How Adolf Hitler and the Nazis cost the Giants and Jets $30 million a year
Wednesday, 11 August 2010 13:40
http://www.newjerseynewsroom.com/professional/how-adolf-hitler-and-the-nazis-cost-the-giants-and-jets-30-million-a-year
BY EVAN WEINER
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
POLITICS OF SPORTS BUSINESS
Had all gone according to the original plan, the first "American" football game, which will be played on Monday night at the new Meadowlands Stadium between the East Rutherford-based New York Giants and the Florham Park-based New York Jets, would have had the name Allianz attached to the stadium. The Munich, Germany-based financial services and insurance company was negotiating with the Giants-Jets stadium management group to be the naming rights partner of the new East Rutherford stadium but those talks ended on September 9, 2008 after news broke that the two football teams were negotiating a deal with the Munich company which had ties to the Third Reich and Nazi Germany.
According to some reports, Allianz was willing to pay as much as $30 million annually for the naming rights. The Giants-Jets group is still looking for a naming rights partner in what has become an extremely difficult financial environment. Many companies don't see the value in purchasing naming rights to a stadium. The one-year old Dallas Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas still does not have a corporate naming sponsor which is a bit surprising in that Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is hosting the 2011 Super Bowl next February and the Super Bowl is a prime advertising vehicle.
The Giants-Jets stadium will host the 2014 Super Bowl.
It is not unusual for a non-American company to buy the naming rights of an American arena or stadium. LM Ericcson, a telecommunications company based in Sweden, bought the naming rights for the new Charlotte football stadium in a ten-year, $25 million deal that started in 1996.
Last January, the Canadian insurance company Sun Life Financial signed a five-year, $20 million agreement with Miami Dolphins owner (and New York-New Jersey real estate magnate) Stephen Ross for the naming rights to the Dolphins' Broward County stadium. Sun Life, which is Canada's third-largest insurer, was looking to increase the company's visibility in the United States and probably did well on the deal as the Sun Life name and signage was plastered all over last February's Super Bowl broadcast. That exposure was more important than the other aspects of the deal which included having the Sun Life name printed on tickets to sporting events at the stadium.
Two other Canadian financial institutions have their names affixed on arenas in the United States. In 2005, TD Bank bought the naming rights to the arena that houses the National Basketball Association's Boston Celtics and the National Hockey league's Boston Bruins The building is called TD Banknorth Garden. Royal Bank reached an agreement with the Carolina Hurricanes ownership in 2002 for the naming rights to the Raleigh, North Carolina arena. The venue is known as the RBC Center.
If the New Jersey Nets franchise does ever move to Brooklyn, the building will be called Barclay's Center. The England-based Barclay's does not have any bank branches in the United States but the bank does have a number of global locations.
The Giants-Jets/Allianz deal was stopped when Jewish groups and holocaust survivors learned of the talks. The Giants-Jets negotiations brought to light Allianz's history with Adolf Hitler and Nazi, Germany. A little history lesson needs to be told to understand the opposition to Allianz putting the company name on the sides of the East Rutherford stadium.
In 1993, Allianz's CEO Henning Schulte-Noelle decided to take a look at Allianz's corporate history and research the role the company might have played between 1933 and 1945 with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi government. By 1997, Schulte-Noelle found the man he needed to do the research in at Cal-Berkeley, Dr. Gerald Feldman, who was the director of the University of California's Center for German and European Studies. Dr. Feldman had spent a good chunk of his adult life studying all aspects of German history. Dr. Feldman's 2001 book, "Allianz and the German Insurance Business, 1933-1945," explained how Allianz had given money owed to Jewish life insurance policy beneficiaries to the Nazi government.
Among Dr. Feldman's findings were records which showed that Allianz insured the property and personnel of the Auschwitz extermination camp, as well as the Dachau concentration camp. Additionally, Allianz also insured the engineers working at the IG Farben Company, the company that oversaw the manufacture of the Zyklon B cyanide gas used at concentration camps to kill Jews and other victims. Allianz provided insurance throughout the war to Nazis who had seized valuables from those victims captured and forced into the camps.
Dr. Feldman also related that Allianz Chief Executive Kurt Schmitt was Hitler's Economy Minister from June 1933 until January 1935, and found a picture of Schmitt wearing an SS-Oberführer's uniform. Allianz General Director Eduard Hilgard led the "Reich Association for Private Insurance" and helped create and enforce termination and refusal policies to pay off any life insurance policies issued to Jews. Beneficiary payments went directly sent to the Nazis instead.
