Sports and Arizona's Relationship is Going to Become Quite Complicated Soon
By Evan Weiner
April 24, 2010
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2010m4d24-Sports-and-Arizonas-relationship-is-going-to-become-quite-complicated-soon#
(New York, N. Y.) -- Has Arizona once again risked losing the Super Bowl?
No, this is not about the Arizona Cardinals football team bowing to the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 2009 Super Bowl and returning to the “Big Game”. That is merely a game on the field. But off the field there is now a big question.
How will the sports world react now that the Arizona Governor Jan Brewer and the state's two legislative bodies have passed a tough immigration law? Could Arizona lose major sporting events like the Super Bowl? The National Football League is in the midst of the league's draft and probably will not get around to comment on the new Arizona law but given the very political nature of the league and how the league is very sensitive to the NFL's image, it is probably a good thing that Glendale, Arizona is not in the running for the 2014 Super Bowl.
The new Arizona law will go into effect sometime this summer assuming that there are no court orders to stop it.
The National Football League has a history of pulling a Super Bowl from Arizona and putting the political weight of the entity known as the NFL into a lobbying position. Arizona "celebrates" Martin Luther King Day as the result of direct intervention by the National Football League in terms of dangling a Super Bowl in front of voters. In 1987, newly elected Arizona Governor Evan Mecham's first act in his new job was to erase Martin Luther King Day from the Arizona calendar as an official state holiday. That decision set off a boycott of the state with entertainers like Stevie Wonder refusing to perform in any venue in Arizona.
Governor Mecham's reasoning was simple. The Arizona legislature in 1986 and Governor Bruce Babbitt, in Mecham's opinion, created the holiday illegally.
The National Football League, in an attempt to help the Phoenix Cardinals owner Bill Bidwill to sell more seats after he misread the Phoenix-area market following the move of his Cardinals from St. Louis to Tempe in 1988, awarded Tempe the January 31, 1993 Super Bowl. But Mecham's decision created a number of problems for the league, specifically the National Football League Players Association was not too keen on playing the NFL's showcase game in a state where a governor took away the holiday and the action was supported by Senator John McCain.
In 1989, the Arizona state legislature approved a law making Martin Luther King Day a state holiday but voters needed to approve the measure. In 1990, Arizonans went to the polls and rejected the making Martin Luther King Day a state holiday. Shortly after the voters said no, the NFL said no to Arizona and pulled the January 31, 1993 game from Tempe.
The Super Bowl allegedly pumps money into the local economy although in the Phoenix-area's case it is not as much as say putting the "Big Game" in Pontiac, Michigan or Detroit or Minneapolis since a good number of "snowbirds" vacation or spent winters in warmer climates like the Phoenix-area, South Florida or the Tampa, Florida area. What the Super Bowl does do is bring "high rollers" into town and the local community hopes that the "high rollers" such as corporate CEOs like a local area and will leave a piece of their business in the area and open up a local headquarters and create jobs.
That rarely happens but it is a selling point for the local group hoping to land a Super Bowl.
The National Football League after pulling the 1993 game went back to Arizona and laid the cards out on the table telling voters if they approved the holiday in a November 1992 vote, the NFL would award the next available Super Bowl to Tempe. Arizona voters approved the 1992 ballot initiative and five months later the NFL lived up to their part of the bargain and granted Tempe the January 28, 1996 game.
The next available Super Bowl is the 2014 game but Glendale and Arizona officials are not bidding for that event which is probably a good thing for everyone involved at this point. The NFL also holds a spring meeting once every four years or so at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix.
There is another real sports prize that could impacted by the new Arizona law. The Glendale, Arizona stadium, that is the home to the NFL's Arizona Cardinals and hosted the 2008 Super Bowl, is one of the 18 cities that has been proposed for use by USA Bid Committee in an effort to win the FIFA World Cup in either 2018 or 2022.
The FIFA World Cup is the biggest sports event on earth.
