Lebron, Economic Impact and a Cleveland Casino
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2010m7d10-Lebron-economic-impacts-and-a--Cleveland-casino
By Evan Weiner
July 10, 2010
(New York, NY) -- The entire Lebron James free agency tale should make society reassess the importance of sports but society won't. People who should know better including New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the owners of the two tabloid New York newspapers, Mort Zuckerman of the Daily News and Rupert Murdoch of the Post looked like fools throughout the entire process along with a whole host of others. Bloomberg was out in the front waving the city's pom poms begging Lebron James to sign with the New York Knicks and Zuckerman and Murdoch were not very far behind nor were some of the "beautiful people", the actors and others with money to spend on Knicks tickets. Murdoch had a minority share in Madison Square Garden between 1997 and 2005.
All of this was going on while Bloomberg was cutting municipal jobs and the New York State legislature continued being dysfunction with a lame duck governor, David Patterson, cutting state jobs.
Zuckerman and Murdoch's papers reacted like heartbroken teenagers on Friday morning. The love of their life, Lebron to the Knicks, spurned New York City and that was a public slap to the face.
After all, New York is where basketball really matters. It has the world’s most famous arena and the Knicks are the Knicks. The truth is, basketball takes a far seat behind the Yankees in New York, the Garden is an antiquated arena that was poorly designed in the mid-1960s. Basketball in New York on the college level hasn’t mattered in generations, the NCAA College tournaments play on regional stages which are much more important to kids playing basketball than the Garden and the last time the Knicks won a championship was 37 years ago. Patrick Ewing is more of a villain in New York than a basketball hero because he could not deliver a championship.
New York is not a top destination in the NBA for players.
Meanwhile the adulation behavior is obscene. Gushing over a 25-year-old basketball player who is nothing more than an entertainer who puts on a show maybe 100 times a year is ridiculous.
Lebron James’ one hour infomercial with the "family-friendly" Walt Disney Company's ESPN was a total disgrace but it was no different than other disgraceful TV offered by Disney like the bachelor or bachelorette shows on the Disney owned ABC-TV network. It was a new form of "reality" programming that was tightly controlled by Jim Gray and Lebron James' management team.
The Bloomberg’s administration claim that Lebron James’ signing with the New York Knicks would pump $58 million into the city's economy was as fraudulent as the early 1990s contention by then Major League Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent that a new baseball stadium in Cleveland would serve as an economic engine for that city.
If the Gateway Center was built, some 28,000 jobs would be created was the mantra. Cleveland voters said yes to building the ballpark with the $84 million in public financing coming from a "sin tax" or a tax on cigarettes and alcohol in Cuyahoga County.
A good Cleveland Indians team in the mid-1990s in a new baseball park probably gave life to some small businesses around the Gateway center where a new ballpark, a new arena and a football stadium were built along with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but overall Fay Vincent's plea to spend municipal dollars for the Cleveland Indians owners, the Jacobs Brothers, business and it would lead to an humming economic engine has proven very wrong. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame gets local, state and federal subsidies to keep it going. Two Gateway Center garages have cost Cleveland millions of dollars because Cleveland officials gave away too many parking spaces to the Indians owners, the Jacobs and the then owners of the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Gund Brothers.
The two sets of owners got 250 parking spaces everyday for their private use. Jacobs also got 1,250 parking spaces for each Indians home game or 81 times a year. The Gunds got 1,450 spaces for each of 41 NBA games. The free spaces go to premium and loge ticket holders which meant that the high end ticket buyers went right into the stadium or arena and skipped businesses outside the buildings. Meanwhile Cleveland is paying off the stadium/arena garages by taking money from parking meters and parking garages to pay off the garage debt and that means less money for municipal workers.
Cleveland and Cuyahoga county taxpayers have a contract with the Indians, Cavaliers and National Football League Browns. They keep paying for the facilities whether they use the venues or not. The Cleveland Browns Stadium has cost taxpayers who smoke and drink $64,609,806.86 since August 2005. The "sin tax" also has paid about $266 million to cover some of Gateway’s costs at the baseball and basketball facilities. The "sin tax" is schedule to expire in 2015. But don't bet on that. Speaking of betting, because Cleveland's downtown was in such rotten shape economically, Cleveland politicians gave thought to opening casinos in an effort to create an economic engine. The dying rust belt city's political brain trust cannot find a formula to prime the economic engine pump.
In November 2009, Ohio voters said yes to building casinos in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus and Toledo. Interestingly enough Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert along with Penn National put up $35 million in campaign financing to support the initiative. There is a promise of 34,000 jobs with the creation of the casinos. Gilbert will own the casinos in Cleveland and Cincinnati.
Gilbert's tirade after Lebron James left might be more about his casino than basketball. Without Lebron James in the Cavaliers lineup, there will be thousands of people less in the arena and less people who could go to Gilbert's casino adjacent to the arena and spend money in Gilbert's casino.