Feldman said in a 2001 interview that is posted on the Allianz website that he had "unrestricted freedom" to do independent research.
Allianz had hoped that the company would have been able to do business in the United States like other German companies that had ties to Hitler and Nazi Germany and pleaded that the present day company leaders had nothing to do with the Nazi era. Allianz and four other German insurance companies were key backers of the "International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims" and Allianz was a founder of the German Foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility and Future." Dr. Feldman's findings in the book along with Allianz taking responsibility for being involved with the Third Reich did nothing to sway Holocaust survivors who were aghast at the thought of Allianz putting the company moniker on the East Rutherford football stadium.
Allianz has never dabbled much into the sports world. The company has the naming rights for the football (soccer) stadium in Munich that houses two clubs, FC Bayern Munich of the Bundesliga and TSV Munich 1860 of the Second Bundesliga. The company also owns Gornik Zabrze, a Poland football club and Allianz also is a sponsor of the AT and T Williams Formula 1 racing team.
On Monday, Allianz joined Adidas, BMW, Lufthansa and Finanzgruppe in financial support of Munich's bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics. The 1972 Munich Summer Games was the scene of killing of 11 Israeli Olympic athletes in the Olympic Village by the Palestinian Black September terrorist cell. Annecy, France, Munich and PyeongChang, South Korea have moved to the final round of the 2018 Olympic Winter Games bid process. The 2018 Games winning bid will be announced by the International Olympic Committee in July 2011. Munich is attempting to become the first city to host a Summer and Winter Olympics.
There will be no corporate name on the Giants-Jets Stadium on Monday night. Naming rights deals have been dwindling although the Jacksonville Jaguars National Football League franchise did get a five-year, $16.6 million contract signed with EverBank at the end of July. That is slightly more than $3 million a year and stipend won't cover the annual contract of a good offensive lineman. The EverBank-Jaguars deal nearly fell through because the city of Jacksonville was entitled to 25 percent of the money. On Tuesday night, the Jacksonville City Council voted 14-3 to give up the approximate $4 million that the city was contractually due and took one for the financially troubled team. City leaders are afraid that Wayne Weaver will move his franchise because there is a lack of support for the team and every million helps. Presumably the Giants-Jets business arrangement is still looking for someone ready to hand over hundreds of millions of dollars in naming rights to help pay down the stadium debt. Jerry Jones is still looking for a big payday in Arlington, Texas for Cowboys Stadium. Companies have tightened spending which is why the East Rutherford football venue is called the New Meadowlands Stadium.
Evan Weiner is an award winning author, radio-TV commentator and speaker on the "Politics of Sports Business" and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Showing posts with label Jacksonville Jaguars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jacksonville Jaguars. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 11, 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."
Thursday, January 7, 2010
LA Stadium Offer to Bills, Jaguars No Great Deal
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2010m1d7-LA-stadium-offer-to-Bills-Jaguars-no-great-deal#
LA Stadium Offer to Bills, Jaguars No Great Deal
By Evan Weiner
January 7, 2010
(New York, N. Y.) -- Here is a question that Ed Roski needs to answer in his quest to yet again attract a National Football League franchise to the Los Angeles market, specifically the City of Industry. Who is funding the stadium project? You, your Majestic Realty Company or will it be Ralph Wilson or Wayne Weaver? The answer to that question is necessary because at this point it is rather unclear when the dollars that are needed to build a “majestic” stadium for an NFL owner or NFL owners to move a franchise to the market are coming from.
The stadium was supposed to cost $800 billion when the City of Industry City Council approved the plan in February 2009. The $800 million figure seems out of line and too conservative when compared with Jerry Jones’s Arlington, Texas venue for his Dallas Cowboys and the East Rutherford, New Jersey stadium that is being funded by the owners of the New York Giants and New York Giants. Both stadiums price tags are estimated at well over a billion dollars.
