Neil deMause: The Website

With the cost of the New York Yankees’s new stadium project running close to $2 billion, the team has asked the city for another $350 million in city-backed tax-exempt bonds to help raise money for the project. I break down the numbers for the Village Voice, and also examine whether the whole thing might be illegal:

Next time you’re tempted to conclude that New York’s state legislature is entirely useless, remember this: State Assemblymember Richard Brodsky broke the news on Tuesday that the Yankees are looking to get an additional $350 million in city tax-exempt bonds for their new stadium, currently under construction in the Bronx.

“The explosion of public debt issued by obscure semi-public and private institutions is reaching unmanageable proportions,” declared Brodsky, chair of the committee overseeing public authorities. “The Yankee Stadium financing may or may not be a good thing, but it certainly should be done in the light of day.”

In the interest of daylight, then: The $350 million the Yanks are seeking would be on top of the $940 million in city bonds the team already got in 2006… [read more]

I weigh in on stadium financing in two far-flung corners of the nation today: In the Whittier Daily News I analyze a report by Los Angeles sports promoters on the economic impact of sports in Southern California (key quote: “I could teach my 5-year-old to make that calculation”); in the St. Petersburg Times, I’m one of four stadium experts giving their take on the Tampa Bay Rays’ latest stadium finance plan (key quote: “It’s not a financing plan. Rather, it’s a PR document that leaves out most of the important details”). You can read my even longer critique of the Rays plan at fieldofschemes.com.

In which I consider the latest rumors that the New Jersey Nets could be headed to Newark instead of Brooklyn, and whether that might not be best for Brooklyn in the long run:

The recent news that a group of New Jersey investors may be working to buy the Nets and move them to Newark didn’t exactly set off shock waves in Brooklyn, which would be jilted as the team’s new home.

Despite all the hoopla surrounding the announcement nearly five years ago that the Nets would be coming to Brooklyn — developer-turned-owner Bruce Ratner cavorting in World B Free’s too-big hat, borough president Marty Markowitz sobbing, “Those tears of joy are swelling up in me — I just can’t wait!” — it’s been hard to find many locals who are waiting with bated breath for the team’s arrival… [read more]

I neglected to mention that I was going to be on Sports Byline USA’s overnight program on Friday, talking about the new edition of Field of Schemes, whether the Sonics will move to Oklahoma, and other sundry topics. As penance, I now offer up links not only to an mp3 of that interview, but of one I did for the same sports talk network last month.

And if you would have wanted to call in but couldn’t because you didn’t know about, all I can suggest is you try using Google Custom Time.

I was interviewed about stadium shakedowns by John Miller of National Review Online (yes, you read that right) a week or so ago, and it’s now available online. I don’t remember what I said, so tune in and then tell me!

The new stadiums for the Mets and Yankees are a year away from completion, and they’re costing less and creating fewer headaches for local residents than expected. Just kidding!

When Mets and Yankees fans arrive for the start of the new season, the teams’ past and future will be on display side by side—and not just Pedro Martinez and Johan Santana or Andy Pettitte and Joba Chamberlain. At a record-shattering price tag of more than $2.5 billion, twin homes for New York’s ball clubs are being readied for their 2009 openings—and in the Bronx in particular, the repercussions are affecting not just the city treasury but the local neighborhood… [read more]

Don’t believe anything you read on the front page of the New York Post, no matter how amusing the headline is:

Today’s front-page Post “exclusive” reports that the Yankees and Mets are in “secret talks” to buy the remnants of Yankee and Shea Stadiums so the teams can sell off the scrap to souvenir-hunting fans. In the story inside, memorabilia expert Mike Heffner raves about the value of New York baseball relics, speculating that in the case of Yankee Stadium, “Each brick could sell for $100 to $300. I doubt we’d have any trouble selling every seat in the house for as much as $1,000.”

Even given the low bar for tabloid exclusives, not much of this is news… [read more]

Barely two weeks after I wrote about the rising public costs of the new Yankees stadium, those costs have risen yet again:

Baseball may be a game of numbers, but this is ridiculous: Sports fans (or just concerned taxpayers) who opened their morning paper today could read that the city cost of building new parks to replace those obliterated for a new Yankees stadium had risen 48% to $190 million, and also 122% to $288 million. It’s enough to make WXRL seem easy to understand by comparison.

The explanation, it turns out, is that it depends on what you mean by “parks”…

Just got word that Field of Schemes: The Next Generation (ed. note: not the actual title) is now shipping from Bison Books’ website, notwithstanding the official release date being a month away. This edition has all the stadium-swindley goodness of the original FoS, plus four new chapters and annotations to the original chapters that make the whole thing clock in at a hefty 400-plus pages.

For more on this, visit fieldofschemes.com. And if you’re a potential book reviewer, radio producer, or bookstore that might want to host a speaking/signing, drop me an e-mail. (Bookstores, you might want to get one of your staffers to send the e-mail; I know how hard it is for brick and mortar to type.)

It’s been a while since I’ve had an excuse to do a new tally of the public costs of the Yankees and Mets deals, so I was pleased to see New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg put his foot in his mouth about the stadiums last week:

On his weekly radio show Friday, Mayor Bloomberg was asked why the city was subsidizing stadiums for the Mets and Yankees. His response: “The city and the state, to my recollection, each put in $75 million” for each new stadium — a mere fraction of the total cost. “It was a really good deal,” he added.

For a data-crazed mayor, Bloomberg can be awfully loose with his numbers… [read more]

I’ve also put up a new spreadsheet of the public/private cost calculations underlying this article, for those interested.