Lebron James was not a linchpin of the economic pump and might have done more to harm Gilbert's business than Cleveland or James’ hometown of Akron.
The assertion that Lebron was worth $58 million to New York does need a closer inspection. Madison Square Garden, which sits on some valuable property in midtown Manhattan between 7th and 8th Avenue and 31st and 33rd Street does not pay city property taxes. It has been about 28 years since a tax bill was delivered to 4 Penn Plaza in care of Madison Square Garden. A basketball team plays just 41 regularly scheduled games during the season which runs between November and April, there may be a couple of pre-season games in October and maybe a dozen or so playoff games if a team goes far into the playoffs.
The basketball fan does not travel to games. The economic impact of a basketball game is minimal in a city's economy. Here is how this works. Sports teams need customers not fans because customers have more spending money than fans and are willing to dine in venue restaurants and other eatery which takes away from restaurants that surround arenas.
Madison Square Garden hosts about six NBA games a month between November and April. A basketball team has a coach, a number of assistant coaches, equipment and training staff along with the players and possibly a general manager. A total of perhaps 25 in a traveling party. At the upper extreme, if each member of the traveling party spent $1,000 on hotels and meals, the economic impact of a visiting team is $25,000 although some cities do tax visiting players while the perform in that city which might come out to $30,000 a day. The economic impact may be a million dollars a month which is a drop in the bucket.
Maybe.
Businesses are going to take clients somewhere to wine and dine them. If there was no basketball, there would be something else. Corporate ticket buyers also write 50 percent of the cost of a ticket of their taxes as a business expense.
The impact is not much. If business people in Miami are salivating over Lebron James, they are totally misguided. People will go to games because that is the "in thing" to do but what they are really doing is taking dollars that would be spent elsewhere in the area and there will be no uptick in sales at malls and supermarkets except in the immediate area of the arena.
Micky Arison, the owner of the Miami Heat and CEO of Carnival Cruises, will benefit financially. Arison knows how to work the system. The Heat’s arena was the product of the political process. In 1996, voters approved a bond for the construction of a new arena for the Heat. Arison kicked in $50 million to the costs of the building while hotel taxes were increased to pay for the other $163 million. Part of the deal was that Arison’s Carnival ships would use the nearby Miami port as a base. The Carnival Corporation has offices not far from the arena and the port.
Arison and the arena will make money. Money that had not been flowing into Heat games in the past few years will return from other parts of the region. As former New York Jets Vice President Jay Cross once pointed out when he was Jets owner Woody Johnson’s main negotiator for a Manhattan west side stadium accidentally pointed out, a new stadium (or arena) makes more for an owner, the players and maybe parking lot attendants. There is no trickle down for a municipality and in fact many municipalities are paying down large debts for venues and very few, if any, local businesses other than a bar or restaurant make measurable money off of sports teams.
Bloomberg has to know this. Sports makes people feel good or rotten. Too many people are too attached emotionally to their team. The players are not attached; it is a business no matter what they say about the home court, home ice, and home field advantage. The NFL stands for Not For Long for the players. They are feeling good in Miami, sports fans spew out venom in sports talk radio in New York. Lebron was called “The Queen” by callers, sports journalists are playing amateur shrink trying to figure out what makes Lebron James tick.
Lebron should have called his business partner Gilbert and told him that it was over. But is Lebron now a villain like sports people, media and fans, are painting him? The answer should be no. He did something stupid in the infomercial on ESPN and ESPN provided no strategic guidance but then again, ESPN is mostly geared for children anyway and this was a reality show of sorts. “The Decision”. ESPN is owned by Disney although the executives at Disney are hardly children and they too know how to work the political system.
Lebron James is a 25-year-old basketball player, an entertainer, nothing more and nothing less. Too many grownups genuflect in front of 20-something athletes. But then again fan is short for fanatic. Maybe it is time for the grownups (the politicians and the media) to grow up.
Evan Weiner is an author radio-TV commentator and speaking on “The Politics of Sports Business” and can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Showing posts with label Mort Zuckerman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mort Zuckerman. Show all posts
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Saturday, May 8, 2010
A New York Tabloid’s Seduction of Lebron James
A New York Tabloid’s Seduction of Lebron James
By Evan Weiner
May 7, 2010
(New York, N. Y.) -- United States security officials are still investigating the Times Square bombing attempt, Greece is falling off the economic cliff, there is a flood cleanup in the heart of Nashville, the BP oil spill has not been capped in the Gulf of Mexico, the stock market blew a fuse on Thursday, a volcano in Iceland is still throwing ash into the sky and causing some airplane disruptions in Europe, the United Kingdom had an election and Roland Martin wore an ascot on CNN which became a running joke on The Daily Show for two days yet the New York Daily News, Mort Zuckerman's New York Daily News had an open letter to Lebron James on the front page of May 8's edition, please come to New York and sign with the Knicks after James becomes a free agent on July 1. Zuckerman's headline writer had a plea to Lebron.