The National Football League used to have something called the G-3 program which loaned up to $150 million to owners who built stadiums. Money went to Denver’s Pat Bowlen, ($50 million) in 1999, New England’s Bob Kraft ($150 million) in 1999, Philadelphia’s Jeffrey Lurie ($150 million) in 1999, Detroit’s William Clay Ford ($100 million) in 2000, Seattle’s Paul Allen ($50 million) in 2000, Chicago’s McCaskey Family ($100 million) in 2000, the Green Bay Packers Board of Directors ($100 million) in 2001, Arizona’s Bill Bidwill ($50 million) in 2001, Dallas’ Jones ($76.5 million) in 2005 and Indianapolis’s Jim Irsay ($34 million) in 2005 to fund new facilities or to renovate old venues.
Even though the G-3 program was running out of money by 2006, the Giants Mara-Tisch families and the Jets Woody Johnson did get $300 million for their new Meadowlands facility from NFL owners in 2006 and the Kansas City Chiefs Hunt family ended up with $42.5 million for renovations at Arrowhead Stadium.
The loans helped fill a shortfall between public financing of projected final costs of stadiums in Denver, Philadelphia, Detroit, Seattle, Chicago, Green Bay, Glendale, Arizona, Arlington, Texas and Indianapolis. All the facilities including Foxboro, Massachusetts and East Rutherford, New Jersey received various tax breaks whether they were privately or publicly funded.
Majesty Realty plans to pursue Buffalo’s Ralph Wilson or Jacksonville’s Wayne Weaver initially. Wilson’s lease in Orchard Park ends following the 2012 season. Wilson is 91 years old and he has leased a number of home games to Toronto through the 2012 season. Toronto, Ontario is 90 miles from Buffalo and there is enough money in Toronto to support an NFL team should Wilson or his heirs decide that small market Buffalo is not for them.
Jacksonville does not have the wherewithal to support an NFL team in the 21st century as there are not enough well heeled fans or corporate dollars around to sell out the stadium. Demographers were wrong in estimating the city’s growth and potential when the NFL awarded Jacksonville a franchise in 1993. The Jaguars owner Wayne Weaver has won lease concessions from the city but has been unable to sell naming rights at the Jacksonville stadium and the team has not be able to sell out the stadium which means home games are not seen in the Jacksonville market. This despite cutting down the capacity of the stadium by covering seats.
Majesty Realty has decided that Buffalo and Jacksonville are not NFL markets by whatever arbitrary means they have created. The company will not go after San Diego’s Alex Spanos, Minnesota’s Zygi Wilf or San Francisco’s York family because those owners are attempting to find financing in those markets although the Yorks have their eyes set on Santa Clara which is 40 miles south of San Francisco with Oakland as a fallback position.
The NFL would like to see the York Family and Oakland’s Al Davis to find common ground and work on a new stadium together to solve a potential Bay Area problem. Davis lease in Oakland ends in 2013.
St. Louis is another franchise that might be in the City of Industry mix. The Rams franchise lease ends in 2014.
Roski and his company want to develop a football village in the City of Industry complete with a stadium and other businesses. Roski doesn’t want to outright own an NFL team but would like a piece of the action and is trading the right to help fund the Roski stadium for the right to making lots of potential revenues generated in the LA market and in his stadium village and to be an owner in LA.
In other words, Roski wants an NFL owner to become his partner in a real estate venture. In the real world of the NFL, cash on the barrelhead is the preferred way of doing business. Roski ought to know this by now, he witnessed it first hand when the NFL gave LA an expansion team. All LA and Roski needed to do was to put up a stadium.
That never happened and Robert McNair and Houston got the team. Houston and Harris County approved a publicly financed stadium.
With no G-3 revenues available, with California in dire financial shape, with Jerry Jones and the Mara/Tisch/Johnson East Rutherford, NJ group still looking for a naming rights partner for their stadiums, with ticket prices far, far too high and in the City of Industry’s scheme, there would have to be a heavy Personnel Seat Licensing fee and then high prices for those buying the licenses, Roski’s deal doesn’t look like much of a bargain for Wilson or Weaver or both.
Roski might not have any lawsuits to worry about that would slow down the project and lame duck California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has waived environmental laws because the stadium and the other part of the construction project would in theory create jobs with Majestic estimating that the project will put 6,700 people into jobs that would create $21 million in new tax revenue and have a $762 million impact on the area.
Based on other deals that developers have cut with municipalities, it is unlikely that those figures have any accuracy. Because of various tools such as payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT), tax increment financing (TIF) and others, the City of Industry won’t be getting full property taxes assessment on the land.