The new law will not play well with the FIFA delegates or some of the members of the USA Bid Committee which include Houston Dynamo and Los Angeles Galaxy owner Philip Anschutz, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, comedian and Seattle Sounders FC part-owner Drew Carey, former Goldman Sachs Vice Chairman (Asia) Carlos Cordeiro, U.S. Men’s National Team player Landon Donovan, Executive Director David Downs, U.S. Soccer CEO and General Secretary Dan Flynn, U.S. Soccer Foundation President Ed Foster-Simeon, Major League Soccer Commissioner Don Garber, U.S. Soccer President and USA Bid Committee Chairman Sunil Gulati, U.S. Women’s National Team former player Mia Hamm, Walt Disney Company President and CEO Robert Iger, former U.S. Secretary of State Dr. Henry Kissinger, New England Revolution and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, Motion Picture Director Spike Lee, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, University of Miami President Donna Shalala, ESPN Executive Vice President for Content John Skipper, Univision CEO Joe Uva and Washington Post CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth.
The Glendale stadium hosted the highest attended soccer match in the state of Arizona on February 7, 2007 when 62,462 fans watched the U.S. National team defeat Mexico, 2-0. Will the new Arizona law put a halt to international football "friendlies" in Arizona featuring Mexican teams?
Major League Baseball might be keeping a close eye on the developments in Arizona. The Chicago Cubs and the Milwaukee Brewers are looking for improvements at spring training bases in Mesa and Maryvale for their teams. Naples, Florida officials have made an offer to Cubs ownership to relocate the team's spring training facilities from Mesa to Naples.
If the National Hockey League's Phoenix Coyotes remain in Glendale, the franchise's new owners could be to host the 2012 or 2013 NHL All-Star Game. Glendale was supposed to venue of the 2011 event but the club's bankruptcy filing and financial uncertainty forced the league to move the game to Raleigh, North Carolina.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association held a "March Madness" men's basketball tournament event in Glendale in 2009. Will the NCAA bypass Glendale because of the new law?
Then there is another issue. Will athletes speak up either in favor or against the new law? Athletes now tend to shut up on issues with the exception of a handful of performers like then Dallas Mavericks basketball player Steve Nash who spoke out against the Iraq War. Wayne Gretzky supported the Iraq War. Ironically Nash now plays in Phoenix and Gretzky coached in Glendale.
Arizona is a hub of sports activities. Glendale is the home of the NFL's Arizona Cardinals and the NHL's Phoenix Coyotes. The NBA Suns and Major League Baseball's Diamondbacks reside in downtown Phoenix. There is a NASCAR event along with golf and tennis events. Fifteen Major League Baseball teams hold spring training in the Phoenix area, there are major college football, basketball and baseball programs along with minor league baseball and hockey teams scattered throughout the state. The United Football League holds training camp in Casa Grande.
There is a belief that sports is the "toy store" of life and that it is just a game, an entertainment diversion. The truth is that the toy store yarn that is constantly spun is a lie. The NFL proved that in 1991 and 1992 in Arizona. There will be a sports reaction to the legislation signed into law by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, it is just a matter of time before a powerful sports group reacts and it just might cost Arizona a big event if history is any indication.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator and lecturer on "The Politics of Sports Business" and "Sports in Society." He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Showing posts with label Glendale. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Glendale. Show all posts
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Minnesota and Glendale Lawmakers Inch Closer to New Sports Deals
Minnesota and Glendale Lawmakers Inch Closer to New Sports Deals
By Evan Weiner
April 8, 2010
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2010m4d8-Minnesota-and-Glendale-lawmakers-inch-closer-to-new-sports-deals#
(New York, N. Y.) -- Local governments and sports teams have a partnership; there is no getting around that. In cash-strapped states like Arizona and Minnesota, elected officials are trying to figure out the best way to go in keeping local franchises put. Glendale, Arizona has a relatively new, publicly financed, arena that houses a bankrupt National Hockey League franchise, the Phoenix Coyotes.
Now Glendale is weighing two proposals from Coyotes suitors who would purchase the team and keep the franchise in Glendale.