This Is Home.
Actually Akron, Ohio is home for Lebron.
On pages 8 and 9 of the tabloid, there were articles and then a comparison between New York and Cleveland and why New York is better. This is not an unusual Daily News tactic. When the Knicks played Indiana in the playoffs in the 1990s, the tabloid poked fun at Indianapolis and Indiana using the headline "The Knicks Versus the Hicks".
Disrespectful yes, but tabloids have no time for hurt feelings. Especially New York tabloids in the midst of in what seems to be the Hundred Years' (tabloid) War.
The "This is Home" complete with pictures of the Statue of Liberty and Lebron front page (Emma Lazarus probably wasn't thinking of Lebron when she wrote give me your tired and poor line as part of her sonnet, The New Colossus which is immortalized on a plaque at the Statue of Liberty) was just the latest New York media's love note to Lebron, the wooing of Lebron in the New York papers is akin to the Knicks trying to recruit Lebron and it appears Knicks owner James Dolan has no problem with the New York tabloids gushing over Lebron who is a free agent come July 1. Dolan who himself owns a newspaper -- Newsday -- has been quiet on the subject, he could be accused of tampering with a player under contract to another team and Newsday has not been out in front of showing love and affection for the Cleveland Cavaliers player.
Zuckerman, whose paper (along with Rupert Murdoch's New York Post, the New York Times and Newsday) put up money for the establishment of the NYC2012 Olympic Committee and himself a part owner of the Washington Redskins, cannot be serious or can he? The Daily News is in a struggle with the New York Post for tabloid domination in the New York market, neither paper puts out much of a useable product as both are filled with mayhem, murder, entertainment and sports news with a lot of sensationalism and on top of that ESPN's new New York website poached Zuckerman's product and took a number of sportswriters.
The Daily News needs readership and if Lebron and the Statue of Liberty and "This is Home" sells papers, that is fine.
The Lebron on the Saturday cover and two-page in the non-sports section articles along with a blow up of Lebron in a Knicks uniform is a thoroughly unprofessional of a journalistic endeavor however and sophomoric at best. The paper seems to be on collectively hands and knees in begging mode, please Lebron look at me status. The only thing missing was Zuckerman's star writer, Mike Lupica (who in the 1990s was Garden President Dave Checketts stenographer and MSG's chief welcome wagon host in his love letters in the sand to MSG columns and Lupica is still pining for those days when the Knicks and Rangers mattered and the Garden was either the hippest or coolest spot on Earth---perhaps he can again hire people like he did back in the 1990s to tell him how the Rangers played and write coherent columns about hockey as well) did not write the valentines to Lebron pieces but that will soon be coming from the Daily News superstar political and sports columnist as the days dwindle down to July 1.
(Love Letters in the Sand was written by J. Fred Coots. Coots also wrote Santa Claus is Coming to Town and the Rangers Victory Song – the New York Rangers fight song back in the 1930s and 40s and beyond.)
The New York tabloid papers basketball coverage have been nothing more than let’s hope Lebron falls in love with New York cheerleaders and the papers are perhaps one step ahead of the New York sports talk radio shows in their infatuation. The hosts of those radio shows also pine for Lebron's love for New York.
Zuckerman, who has the very serious magazine, US News and World Report, has not mentioned in any of his coverage that Lebron's maximum annual NBA contract would allow him to make about $14 million a year is about the same amount of money that Madison Square Garden would pay in property taxes except Dolan doesn't have to pay property taxes. Dolan doesn't pay because in the early 1980s, Gulf and Western, then Garden owners, somehow convinced Mayor Ed Koch, the New York State Legislature and New York Governor Mario Cuomo that the NBA's Knicks and the NHL's Rangers could not be financially viable and could not compete with small market teams for talent without a reduction in property taxes and help with the Con Ed electric bill.
The Knicks and Rangers stayed in a valuable parcel of real estate not far from Macy's or Times Square, Gulf and Western got the property off the city's books and Con Ed customers paid for the privilege of having the two teams stay in Manhattan by picking up the Garden's electric tab. The New York State-Garden deal seems to be one of those that will last in perpetuity or eternity.
Zuckerman seems to be trying to play the Jack Murphy role in getting two big league sports franchise in San Diego in 1961 and 1969 in the pursuit of Lebron James. There is no secret that newspapers like to shape public opinion and make endorsements for political candidates and public policy. But a newspapers main goal is not reporting news per se. The news is the lure or the bait for people to look at the newspaper and check out the advertisements. It is the ad money that newspapers have lived and died with. Ad money has been evaporating for newspapers over the past decade and the product has suffered as writers have been let go.