If Roski and the City of Industry think that a Los Angeles market stadium will get them a Super Bowl, they are probably correct, the NFL will put the stadium in the rotation but there needs to be a history lesson here. Back in 1994-5, the NFL was trying to help Al Davis land a new stadium for his Los Angeles Raiders near the Hollywood Park racetrack in Inglewood.
The NFL, trying to sweeten the deal, offered five Super Bowls over a ten year period to get the stadium built. The deal was scaled back to three over 10 years then one, then the NFL decided LA should be a two team marketing and another team (after Georgia Frontiere moved her Anaheim-based Los Angeles Rams to St. Louis) and that Davis team would share the stadium with another franchise and share all of the revenues generated inside the building.
Davis went back to Oakland.
The Super Bowl does not guarantee that the corporate community will take a look at the area hosting the game and move some of their operations to that area. The corporate community knows Los Angeles. If that type of thinking---that corporate leaders will open up facilities in an area because it was good enough for the Super Bowl was true --- then Jacksonville should be a burgeoning area.
Jacksonville hosted the Super Bowl on February 6, 2005.
Where is the great deal that Roski and Majestic have offered? Unless they offer hundreds of millions of dollars and it might be closer to a billion dollars to buy out an owner, there is no great deal. An owner will not sell off a piece of his franchise in exchange for development rights in a bad economy in a financially downtrodden state with a high rate of foreclosures. It does not make sense.
If Roski has to spend a billion for a team, then another billion for the stadium, what does that do to a franchise’s finances? On top of that the NFL might impose a relocation fee and furthermore, there is no collective bargaining agreement in place after 2010, so owners have no clue about future budgets.
Because the stadium is privately financed more than eight percent of the stadium generated revenues will go off to pay down the debt unlike those that get public monies. No special tax district will be created unless the City of Industry decides that a special tax district for a team would be a benefit for the city and franchise. The City of Industry is not near LA, Hollywood or Beverly Hills, it is 25 miles east of LA, and will the high rollers want to venture away from the city?
That gets back to the original question. Just who will finance Roski’s stadium? Question two is simple. What makes Roski’s proposal a sure fire winner for Ralph Wilson or Wayne Weaver?
evanjweiner@yahoo.com
LA Stadium Offer to Bills, Jaguars No Great Deal
By Evan Weiner
January 7, 2010
(New York, N. Y.) -- Here is a question that Ed Roski needs to answer in his quest to yet again attract a National Football League franchise to the Los Angeles market, specifically the City of Industry. Who is funding the stadium project? You, your Majestic Realty Company or will it be Ralph Wilson or Wayne Weaver? The answer to that question is necessary because at this point it is rather unclear when the dollars that are needed to build a “majestic” stadium for an NFL owner or NFL owners to move a franchise to the market are coming from.
The stadium was supposed to cost $800 billion when the City of Industry City Council approved the plan in February 2009. The $800 million figure seems out of line and too conservative when compared with Jerry Jones’s Arlington, Texas venue for his Dallas Cowboys and the East Rutherford, New Jersey stadium that is being funded by the owners of the New York Giants and New York Giants. Both stadiums price tags are estimated at well over a billion dollars.
The National Football League used to have something called the G-3 program which loaned up to $150 million to owners who built stadiums. Money went to Denver’s Pat Bowlen, ($50 million) in 1999, New England’s Bob Kraft ($150 million) in 1999, Philadelphia’s Jeffrey Lurie ($150 million) in 1999, Detroit’s William Clay Ford ($100 million) in 2000, Seattle’s Paul Allen ($50 million) in 2000, Chicago’s McCaskey Family ($100 million) in 2000, the Green Bay Packers Board of Directors ($100 million) in 2001, Arizona’s Bill Bidwill ($50 million) in 2001, Dallas’ Jones ($76.5 million) in 2005 and Indianapolis’s Jim Irsay ($34 million) in 2005 to fund new facilities or to renovate old venues.
Even though the G-3 program was running out of money by 2006, the Giants Mara-Tisch families and the Jets Woody Johnson did get $300 million for their new Meadowlands facility from NFL owners in 2006 and the Kansas City Chiefs Hunt family ended up with $42.5 million for renovations at Arrowhead Stadium.
