeds across much of two counties will be siphoned off to pay the Chiefs stadium bill; Kansans across the whole state will bear the cost of replacing that money in the state budget.

The stadium tax district would cannibalize sales and liquor taxes from an enormous chunk of the NE corner of Kansas, puttiing the lie to Gov. Kelly's claim that the Chiefs deal "requires no new funds from the current state budget."

An Ohio judge issued a restraining order on giving $600m to the Browns because plaintiffs could suffer "irreparable harm" if the state was allowed to raid unclaimed funds. The state's response: It's all cool, we have plenty of money to cover kiting checks.

Forget $3B+, actual Chiefs stadium subsidy is $4B+, according to calculations by the national expert in sports tax breaks. (Clark Hunt would only get ~$3.3B of this, but there's also money that has to go to bond buyers, banks, etc.)

Luring the Chiefs would cost Kansas taxpayers more than $3B, the second most costly stadium project in history, behind only the off-the-charts insane Washington Commanders deal. (That sound you just heard is of Royals owner John Sherman drooling audibly.)

Mostly, this seems to be a way for the Kansas legislature to declare that the Chiefs have met the end-of-2025 deadline to be eligible for the state STAR bonds — as have the Royals, apparently, despite no concrete stadium plans at all.

"This is not about leverage," added Bears CEO Kevin Warren, but when you issue a public letter announcing that the only reason you're considering leaving your state is because the state won't lavish $1B on you, it's hard to read it any other way.

T-Wolves co-owner A-Rod called a new arena "an anchor to the community," so presumably this is meant to examine that claim — though if so, quoting an economist saying "asked and answered" under a headline making it seem an open question is ... a choice.

While ticket taxes come mostly out of the Blue Jackets' hide, diverting casino taxes is just a straight-up handout: about $35m worth of future payments that will go into the team owner's pocket instead of to public services.

Summit president Jen Millet insists: "When you’re a tenant in a stadium, it’s not your true hub. Women deserve that. Just like men.” We'll regroup Monday to see if team execs stick with appeals to gender equity, or go back to threats to move to the burbs.

Rent and taxes will be haggled over in talks, which, if the goal is a "better and financial sustainable situation" (sic) for the Whitecaps, tracks: You don't make windfall profits by leasing city land at market rate, you do it by getting a sweetheart deal.

Cleveland's mayor's office says it wants to find money for Guardians and Cavaliers stadium upkeep but that "the general revenue fund cannot be held accountable." How good is your brownie recipe, Mr. Mayor?

FIFA, in the most FIFA-y way possible, told cities that bearing all the World Cup costs while getting no direct revenue (not even sales taxes!) would be fine, because they could sell their own sponsorships — then made it nearly impossible to find sponsors.

At this point, any particular Royals stadium site has to be viewed as part leverage play — not just how much money owner John Sherman could get from it, but how much he could get from other local governments by waving it in their faces as a threat.

It's not clear a new stadium would do much for the Rays' finances — a new stadium plus public subsidies might, but then the problem you're solving is less "Where can the Rays play?" than "How can the Rays owners increase their profits via taxpayer money?"

The way that arena got done still pisses me off and I haven’t lived in Cbus for 30 years. “If you pay for an arena you’ll get a hockey team.” Nah, we’re good. “Well, OK, we’ll build an arena then.” Yay! “If you don’t buy our arena from us you’ll LOSE your hockey team.” Hmmm, yes, OK.

Blue Jackets execs want to create "new spaces for fans to gather and enjoy their company" and "wide-ranging improvements that ultimately focus on improving the experience" and "improving and securing the future of the building." So, wine bars, probably.

Your city is nothing without a genuine, bona-fide, electrified, 10,000-seat soccer stadium, which is why Oklahoma City is spending $121m on one so fans can raise their fists to support of not nearly enough players spread out over way too much of the pitch.

Luxury seats are a response to there being a ton more Americans for whom ticket prices are no object, thanks mostly to Ronald Reagan. The ideal stadium, to an owner, is probably one incredibly opulent seat that you could then sell to Martin Shkreli.