The Lebron on the front cover is a ploy to get people to sample the Daily News. Zuckerman is not Jack Murphy though. Jack Murphy is a forgotten figure in sports and probably belongs in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the Baseball Hall of Fame as a contributor. Murphy was a columnist and the sports editor of the San Diego Union in the 1950s. San Diego was a quiet, navy town in the 1950s but Murphy reached out to the owner of the American Football League's Los Angeles Chargers, Barron Hilton (the grandfather of Paris Hilton) and began a city pursuit of Hilton's football team. Murphy did convince Hilton that San Diego was a much better venue for his fan-challenged Los Angeles Chargers but there was a potential short term and long term problem.
San Diego lacked a suitable professional football stadium. With Hilton's team ready to move southward but not having a home, Murphy began writing that the Chargers needed a real stadium not the patchwork Balboa Stadium (some renovations at the facility to make it an acceptable AFL stadium were done by Chargers players including Jack Kemp and Paul Maguire) which sat 34,000 people. Murphy pushed to get public support in a referendum to build a real stadium and voters responded by passing the $27 million stadium ballot in November 1965. The new stadium opened in 1967 with the Chargers football team as the main tenant. After Murphy passed away in 1980, San Diego Stadium became Jack Murphy Stadium. The name didn't stick along as changing economics forced a naming rights partner's logo on the stadium in exchange for multi-million dollar checks that went to help pay off players salaries.
A series of factors led both the American and National Leagues in baseball to expand in 1969. Neither league had an expansion plans on the table but when Kansas City A's owner took his team to Oakland after the 1967 season, Missouri Senator Stuart Symington threatened Major League Baseball with stripping the antitrust exemption that the Supreme Court gave the game in 1922. Senator Symington demanded a replacement for Finley's A's as soon as possible which meant 1969.
Initially, the National League did not want to add teams until 1971 but with Symington breathing down Baseball's neck and the American League committing expansion franchises to Kansas City and Seattle, National League owners took San Diego as one territory and Montreal or Buffalo for the other expansion team. Montreal officials were about to secure a ballpark while San Diego had a major league stadium ready to go. Buffalo did not get a team and was a fallback in the event Montreal could not produce a stadium.
Murphy got two franchises into San Diego. Zuckerman waves pom poms for the Knicks. It would be interesting to see how Zuckerman would have reacted if he had more of a financial stake in the Washington Redskins and papers in other markets wanted the Redskins best player and spent years courting the superstar player.
NBA Commissioner David Stern cannot stop Zuckerman's bouquets to Lebron and Stern must know that the Knicks from Dolan to the team's president Donnie Walsh to others in the Garden, while not actively encouraging sportswriters and the papers to seduce Lebron are also not discouraging writers to blow kisses at Lebron. Sportswriters for all their talk about being professionals are fans too and are happy to cover a winning team. The New York Knicks basketball franchise has not been a good product for years.
Lebron is not going to sell any papers anyway. Those days are long gone; newspapers have too much competition from other media sources. But don't tell that to Mort on Rupert. They are in a tabloid war and if Lebron or Dwayne Wade, individually or together, don't come to New York, there is always Carmelo Anthony waiting for free agency in 2011. In fact some New York basketball fans, rather writers, think that Lebron will spurn them and are already making eyes at the Denver Nuggets player. Until Lebron makes a decision, the newspaper seduction of Lebron James will continue in New York.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator and a lecturer on "The Politics of Sports Business." He is available for speaking at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
By Evan Weiner
May 7, 2010
(New York, N. Y.) -- United States security officials are still investigating the Times Square bombing attempt, Greece is falling off the economic cliff, there is a flood cleanup in the heart of Nashville, the BP oil spill has not been capped in the Gulf of Mexico, the stock market blew a fuse on Thursday, a volcano in Iceland is still throwing ash into the sky and causing some airplane disruptions in Europe, the United Kingdom had an election and Roland Martin wore an ascot on CNN which became a running joke on The Daily Show for two days yet the New York Daily News, Mort Zuckerman's New York Daily News had an open letter to Lebron James on the front page of May 8's edition, please come to New York and sign with the Knicks after James becomes a free agent on July 1. Zuckerman's headline writer had a plea to Lebron.
This Is Home.
Actually Akron, Ohio is home for Lebron.
On pages 8 and 9 of the tabloid, there were articles and then a comparison between New York and Cleveland and why New York is better. This is not an unusual Daily News tactic. When the Knicks played Indiana in the playoffs in the 1990s, the tabloid poked fun at Indianapolis and Indiana using the headline "The Knicks Versus the Hicks".
Disrespectful yes, but tabloids have no time for hurt feelings. Especially New York tabloids in the midst of in what seems to be the Hundred Years' (tabloid) War.