The loans helped fill a shortfall between public financing of projected final costs of stadiums in Denver, Philadelphia, Detroit, Seattle, Chicago, Green Bay, Glendale, Arizona, Arlington, Texas and Indianapolis. All the facilities including Foxboro, Massachusetts and East Rutherford, New Jersey received various tax breaks whether they were privately or publicly funded.
Majesty Realty plans to pursue Buffalo’s Ralph Wilson or Jacksonville’s Wayne Weaver initially. Wilson’s lease in Orchard Park ends following the 2012 season. Wilson is 91 years old and he has leased a number of home games to Toronto through the 2012 season. Toronto, Ontario is 90 miles from Buffalo and there is enough money in Toronto to support an NFL team should Wilson or his heirs decide that small market Buffalo is not for them.
Jacksonville does not have the wherewithal to support an NFL team in the 21st century as there are not enough well heeled fans or corporate dollars around to sell out the stadium. Demographers were wrong in estimating the city’s growth and potential when the NFL awarded Jacksonville a franchise in 1993. The Jaguars owner Wayne Weaver has won lease concessions from the city but has been unable to sell naming rights at the Jacksonville stadium and the team has not be able to sell out the stadium which means home games are not seen in the Jacksonville market. This despite cutting down the capacity of the stadium by covering seats.
Majesty Realty has decided that Buffalo and Jacksonville are not NFL markets by whatever arbitrary means they have created. The company will not go after San Diego’s Alex Spanos, Minnesota’s Zygi Wilf or San Francisco’s York family because those owners are attempting to find financing in those markets although the Yorks have their eyes set on Santa Clara which is 40 miles south of San Francisco with Oakland as a fallback position.
The NFL would like to see the York Family and Oakland’s Al Davis to find common ground and work on a new stadium together to solve a potential Bay Area problem. Davis lease in Oakland ends in 2013.
St. Louis is another franchise that might be in the City of Industry mix. The Rams franchise lease ends in 2014.
Roski and his company want to develop a football village in the City of Industry complete with a stadium and other businesses. Roski doesn’t want to outright own an NFL team but would like a piece of the action and is trading the right to help fund the Roski stadium for the right to making lots of potential revenues generated in the LA market and in his stadium village and to be an owner in LA.
In other words, Roski wants an NFL owner to become his partner in a real estate venture. In the real world of the NFL, cash on the barrelhead is the preferred way of doing business. Roski ought to know this by now, he witnessed it first hand when the NFL gave LA an expansion team. All LA and Roski needed to do was to put up a stadium.
That never happened and Robert McNair and Houston got the team. Houston and Harris County approved a publicly financed stadium.
With no G-3 revenues available, with California in dire financial shape, with Jerry Jones and the Mara/Tisch/Johnson East Rutherford, NJ group still looking for a naming rights partner for their stadiums, with ticket prices far, far too high and in the City of Industry’s scheme, there would have to be a heavy Personnel Seat Licensing fee and then high prices for those buying the licenses, Roski’s deal doesn’t look like much of a bargain for Wilson or Weaver or both.
Roski might not have any lawsuits to worry about that would slow down the project and lame duck California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has waived environmental laws because the stadium and the other part of the construction project would in theory create jobs with Majestic estimating that the project will put 6,700 people into jobs that would create $21 million in new tax revenue and have a $762 million impact on the area.
Based on other deals that developers have cut with municipalities, it is unlikely that those figures have any accuracy. Because of various tools such as payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT), tax increment financing (TIF) and others, the City of Industry won’t be getting full property taxes assessment on the land.
If Roski and the City of Industry think that a Los Angeles market stadium will get them a Super Bowl, they are probably correct, the NFL will put the stadium in the rotation but there needs to be a history lesson here. Back in 1994-5, the NFL was trying to help Al Davis land a new stadium for his Los Angeles Raiders near the Hollywood Park racetrack in Inglewood.
The NFL, trying to sweeten the deal, offered five Super Bowls over a ten year period to get the stadium built. The deal was scaled back to three over 10 years then one, then the NFL decided LA should be a two team marketing and another team (after Georgia Frontiere moved her Anaheim-based Los Angeles Rams to St. Louis) and that Davis team would share the stadium with another franchise and share all of the revenues generated inside the building.
Davis went back to Oakland.
The Super Bowl does not guarantee that the corporate community will take a look at the area hosting the game and move some of their operations to that area. The corporate community knows Los Angeles. If that type of thinking---that corporate leaders will open up facilities in an area because it was good enough for the Super Bowl was true --- then Jacksonville should be a burgeoning area.