One of the two council no votes declared, "My gut tells me this is not a good deal for the city of Cleveland." From the looks of it, everybody thinks it's not a good deal for the city of Cleveland — it's just some think this is the least bad deal possible.

Detroit City FC owners will be able to use a large chunk of $45m worth of tax kickbacks on amenities for their stadium, in exchange for contributing just $6m in new taxes — and that's the *best*-case scenario, according to the team's own rosy projections.

Good grief. This is the document being used to claim that the Detroit minor-league soccer stadium will generate a $25 mil economic impact *per year*. It's nothing but ridiculous assertions. Reporting this as some sort of credible assessment is negligence. detroitmigov.app.box.com/v/DCFC-CBO-R...

The Detroit city council approved $88m in tax breaks for a Detroit City FC soccer stadium; WXYZ reported that the project "is expected to generate $25m in annual economic impact," no source given or needed, nobody would make up a number like that, right?

Overall takeaways: 1) The Steinbrenners are saving $700m+ by not having to pay property taxes on their stadium; 2) Hal griping about still having to spend $84m/year on construction costs of his family's own stadium is close to the definition of chutzpah.

if the 2028 Olympics go over budget — and every Olympics since 1984 has, often doubling or more in cost — L.A. will be on the hook for the first $270m in losses, the state of California for the next $270m, and the city again for anything over that.

"Over my dead body am I going to let the Summit stadium leave Denver," declared Mayor Mike Johnston after team owners threatened to build elsewhere if they don't get $170m in cash and tax breaks. That's not at all how you haggle, you're doing it wrong!

Adding $500m in infrastructure bonds for the Spurs arena would bring the total to $1.3B, by far the largest arena subsidy in history, to replace a venue that is the 11th-newest in the NBA, in a city already dealing with staffing cuts to balance its budget.

Even if forcing teams to lower concession prices would put more money in fans' pockets, allowing them to spend more on tickets if they want, that hardly seems like a burden — let alone a "subsidy" for fans who have the temerity to get hungry and thirsty.

The 35,000th ticket buyer to a Northwestern game will still be sitting in the same place; they just won't have any rows of seats behind them. The 47,000th ticket buyer will indeed be spared their crappy view — because they'll be at home watching on TV.

With $70m plus ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ for a pedestrian bridge plus $100m or more in property tax breaks, city spending on a Denver Summit FC stadium could end up covering the bulk of the team owners' $200m "private" stadium cost.

Determining things like whether replacing a flooded Rays luxury suite with a nicer interior should be a city-funded repair or a team-funded upgrade could get dicey, hopefully someone in city government or the local media is keeping an eye on that, please?

Since ginning up a move threat looks just like planning a move, and team owners don't have to decide which they're doing at the outset, Chiefs owner Clark Hunt is still on the "play off neighboring states against each other" square of the game board.

NEW: 36 states lavish tax breaks on data centers. But just 11 of those states reveal the names of the companies getting the tax breaks, fewer disclose the value of the tax breaks, and NO state provides both estimated and actual jobs created. 1- goodjobsfirst.org/cloudy-data-...

That Trump wants his name on a stadium is no surprise, as he wants his name on pretty much everything. Commanders owner Josh Harris actually calling it "Trump Stadium" is another story, for a bunch of reasons.

While surely Royals owner John Sherman will use the actual poll responses in some way, you know his main concern in picking a stadium site is extricating public money — and by naming three possible locations, he creates leverage to up everybody's antes.

Cover just dropped. Coming in 2026 from Oxford University Press.

Spurs owner Peter Holt is set to get a $1.3B arena by putting down just ~$500m of his own money, and can recoup more through naming rights sales and jacking up ticket prices — while taxpayers put up the bulk of the cost and get no arena revenues in return.

"Take my tax money or I won't give you more tax money" is novel, I'll grant that. Bibb says using stadium district taxes would "shift the cost of stadium repairs away from residents," but residents are who tend to go to Cavs and Guardians games, so wha?

Phil Rogers writes the Bears owners are still trying to "find the necessary funding for needed infrastructure upgrades." Inserting both "necessary" and "needed" is piling on the owner view a bit, but on brand for a guy who once wrote a book with Bud Selig.