The Hillsborough County commission and Tampa city council look set to vote tomorrow and Thursday, respectively, on a nonbinding MOU for a Tampa Bay Rays stadium project requiring about $976 million in city and county tax dollars plus $839 million in property tax breaks and at least $250 million in free land for the stadium […]
Portland Trail Blazers owner Tom Dundon gave a long podcast interview on Friday in which he mostly talked about how he’s not a cheapskate, he just genuinely thought towels were a cooler giveaway than t-shirts because that’s how he thought it worked at hockey games. But he also said this: “When I bought the Hurricanes, […]
Now that the Tampa Bay Rays stadium push has been pushed back to beyond the end of this legislative session, maybe we can get on with looking at some of the week’s news from other cities. Though wait: Could the Rays actually be on the verge of agreeing to an actual MOU with the city of […]
If Tampa Bay Rays owner Patrick Zalupski’s Plan B now that the city of Tampa and Hillsborough County won’t vote on stadium subsidies by the end of this legislative session is to go get state money first and figure out the rest later, uh, he may need a Plan C: Sen. Ed Hooper, a Clearwater Republican […]
When the Washington Commanders‘ record-shattering stadium deal that could end up costing D.C. $6.6 billion or more in cash, land, and tax breaks was approved last summer, one of the many unanswered questions was how to get 65,000 people in and out of the former RFK Stadium site on game days. The district’s Metro transit agency […]
I don’t want to make too big a deal about this trend of elected officials taking their time before voting on sports subsidy deals — looking stadium and arena demands in the mouth is literally doing their minimum job — but add Portland, Oregon to Tampa and the state of Illinois as local governments doing […]
Two weeks after megaprojects property tax break bill lead sponsor Bill Cunningham said that the Illinois state senate was “going to take our time with this” and “getting it right is more important than getting it done quickly,” the senate is continuing to (tries to think of football metaphor) run down the clock (nailed it!): […]