Jacksonville hosted the Super Bowl on February 6, 2005.
Where is the great deal that Roski and Majestic have offered? Unless they offer hundreds of millions of dollars and it might be closer to a billion dollars to buy out an owner, there is no great deal. An owner will not sell off a piece of his franchise in exchange for development rights in a bad economy in a financially downtrodden state with a high rate of foreclosures. It does not make sense.
If Roski has to spend a billion for a team, then another billion for the stadium, what does that do to a franchise’s finances? On top of that the NFL might impose a relocation fee and furthermore, there is no collective bargaining agreement in place after 2010, so owners have no clue about future budgets.
Because the stadium is privately financed more than eight percent of the stadium generated revenues will go off to pay down the debt unlike those that get public monies. No special tax district will be created unless the City of Industry decides that a special tax district for a team would be a benefit for the city and franchise. The City of Industry is not near LA, Hollywood or Beverly Hills, it is 25 miles east of LA, and will the high rollers want to venture away from the city?
That gets back to the original question. Just who will finance Roski’s stadium? Question two is simple. What makes Roski’s proposal a sure fire winner for Ralph Wilson or Wayne Weaver?
evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Monday, July 27, 2009
Is Wayne Weaver the NFL's Version of Marcel Aubut
Is Wayne Weaver the NFL's version of Marcel Aubut? http://www.mcnsports.com/en/node/7475
By Evan Weiner
July 27, 2009
7:00 PM EDT
(New York, N. Y.) -- Back in January 1995, a dejected Marcel Aubut exited an elevator on the seventh floor lobby of the Marriott Marquis in Times Square in Manhattan and told whoever was listening who knew him in the crowd milling about that the Quebec Nordiques were done by the new Collective Bargaining Agreement that National Hockey League owners negotiators and players representations had just reached. Aubut owned the Nordiques and he was right. About a half a year later Aubut sold his Nordiques to Charles Lyons and his Ascent group which moved the franchise to Denver.
The owners’ pact was far too generous for the players for small market Quebec to survive and even if Aubut secured a new arena in Quebec City, he probably would not have generated enough revenues to continue a viable business. A hockey team after all is a business.
Sometime in 2011 or maybe 2012, perhaps Jacksonville Jaguars owner Wayne Weaver will emerge from some elevator and sound an awful lot like Aubut. Weaver might be saying that the Jacksonville Jaguars franchise cannot afford the new collective bargaining agreement reached by National Football League owners' negotiators and the players association.
Perhaps Weaver will keep his team and move the operations to a new stadium say in the City of Industry, California east of Los Angeles or just sell the team to people who want a franchise in the Los Angeles marketplace. Or he might find that businesses and people have flocked to Jacksonville and the city is flourishing in 2012 or 2013 just like city officials predicted back in 1991 when a number of business leaders including Jeb Bush went after a football team and formed Touchdown Jacksonville! Touchdown Jacksonville! gave up on the bid in 2003 after the Jacksonville city council said no to a financial package to rebuild the Gator Bowl.
By August 1, 1993, the city council reworked the money allocation deal and the NFL awarded the league's 30th franchise to Jacksonville with Weaver at the helm.
If a stadium is built in the City of Industry, Weaver's Jaguars, Buffalo's Ralph Wilson, San Diego's Spanos' family, Minnesota's Zygi Wilf, St. Louis' owners along with the York family in San Francisco and Al Davis in Oakland figure to be getting calls from Ed Roski who is planning the stadium. There is a catch though; Roski will not build the stadium without an agreement from at least one NFL owner.
Jacksonville, while being successful on the field, is increasingly ceasing to be viable in the NFL. Sure the team gets a lofty paycheck from the league because of television revenues but the Jacksonville market is not or cannot support the team at an NFL level based on attendance at the Jacksonville stadium.
The two pre-season games have not been sold out and even though the team could "buy" the remaining tickets and trigger a sellout which would allow the games to be shown live in Jacksonville and other cities with the Jaguars territory, the team decided it wasn’t worth the effort since the team pays the costs for TV production and the combination of buying tickets and production costs meant red ink.