The "This is Home" complete with pictures of the Statue of Liberty and Lebron front page (Emma Lazarus probably wasn't thinking of Lebron when she wrote give me your tired and poor line as part of her sonnet, The New Colossus which is immortalized on a plaque at the Statue of Liberty) was just the latest New York media's love note to Lebron, the wooing of Lebron in the New York papers is akin to the Knicks trying to recruit Lebron and it appears Knicks owner James Dolan has no problem with the New York tabloids gushing over Lebron who is a free agent come July 1. Dolan who himself owns a newspaper -- Newsday -- has been quiet on the subject, he could be accused of tampering with a player under contract to another team and Newsday has not been out in front of showing love and affection for the Cleveland Cavaliers player.
Zuckerman, whose paper (along with Rupert Murdoch's New York Post, the New York Times and Newsday) put up money for the establishment of the NYC2012 Olympic Committee and himself a part owner of the Washington Redskins, cannot be serious or can he? The Daily News is in a struggle with the New York Post for tabloid domination in the New York market, neither paper puts out much of a useable product as both are filled with mayhem, murder, entertainment and sports news with a lot of sensationalism and on top of that ESPN's new New York website poached Zuckerman's product and took a number of sportswriters.
The Daily News needs readership and if Lebron and the Statue of Liberty and "This is Home" sells papers, that is fine.
The Lebron on the Saturday cover and two-page in the non-sports section articles along with a blow up of Lebron in a Knicks uniform is a thoroughly unprofessional of a journalistic endeavor however and sophomoric at best. The paper seems to be on collectively hands and knees in begging mode, please Lebron look at me status. The only thing missing was Zuckerman's star writer, Mike Lupica (who in the 1990s was Garden President Dave Checketts stenographer and MSG's chief welcome wagon host in his love letters in the sand to MSG columns and Lupica is still pining for those days when the Knicks and Rangers mattered and the Garden was either the hippest or coolest spot on Earth---perhaps he can again hire people like he did back in the 1990s to tell him how the Rangers played and write coherent columns about hockey as well) did not write the valentines to Lebron pieces but that will soon be coming from the Daily News superstar political and sports columnist as the days dwindle down to July 1.
(Love Letters in the Sand was written by J. Fred Coots. Coots also wrote Santa Claus is Coming to Town and the Rangers Victory Song – the New York Rangers fight song back in the 1930s and 40s and beyond.)
The New York tabloid papers basketball coverage have been nothing more than let’s hope Lebron falls in love with New York cheerleaders and the papers are perhaps one step ahead of the New York sports talk radio shows in their infatuation. The hosts of those radio shows also pine for Lebron's love for New York.
Zuckerman, who has the very serious magazine, US News and World Report, has not mentioned in any of his coverage that Lebron's maximum annual NBA contract would allow him to make about $14 million a year is about the same amount of money that Madison Square Garden would pay in property taxes except Dolan doesn't have to pay property taxes. Dolan doesn't pay because in the early 1980s, Gulf and Western, then Garden owners, somehow convinced Mayor Ed Koch, the New York State Legislature and New York Governor Mario Cuomo that the NBA's Knicks and the NHL's Rangers could not be financially viable and could not compete with small market teams for talent without a reduction in property taxes and help with the Con Ed electric bill.
The Knicks and Rangers stayed in a valuable parcel of real estate not far from Macy's or Times Square, Gulf and Western got the property off the city's books and Con Ed customers paid for the privilege of having the two teams stay in Manhattan by picking up the Garden's electric tab. The New York State-Garden deal seems to be one of those that will last in perpetuity or eternity.
Zuckerman seems to be trying to play the Jack Murphy role in getting two big league sports franchise in San Diego in 1961 and 1969 in the pursuit of Lebron James. There is no secret that newspapers like to shape public opinion and make endorsements for political candidates and public policy. But a newspapers main goal is not reporting news per se. The news is the lure or the bait for people to look at the newspaper and check out the advertisements. It is the ad money that newspapers have lived and died with. Ad money has been evaporating for newspapers over the past decade and the product has suffered as writers have been let go.
The Lebron on the front cover is a ploy to get people to sample the Daily News. Zuckerman is not Jack Murphy though. Jack Murphy is a forgotten figure in sports and probably belongs in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and the Baseball Hall of Fame as a contributor. Murphy was a columnist and the sports editor of the San Diego Union in the 1950s. San Diego was a quiet, navy town in the 1950s but Murphy reached out to the owner of the American Football League's Los Angeles Chargers, Barron Hilton (the grandfather of Paris Hilton) and began a city pursuit of Hilton's football team. Murphy did convince Hilton that San Diego was a much better venue for his fan-challenged Los Angeles Chargers but there was a potential short term and long term problem.
San Diego lacked a suitable professional football stadium. With Hilton's team ready to move southward but not having a home, Murphy began writing that the Chargers needed a real stadium not the patchwork Balboa Stadium (some renovations at the facility to make it an acceptable AFL stadium were done by Chargers players including Jack Kemp and Paul Maguire) which sat 34,000 people. Murphy pushed to get public support in a referendum to build a real stadium and voters responded by passing the $27 million stadium ballot in November 1965. The new stadium opened in 1967 with the Chargers football team as the main tenant. After Murphy passed away in 1980, San Diego Stadium became Jack Murphy Stadium. The name didn't stick along as changing economics forced a naming rights partner's logo on the stadium in exchange for multi-million dollar checks that went to help pay off players salaries.