In the St. Paul, Minnesota statehouses, it appears that lawmakers are warming up to some sort of deal to build the National Football League's Minnesota Vikings a new facility so that Vikings owner Zygi Wilf can utilize revenue streams that an unavailable from the Minneapolis-based Metrodome, to help fund the team.
Government support for athletic facilities stretches out over six decades with Oakland officials back in 1944 thinking of using public money to build a stadium. The real breakthrough in government support of professional sports franchises came in 1950 when Milwaukee elected officials decided to build a new stadium with public funding that they hoped would attract a Major League Baseball team and keep the Green Bay Packers playing a portion of the team's NFL schedule in town. The gambit paid off as Milwaukee officials enticed Boston Braves owner Lou Perini to move his Braves in March 1953 just a few weeks prior to the season. The stadium was enough of a lure to keep the Green Bay Packers.
Perini made a ton of money in Milwaukee and it got Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley to worry that Brooklyn would not be able to compete with Milwaukee financially. O’Malley would eventually take an offer from Los Angeles and move his team from Brooklyn even though O’Malley’s Dodgers led the National League in revenue in 1957, the final year O’Malley had a team in Brooklyn.
Perini's move started sports free agency long before an arbitrator gave Dave McNally and Andy Messersmith free agency in baseball in 1975. Owners decided to play city against city in an effort to get the best stadium or arena deal available, and the 1986 Tax Act poured gasoline on smoldering flames as the new law restricted the amount of revenue generated inside an athletic facility that went off to pay the public debt on a municipally funded stadium to just eight cents on every dollar.
Major League Baseball expanded to Denver, Miami, Phoenix and St. Petersburg and moved the Montreal Expos to Washington. Virtually every team in Major League Baseball got a new or renovated facility with the exception of Oakland.
Oakland A's owner Lew Wolff is looking to move his team with San Jose the object of his affection after flirting with Fremont, California near San Jose.
The National Football League got a publicly financed stadium in Jacksonville and expanded into that city while Jerry Richardson built a privately funded facility in Charlotte using personal seat licenses to fund the stadium.
Richardson's stadium created another monster. People had to buy a seat license and then buy a ticket to use the seat.
Wilf is one of the last of the NFL owners who has not taken advantage of government money to build a "factory" for his business. Wilf may have state legislators and Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty over a barrel in his quest for a new facility. The state has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the past few years for a new baseball stadium for the Twins and a new facility for the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers using various taxes to fund the venues. Wilf's Metrodome deal with the state is up after the 2011 season and there is a possibility that Wilf could use the possible construction of a new stadium east of Los Angeles as leverage in his battle to get a new Vikings stadium somewhere in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.
Wilf is not the only NFL owner looking for public funding. The York family, the owners of the San Francisco 49ers, is hoping that Santa Clara, California voters will look favorably at them and give them a new stadium in a June vote. Should that fail, look for both Oakland and San Francisco to start wooing the Yorks again and might ask Al Davis to join the Yorks and put his Oakland Raiders in a new stadium. The Buffalo Bills/New York State lease in Orchard Park is up after the 2012 season.
Wilf, the Yorks, Al Davis and possibly Wayne Weaver in Jacksonville have limited options though. Weaver’s Jaguars franchise is struggling to sell seats at Jacksonville’s stadium and there is no stadium available in LA equipped to handle the NFL's needs at this point. Ralph Wilson has sold a number of Bills home games to Toronto through the 2012 season. Toronto does not have a "suitable" NFL facility but there is a lot of money on Bay Street and the NFL knows that.
Meanwhile there seems to be action in Glendale regarding the sale of the Coyotes. Glendale has memoranda of understanding with two groups vying to but the bankrupt franchise, Ice Edge Holdings and the group led by Chicago White Sox and Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf. Although the National Hockey League has the final say on the future owner of the Coyotes, Glendale apparently feels uncomfortable that the city can go ahead with an agreement. Whatever the final deal is, Glendale will have to make major concessions to keep the team skating in the arena. Glendale plans to hold a public hearing on the matter on April 13.