The pre-season TV blackout is just the tip of the iceberg for the franchise. The city has not been able to attach a corporate sponsor on the stadium which means that Weaver is not getting millions from naming rights and a staggering total of about 17,000 of the team's 42,000 season ticket subscribers from 2008 decided for various reasons not to renew for the upcoming season. This is the third season that Weaver will not have a naming rights partner. His former partner gave him $620,000 annually to put up a shingle on the building, Weaver was hoping for $4 million annually in 2006, so far no one is really interested in putting up a new shingle.
Weaver's rebuilt Gator Bowl stadium does hold close to 77,000 people but over the years, portions are the stadium were closed off to bring the seating capacity down and with it, the likelihood of sellouts so games can be televised locally except that has not exactly happened. More than 9,000 seats were covered by a tarp beginning in 2005 but by 2007 even with less tickets to sell, Weaver failed to have a full house in two of the team's first three home games. The Jaguars bottom line has suffered in the 21st century.
On November 2, 2005, Jacksonville officials and Weaver signed a new stadium agreement which reduced the team’s rent at the stadium between 2006-08. The deal ended the threat that Weaver would break his lease and move elsewhere.
Weaver was given a Super Bowl to host in 2005, there is one theory that smaller cities like Jacksonville bid on getting a Super Bowl because they think it is a huge opportunity to attract business. After all, corporate bigwigs, not everyday football fans attend the Super Bowl and with golfing opportunities along with mingling with local business leaders and politicians, there is always that possibility that an area can entice a CEO or a corporate decision maker to relocate in the Super Bowl host city.
Those assumptions are always wrong. Jacksonville did not land any companies because of the 2005 Super Bowl. In 1997, during the National Hockey League's expansion presentation, there was an item that related to teams moving into cities and whether a "big league" presence influenced companies to move into a city because of big time sports. There was a study done in Charlotte, North Carolina about businesses that moved into that area following the announcement that Charlotte had secured an NFL team in 1993. The answer came back that no company that moved into Charlotte between 1993 and 1997 did so because there was an NFL expansion team in the city.
Jacksonville lost season ticket holders after the 2005 Super Bowl.
Jacksonville is not the only team that is having trouble selling tickets but the Jacksonville problems manifested long before the 2008 economic meltdown and there have been reports in the past that the team was headed to Los Angeles. Weaver debunked those reports a year ago when there was a rumor he was ready to sell the franchise.
Whether Weaver can afford to own the Jaguars in 2012 in Jacksonville is open to question. NFL owners want to change the financial formula that they use to pay players, particularly signing bonuses and seem willing to go into 2011 with the idea of locking out the players in an effort to gain cost containment.
Weaver does share national TV revenues but is lagging in generating local revenues which has pitted big market owners against small market owners in league battles as the small market owners want a piece of Jerry Jones' Dallas marketing dollars or Daniel Snyder's local revenue to pay down debts or expand scouting and coaching staffs. The outcome of the 2011 negotiations will determine whether Weaver will become the NFL's version of Marcel Aubut.
eweiner@mcn.tv
By Evan Weiner
July 27, 2009
7:00 PM EDT
(New York, N. Y.) -- Back in January 1995, a dejected Marcel Aubut exited an elevator on the seventh floor lobby of the Marriott Marquis in Times Square in Manhattan and told whoever was listening who knew him in the crowd milling about that the Quebec Nordiques were done by the new Collective Bargaining Agreement that National Hockey League owners negotiators and players representations had just reached. Aubut owned the Nordiques and he was right. About a half a year later Aubut sold his Nordiques to Charles Lyons and his Ascent group which moved the franchise to Denver.
The owners’ pact was far too generous for the players for small market Quebec to survive and even if Aubut secured a new arena in Quebec City, he probably would not have generated enough revenues to continue a viable business. A hockey team after all is a business.
Sometime in 2011 or maybe 2012, perhaps Jacksonville Jaguars owner Wayne Weaver will emerge from some elevator and sound an awful lot like Aubut. Weaver might be saying that the Jacksonville Jaguars franchise cannot afford the new collective bargaining agreement reached by National Football League owners' negotiators and the players association.
Perhaps Weaver will keep his team and move the operations to a new stadium say in the City of Industry, California east of Los Angeles or just sell the team to people who want a franchise in the Los Angeles marketplace. Or he might find that businesses and people have flocked to Jacksonville and the city is flourishing in 2012 or 2013 just like city officials predicted back in 1991 when a number of business leaders including Jeb Bush went after a football team and formed Touchdown Jacksonville! Touchdown Jacksonville! gave up on the bid in 2003 after the Jacksonville city council said no to a financial package to rebuild the Gator Bowl.