A series of factors led both the American and National Leagues in baseball to expand in 1969. Neither league had an expansion plans on the table but when Kansas City A's owner took his team to Oakland after the 1967 season, Missouri Senator Stuart Symington threatened Major League Baseball with stripping the antitrust exemption that the Supreme Court gave the game in 1922. Senator Symington demanded a replacement for Finley's A's as soon as possible which meant 1969.
Initially, the National League did not want to add teams until 1971 but with Symington breathing down Baseball's neck and the American League committing expansion franchises to Kansas City and Seattle, National League owners took San Diego as one territory and Montreal or Buffalo for the other expansion team. Montreal officials were about to secure a ballpark while San Diego had a major league stadium ready to go. Buffalo did not get a team and was a fallback in the event Montreal could not produce a stadium.
Murphy got two franchises into San Diego. Zuckerman waves pom poms for the Knicks. It would be interesting to see how Zuckerman would have reacted if he had more of a financial stake in the Washington Redskins and papers in other markets wanted the Redskins best player and spent years courting the superstar player.
NBA Commissioner David Stern cannot stop Zuckerman's bouquets to Lebron and Stern must know that the Knicks from Dolan to the team's president Donnie Walsh to others in the Garden, while not actively encouraging sportswriters and the papers to seduce Lebron are also not discouraging writers to blow kisses at Lebron. Sportswriters for all their talk about being professionals are fans too and are happy to cover a winning team. The New York Knicks basketball franchise has not been a good product for years.
Lebron is not going to sell any papers anyway. Those days are long gone; newspapers have too much competition from other media sources. But don't tell that to Mort on Rupert. They are in a tabloid war and if Lebron or Dwayne Wade, individually or together, don't come to New York, there is always Carmelo Anthony waiting for free agency in 2011. In fact some New York basketball fans, rather writers, think that Lebron will spurn them and are already making eyes at the Denver Nuggets player. Until Lebron makes a decision, the newspaper seduction of Lebron James will continue in New York.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator and a lecturer on "The Politics of Sports Business." He is available for speaking at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Sunday, February 21, 2010
The Chicago Cubs, Tiger Woods and a Senator Wannabee
The Chicago Cubs, Tiger Woods and a Senator Wannabee
By Evan Weiner
February 21, 2010
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2010m2d21-The-Chicago-Cubs-Tiger-Woods-and-a-Senator-wannabe#
The American media never ceases to disappoint. Tiger Woods is forced by someone to make a statement about his private life and people like Mort Zuckerman are there ready to provide all the details and analysis of a manufactured for media consumption mea culpa. Zuckerman owns the New York Daily News and is rumored to be a candidate for the New York senate seat held by Kristen Gillibrand.
How can you actually take Zuckerman seriously when his newspaper puts out on the front page a headline concerning Tiger Woods and bimbos? In fact the exact New York Daily News headline on February 18 was Lock Up Your Bimbos. Now Zuckerman does not write headlines for the newspaper but if Zuckerman wants to really run, he needs to explain how the lack of serious news judgment, in that edition, on page 2 there was a poll about how Americans are fed up with elected officials, on page 3 there was something about a fortune teller or psychic and then the gold, pages 4 and 5 on Tiger Woods with Zuckerman’s lead columnist Mike Lupica, who also doubles as one of Zuckerman’s political commentators. That makes sense since Lupica can now apply his limited knowledge of facts in not only the sports section but on the political scene.
Zuckerman also needs to explain why he has taken away his contribution to the 401k plan at the Daily News. But that would require a dedicated section on the economic woes of the country. Zuckerman would also have to explain why he is spending millions of dollars in beefing up the look of the Daily News including more color in an age when newspaper readership is declining or simply dying off as young people do not flock to buy newspapers. He might also by asked why his newspaper is disrespectful which newspapers generally are with sarcastic headlines, half truths and malicious gossip.
Zuckerman’s people also might want to actually report on something that concerns people. Here’s a story that Mort has overlooked in his paper and if you are running for Senate Mort, this might be a good one for you.
The city of Mesa, Arizona has decided that it needs the Chicago Cubs baseball team needs to remain in the town to conduct spring training after the Cubs ownership lease with Mesa officials runs out at Hohokum Park after the 2012 spring training portion of the baseball calendar. Mesa officials reached a deal with the Cubs new ownership to build an $84 million stadium, which would be used by the baseball team for at the most 15 or 16 times a year, and the stadium would be funded by adding a seat tax on all spring training games played in the Mesa vicinity, places like Phoenix, Scottsdale, Goodyear, Glendale, Surprise, Maryvale, Peoria and Tempe. There would also be a rise in the Maricopa County car rental tax, which is sold to local residents as a tax on tourists, not them although a significant amount of car rentals are local.
