For sports team owners seeking new stadiums or arenas—which is to say, for sports team owners—there are certain tools of the trade at their disposal for convincing fans and politicians to support (and pay for) a new building. They have … Continue reading
Even as the New York Islanders confuse their fans with plans to play some home playoff games in Nassau County and some in Brooklyn, the team’s ownership has been quietly moving ahead with plans to build a new arena halfway … Continue reading
Willets Point, the warren of auto-repair shops that for generations sat on a muddy peninsula between the Mets’ ballpark and Flushing Creek, has been targeted for an overhaul ever since “the Mets’ ballpark” still meant Shea Stadium. When the Bloomberg … Continue reading
Four billion dollars, I think we can all agree, is a lot of money. It’s more than the combined annual budgets of Barbados, Bermuda, and Belize. It’s enough to buy a few dozen private Caribbean islands. It’s two Giancarlo Stantons, … Continue reading
Now that the Knicks have finally gotten their latest season of misery underway — they had a bit of a speed bump in beating the Hawks on opening night, but the Nets, Celtics, and Bucks soon restored order to the … Continue reading
Whenever professional economists are asked about stadium and arena deals, they invariably explain, for the hundredth time, that these “almost never” work out to the benefit of the public. (Look, here are a bunch saying so just a few weeks … Continue reading
When the state of Rhode Island offered up $38 million in June to the owners of the Triple-A Pawtucket Red Sox toward a new stadium, it seemed likely to be the first step on the road to a replacement for … Continue reading
When the owners of the New York Yankees announced, on a June day in 2005, plans for a new stadium to replace the 82-year-old Yankee Stadium, they had a special treat for New Yorkers who’d been hearing for more than … Continue reading
If you’re still wrapping your brain around the math behind the New York Islanders’ “give us cheap state land and we’ll build an arena complex on it” proposal, get ready for the Bronx version. According to information leaked to the … Continue reading
Ever since Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Empire State Development agency decreed a group led by the owners of the New York Islanders to be the winning bidders for a 43-acre plot of land in the Belmont Park racetrack parking lots in … Continue reading