Many cities, counties and state governments have used a variety of mechanisms to attract and keep sports teams including payment in lieu of taxes instead of full property tax payment or tax incremental funding or creating special tax districts around a facility whereby an owner keeps all of the taxes that would normally flow into municipal coffers. Cities, counties and states have assumed the responsibility of paying off the entire cost of a stadium and in one case, New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson was given a cash payment in exchanging for keeping his Saints in the New Orleans Superdome. In July, Benson will get a $23 million check from Louisiana as a thank you for sticking around as part of a $186 million bailout between 2002 and 2010. Benson and the state crafted a new deal that substantially reduces Louisiana's annual payment but Benson gets to own an office building near the Superdome that will house state government offices and create an entertainment zone around the Superdome in exchange. Benson will get Louisiana money but not a straight handout starting in 2011.
New arenas do not mean success however. Memphis and Charlotte are prime examples of financial failures in the NBA despite new surroundings and the Phoenix Coyotes have a poor financial legacy.
But sports leagues are monopolies and city, county and state officials like being branded “Big League.” It takes a long time for a city to replace a team in most circumstances with Cleveland being a lone exception. The NFL got a municipally funded stadium agreement with Cleveland Mayor Michael White not long after Browns owner announced that he was taking his team to Baltimore for the 1996 season in the fall of 1995. Cleveland threatened to sue the NFL and by February 1996 a plan was worked out and the NFL "expanded" into Cleveland in 1999. Cities that lose teams seemingly are punished and eventually work their way back in but that is a long and expensive process which is why Glendale officials and lawmakers in Minnesota are looking to resolve their situations and keep the teams. It is cheaper to keep them now than going after replacement teams in the future.
Evan Weiner is an author, lecturer and radio-TV journalist on the "Politics of Sports Business."
By Evan Weiner
April 8, 2010
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2010m4d8-Minnesota-and-Glendale-lawmakers-inch-closer-to-new-sports-deals#
(New York, N. Y.) -- Local governments and sports teams have a partnership; there is no getting around that. In cash-strapped states like Arizona and Minnesota, elected officials are trying to figure out the best way to go in keeping local franchises put. Glendale, Arizona has a relatively new, publicly financed, arena that houses a bankrupt National Hockey League franchise, the Phoenix Coyotes.
Now Glendale is weighing two proposals from Coyotes suitors who would purchase the team and keep the franchise in Glendale.
In the St. Paul, Minnesota statehouses, it appears that lawmakers are warming up to some sort of deal to build the National Football League's Minnesota Vikings a new facility so that Vikings owner Zygi Wilf can utilize revenue streams that an unavailable from the Minneapolis-based Metrodome, to help fund the team.
Government support for athletic facilities stretches out over six decades with Oakland officials back in 1944 thinking of using public money to build a stadium. The real breakthrough in government support of professional sports franchises came in 1950 when Milwaukee elected officials decided to build a new stadium with public funding that they hoped would attract a Major League Baseball team and keep the Green Bay Packers playing a portion of the team's NFL schedule in town. The gambit paid off as Milwaukee officials enticed Boston Braves owner Lou Perini to move his Braves in March 1953 just a few weeks prior to the season. The stadium was enough of a lure to keep the Green Bay Packers.
Perini made a ton of money in Milwaukee and it got Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley to worry that Brooklyn would not be able to compete with Milwaukee financially. O’Malley would eventually take an offer from Los Angeles and move his team from Brooklyn even though O’Malley’s Dodgers led the National League in revenue in 1957, the final year O’Malley had a team in Brooklyn.
Perini's move started sports free agency long before an arbitrator gave Dave McNally and Andy Messersmith free agency in baseball in 1975. Owners decided to play city against city in an effort to get the best stadium or arena deal available, and the 1986 Tax Act poured gasoline on smoldering flames as the new law restricted the amount of revenue generated inside an athletic facility that went off to pay the public debt on a municipally funded stadium to just eight cents on every dollar.
Major League Baseball expanded to Denver, Miami, Phoenix and St. Petersburg and moved the Montreal Expos to Washington. Virtually every team in Major League Baseball got a new or renovated facility with the exception of Oakland.