The Cubs ownership would buy the land needed for the stadium and then swap the land back to Mesa in exchange for a stadium and the baseball team would also get the stadium naming rights and keep all of the signage revenues. Mesa voters would have to approve spending for bonds to fund the stadium in a referendum.
Needless to say, Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig and the owners of the Dodgers and White Sox (Glendale), the Indians and Reds (Goodyear), the Giants (Scottsdale), the Angels (Tempe), the A’s (Phoenix), the Brewers (Maryvale), the Mariners and Padres (Peoria) and the Royals and Rangers (Surprise) who are presently in the Mesa area and the Tucson-based Diamondbacks and Rockies who will conduct spring training on an Indian reservation starting in 2011 are not to thrilled about the proposal.
The ticket tax means those teams’ owners will get less disposable income directed at them.
The Goldwater Institute, a conservative think tank type entity, is not on board either. They think that the deal is illegal because of Arizona’s ban on giving gifts to private concerns.
Arizona is also broke.
Zuckerman should understand that as he has a piece of the National Football League’s Washington Redskins and he put up money or the Daily News did to help New York land the 2012 Summer Olympics. This should be an easy article for the Daily News to get. Sports, politics, economics, a Senator wannabe should be rather familiar with the issues.
Mesa elected officials came up with all sorts of goodies to support the argument that baseball fanatics who travel to Mesa and the Valley of the Sun should help pay for the new Cubs park. The Cubs baseball team has an annual impact of $138 million on the Arizona economy (which if believable would be a huge haul for a state that is selling government buildings and closing state parks because the state is broke --- another Zuckerman political issue to report on perhaps he can get Lupica on that). Cactus League attendance would drop 22 percent without Chicago Cubs baseball (Cactus League attendance should increase in 2010 with the addition of Cincinnati in the Phoenix area as Reds ownership has moved the spring training headquarters from Sarasota, Florida to Goodyear) and the Cubs baseball is spring training’s biggest draw as more than 203,000 people paid to see the team last year in Mesa and other Phoenix/Tucson area stadiums.
Arizona, through the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority (AZSTA), has been very aggressive in going after baseball teams and luring them from Florida. In recent years, the state has landed Cleveland and Cincinnati for Goodyear, the Chicago White Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers in Glendale, Texas and Kansas City in Surprise and has fought off an attempt by Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman to get team owners to move to the Nevada area. The AZSTA has a budget shortfall of $10 million and cannot help in the Cubs-Mesa stadium plan.
One of the teams opposing the seat tax is the Milwaukee Brewers. Milwaukee’s deal with Maryvale ends in 2012 and that could set up a battle between Arizona and Florida over building a spring training facility for the team.
Arizona and Florida are two of the hardest hit states in the economic downturn but somehow are trying to find millions of dollars to support stadium building despite being broke.
Naples and Collier County, Florida officials were ready to get on their collect hands and knees to build Wrigley Field South for Cubs owner Tom Ricketts with the hope of using a tourist tax, a hotel/motel tax to help fund the project. Perhaps they will turn to Brewers owner Mark Attanasio and give him the same offer if Mesa prevails and keeps the Cubs.
Perhaps Zuckerman, the New York Senatorial candidate, and his ace columnist Lupica, will follow the Cubs-Mesa story and all of the political elements that are involved. But then again, maybe not. There are still bimbos on the loose and fortune tellers’ stories to be told and they can play amateur psychiatrist and continue analyzing whether Tiger Woods apology was heart-felt enough for them.
evanjweiner@yahoo.com
By Evan Weiner
February 21, 2010
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2010m2d21-The-Chicago-Cubs-Tiger-Woods-and-a-Senator-wannabe#
The American media never ceases to disappoint. Tiger Woods is forced by someone to make a statement about his private life and people like Mort Zuckerman are there ready to provide all the details and analysis of a manufactured for media consumption mea culpa. Zuckerman owns the New York Daily News and is rumored to be a candidate for the New York senate seat held by Kristen Gillibrand.
How can you actually take Zuckerman seriously when his newspaper puts out on the front page a headline concerning Tiger Woods and bimbos? In fact the exact New York Daily News headline on February 18 was Lock Up Your Bimbos. Now Zuckerman does not write headlines for the newspaper but if Zuckerman wants to really run, he needs to explain how the lack of serious news judgment, in that edition, on page 2 there was a poll about how Americans are fed up with elected officials, on page 3 there was something about a fortune teller or psychic and then the gold, pages 4 and 5 on Tiger Woods with Zuckerman’s lead columnist Mike Lupica, who also doubles as one of Zuckerman’s political commentators. That makes sense since Lupica can now apply his limited knowledge of facts in not only the sports section but on the political scene.