By August 1, 1993, the city council reworked the money allocation deal and the NFL awarded the league's 30th franchise to Jacksonville with Weaver at the helm.
If a stadium is built in the City of Industry, Weaver's Jaguars, Buffalo's Ralph Wilson, San Diego's Spanos' family, Minnesota's Zygi Wilf, St. Louis' owners along with the York family in San Francisco and Al Davis in Oakland figure to be getting calls from Ed Roski who is planning the stadium. There is a catch though; Roski will not build the stadium without an agreement from at least one NFL owner.
Jacksonville, while being successful on the field, is increasingly ceasing to be viable in the NFL. Sure the team gets a lofty paycheck from the league because of television revenues but the Jacksonville market is not or cannot support the team at an NFL level based on attendance at the Jacksonville stadium.
The two pre-season games have not been sold out and even though the team could "buy" the remaining tickets and trigger a sellout which would allow the games to be shown live in Jacksonville and other cities with the Jaguars territory, the team decided it wasn’t worth the effort since the team pays the costs for TV production and the combination of buying tickets and production costs meant red ink.
The pre-season TV blackout is just the tip of the iceberg for the franchise. The city has not been able to attach a corporate sponsor on the stadium which means that Weaver is not getting millions from naming rights and a staggering total of about 17,000 of the team's 42,000 season ticket subscribers from 2008 decided for various reasons not to renew for the upcoming season. This is the third season that Weaver will not have a naming rights partner. His former partner gave him $620,000 annually to put up a shingle on the building, Weaver was hoping for $4 million annually in 2006, so far no one is really interested in putting up a new shingle.
Weaver's rebuilt Gator Bowl stadium does hold close to 77,000 people but over the years, portions are the stadium were closed off to bring the seating capacity down and with it, the likelihood of sellouts so games can be televised locally except that has not exactly happened. More than 9,000 seats were covered by a tarp beginning in 2005 but by 2007 even with less tickets to sell, Weaver failed to have a full house in two of the team's first three home games. The Jaguars bottom line has suffered in the 21st century.
On November 2, 2005, Jacksonville officials and Weaver signed a new stadium agreement which reduced the team’s rent at the stadium between 2006-08. The deal ended the threat that Weaver would break his lease and move elsewhere.
Weaver was given a Super Bowl to host in 2005, there is one theory that smaller cities like Jacksonville bid on getting a Super Bowl because they think it is a huge opportunity to attract business. After all, corporate bigwigs, not everyday football fans attend the Super Bowl and with golfing opportunities along with mingling with local business leaders and politicians, there is always that possibility that an area can entice a CEO or a corporate decision maker to relocate in the Super Bowl host city.
Those assumptions are always wrong. Jacksonville did not land any companies because of the 2005 Super Bowl. In 1997, during the National Hockey League's expansion presentation, there was an item that related to teams moving into cities and whether a "big league" presence influenced companies to move into a city because of big time sports. There was a study done in Charlotte, North Carolina about businesses that moved into that area following the announcement that Charlotte had secured an NFL team in 1993. The answer came back that no company that moved into Charlotte between 1993 and 1997 did so because there was an NFL expansion team in the city.
Jacksonville lost season ticket holders after the 2005 Super Bowl.
Jacksonville is not the only team that is having trouble selling tickets but the Jacksonville problems manifested long before the 2008 economic meltdown and there have been reports in the past that the team was headed to Los Angeles. Weaver debunked those reports a year ago when there was a rumor he was ready to sell the franchise.
Whether Weaver can afford to own the Jaguars in 2012 in Jacksonville is open to question. NFL owners want to change the financial formula that they use to pay players, particularly signing bonuses and seem willing to go into 2011 with the idea of locking out the players in an effort to gain cost containment.
Weaver does share national TV revenues but is lagging in generating local revenues which has pitted big market owners against small market owners in league battles as the small market owners want a piece of Jerry Jones' Dallas marketing dollars or Daniel Snyder's local revenue to pay down debts or expand scouting and coaching staffs. The outcome of the 2011 negotiations will determine whether Weaver will become the NFL's version of Marcel Aubut.
eweiner@mcn.tv
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