Oakland A's owner Lew Wolff is looking to move his team with San Jose the object of his affection after flirting with Fremont, California near San Jose.
The National Football League got a publicly financed stadium in Jacksonville and expanded into that city while Jerry Richardson built a privately funded facility in Charlotte using personal seat licenses to fund the stadium.
Richardson's stadium created another monster. People had to buy a seat license and then buy a ticket to use the seat.
Wilf is one of the last of the NFL owners who has not taken advantage of government money to build a "factory" for his business. Wilf may have state legislators and Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty over a barrel in his quest for a new facility. The state has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in the past few years for a new baseball stadium for the Twins and a new facility for the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers using various taxes to fund the venues. Wilf's Metrodome deal with the state is up after the 2011 season and there is a possibility that Wilf could use the possible construction of a new stadium east of Los Angeles as leverage in his battle to get a new Vikings stadium somewhere in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.
Wilf is not the only NFL owner looking for public funding. The York family, the owners of the San Francisco 49ers, is hoping that Santa Clara, California voters will look favorably at them and give them a new stadium in a June vote. Should that fail, look for both Oakland and San Francisco to start wooing the Yorks again and might ask Al Davis to join the Yorks and put his Oakland Raiders in a new stadium. The Buffalo Bills/New York State lease in Orchard Park is up after the 2012 season.
Wilf, the Yorks, Al Davis and possibly Wayne Weaver in Jacksonville have limited options though. Weaver’s Jaguars franchise is struggling to sell seats at Jacksonville’s stadium and there is no stadium available in LA equipped to handle the NFL's needs at this point. Ralph Wilson has sold a number of Bills home games to Toronto through the 2012 season. Toronto does not have a "suitable" NFL facility but there is a lot of money on Bay Street and the NFL knows that.
Meanwhile there seems to be action in Glendale regarding the sale of the Coyotes. Glendale has memoranda of understanding with two groups vying to but the bankrupt franchise, Ice Edge Holdings and the group led by Chicago White Sox and Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf. Although the National Hockey League has the final say on the future owner of the Coyotes, Glendale apparently feels uncomfortable that the city can go ahead with an agreement. Whatever the final deal is, Glendale will have to make major concessions to keep the team skating in the arena. Glendale plans to hold a public hearing on the matter on April 13.
Many cities, counties and state governments have used a variety of mechanisms to attract and keep sports teams including payment in lieu of taxes instead of full property tax payment or tax incremental funding or creating special tax districts around a facility whereby an owner keeps all of the taxes that would normally flow into municipal coffers. Cities, counties and states have assumed the responsibility of paying off the entire cost of a stadium and in one case, New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson was given a cash payment in exchanging for keeping his Saints in the New Orleans Superdome. In July, Benson will get a $23 million check from Louisiana as a thank you for sticking around as part of a $186 million bailout between 2002 and 2010. Benson and the state crafted a new deal that substantially reduces Louisiana's annual payment but Benson gets to own an office building near the Superdome that will house state government offices and create an entertainment zone around the Superdome in exchange. Benson will get Louisiana money but not a straight handout starting in 2011.
New arenas do not mean success however. Memphis and Charlotte are prime examples of financial failures in the NBA despite new surroundings and the Phoenix Coyotes have a poor financial legacy.
But sports leagues are monopolies and city, county and state officials like being branded “Big League.” It takes a long time for a city to replace a team in most circumstances with Cleveland being a lone exception. The NFL got a municipally funded stadium agreement with Cleveland Mayor Michael White not long after Browns owner announced that he was taking his team to Baltimore for the 1996 season in the fall of 1995. Cleveland threatened to sue the NFL and by February 1996 a plan was worked out and the NFL "expanded" into Cleveland in 1999. Cities that lose teams seemingly are punished and eventually work their way back in but that is a long and expensive process which is why Glendale officials and lawmakers in Minnesota are looking to resolve their situations and keep the teams. It is cheaper to keep them now than going after replacement teams in the future.
Evan Weiner is an author, lecturer and radio-TV journalist on the "Politics of Sports Business."
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