Zuckerman also needs to explain why he has taken away his contribution to the 401k plan at the Daily News. But that would require a dedicated section on the economic woes of the country. Zuckerman would also have to explain why he is spending millions of dollars in beefing up the look of the Daily News including more color in an age when newspaper readership is declining or simply dying off as young people do not flock to buy newspapers. He might also by asked why his newspaper is disrespectful which newspapers generally are with sarcastic headlines, half truths and malicious gossip.
Zuckerman’s people also might want to actually report on something that concerns people. Here’s a story that Mort has overlooked in his paper and if you are running for Senate Mort, this might be a good one for you.
The city of Mesa, Arizona has decided that it needs the Chicago Cubs baseball team needs to remain in the town to conduct spring training after the Cubs ownership lease with Mesa officials runs out at Hohokum Park after the 2012 spring training portion of the baseball calendar. Mesa officials reached a deal with the Cubs new ownership to build an $84 million stadium, which would be used by the baseball team for at the most 15 or 16 times a year, and the stadium would be funded by adding a seat tax on all spring training games played in the Mesa vicinity, places like Phoenix, Scottsdale, Goodyear, Glendale, Surprise, Maryvale, Peoria and Tempe. There would also be a rise in the Maricopa County car rental tax, which is sold to local residents as a tax on tourists, not them although a significant amount of car rentals are local.
The Cubs ownership would buy the land needed for the stadium and then swap the land back to Mesa in exchange for a stadium and the baseball team would also get the stadium naming rights and keep all of the signage revenues. Mesa voters would have to approve spending for bonds to fund the stadium in a referendum.
Needless to say, Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig and the owners of the Dodgers and White Sox (Glendale), the Indians and Reds (Goodyear), the Giants (Scottsdale), the Angels (Tempe), the A’s (Phoenix), the Brewers (Maryvale), the Mariners and Padres (Peoria) and the Royals and Rangers (Surprise) who are presently in the Mesa area and the Tucson-based Diamondbacks and Rockies who will conduct spring training on an Indian reservation starting in 2011 are not to thrilled about the proposal.
The ticket tax means those teams’ owners will get less disposable income directed at them.
The Goldwater Institute, a conservative think tank type entity, is not on board either. They think that the deal is illegal because of Arizona’s ban on giving gifts to private concerns.
Arizona is also broke.
Zuckerman should understand that as he has a piece of the National Football League’s Washington Redskins and he put up money or the Daily News did to help New York land the 2012 Summer Olympics. This should be an easy article for the Daily News to get. Sports, politics, economics, a Senator wannabe should be rather familiar with the issues.
Mesa elected officials came up with all sorts of goodies to support the argument that baseball fanatics who travel to Mesa and the Valley of the Sun should help pay for the new Cubs park. The Cubs baseball team has an annual impact of $138 million on the Arizona economy (which if believable would be a huge haul for a state that is selling government buildings and closing state parks because the state is broke --- another Zuckerman political issue to report on perhaps he can get Lupica on that). Cactus League attendance would drop 22 percent without Chicago Cubs baseball (Cactus League attendance should increase in 2010 with the addition of Cincinnati in the Phoenix area as Reds ownership has moved the spring training headquarters from Sarasota, Florida to Goodyear) and the Cubs baseball is spring training’s biggest draw as more than 203,000 people paid to see the team last year in Mesa and other Phoenix/Tucson area stadiums.
Arizona, through the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority (AZSTA), has been very aggressive in going after baseball teams and luring them from Florida. In recent years, the state has landed Cleveland and Cincinnati for Goodyear, the Chicago White Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers in Glendale, Texas and Kansas City in Surprise and has fought off an attempt by Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman to get team owners to move to the Nevada area. The AZSTA has a budget shortfall of $10 million and cannot help in the Cubs-Mesa stadium plan.
One of the teams opposing the seat tax is the Milwaukee Brewers. Milwaukee’s deal with Maryvale ends in 2012 and that could set up a battle between Arizona and Florida over building a spring training facility for the team.
Arizona and Florida are two of the hardest hit states in the economic downturn but somehow are trying to find millions of dollars to support stadium building despite being broke.
Naples and Collier County, Florida officials were ready to get on their collect hands and knees to build Wrigley Field South for Cubs owner Tom Ricketts with the hope of using a tourist tax, a hotel/motel tax to help fund the project. Perhaps they will turn to Brewers owner Mark Attanasio and give him the same offer if Mesa prevails and keeps the Cubs.
Perhaps Zuckerman, the New York Senatorial candidate, and his ace columnist Lupica, will follow the Cubs-Mesa story and all of the political elements that are involved. But then again, maybe not. There are still bimbos on the loose and fortune tellers’ stories to be told and they can play amateur psychiatrist and continue analyzing whether Tiger Woods apology was heart-felt enough for them.
evanjweiner@yahoo.com
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