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17 minutes ago, Red Comet said:

Not to mention the whole "paying taxes in two different countries". Only winners will be CPAs in Tampa and Montreal.

Everyone in MLB already pays taxes in every city/state/province today if they visit TOR in a season. The jock tax has been real for over a decade.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-pro-athletes-may-lose-a-fortune-because-of-the-new-tax-law-2018-12-06

6 minutes ago, DG_Now said:

 

Yes! We do need more Heathers reaction gifs. 

For those who are not "blue chip brands", design is less important than the amount of product they'll receive during the life of the contract.  For most, the days of large amount of cash are a thing of the past as a result of the college hoops trials.  The royalties for Nike-branded apparel is likely higher compares with the other brands too since more folks buy Nike gear overall. 

7 minutes ago, GDAWG said:

 

Because I don't think St. Petersburg wants to deal with Sternberg again if the Rays move out of the Tampa area. 

When they bought the Rowdies last October, terms of the sale included keeping the team at Al Lang for five seasons.  The city isn't going to kick them out and lose out on even more tax revenue.

Stephen A and Stugotz's Weekend Observations were just too much.

Bob Ley retiring from ESPN.

Quote

Across 40 years I have enjoyed a professional journey unimaginable when I joined ESPN on its first weekend of existence in 1979. Each day since has been a unique adventure, one I embraced for the challenge and unequaled fun of a job like no other.
Now, it is time for change.
I will be retiring from ESPN, as of the end of the month.
To be clear, this is entirely my decision. I enjoy the best of health, and the many blessings of friends and family, and it is in that context that I’m making this change.
To Jimmy Pitaro and his senior leadership team, my sincere personal thanks for their understanding and patience over the past months.
Through the decades, and my innumerable experiences at ESPN, I have built many deep and fulfilling friendships. You know who you are. I hope you also know how much you mean to me. We have shared an American story unlike any other. And we will continue to do so in the years ahead.
I have been gifted by our viewers and consumers with a precious commodity – your trust. To be invited into your homes was a privilege I never took for granted, one I worked each day to uphold. Thank you for that.
In September, I signed off my last show saying, “I’ll catch you on the flip side.” Now it’s time to take that vinyl off the turntable (ask your folks), flip it over, and drop the needle on the B-side. There are always great cuts, and hidden gems on the B-side.
Thank you for a great run.  

14 minutes ago, SFGiants58 said:

 

I blame Abudadein’s machinations. He used a Bostonian carpetbagger (that term gets thrown around A LOT with Stu) to bring his devilish machinations to Florida!

 

 

Florida Championship Wrestling was a fairly overlooked-yet-influential territory, BTW.

 

We chewed a lot of Betel Nut and Cosmic Cookies!

Quote

DID STERNBERG JUST ADMIT TO VIOLATING HIS CONTRACT WITH ST. PETE?

 

Several Canadian journalists made the trip down to Tampa Bay, curious about the role MLB-to-Montreal booster Stephen Bronfman would play in the Rays’ proposed new venture.

 

“Stephen had asked us about relocation (years ago) and I immediately shot that down,” Sternberg said. “He talked about if the team would potentially be for sale; (that) didn’t go any further than about 12 seconds past that as well.”

 

But Sternberg said the two men “maintained a dialogue” because Bronfman was talking to other MLB owners about expansion.

 

“At some point, this idea of sharing (the Rays) came up,” Sternberg continued, saying he didn’t remember exactly when they first discussed the idea, but it was “a couple years ago.”

 

If Sternberg has already discussed playing home games in Montreal prior to 2027, it would be an apparent violation of his contract with St. Petersburg, which requires the Rays to obtain specific permission from the city to have any sort of discussion about playing home games outside of Tropicana Field.

 

Mayor Rick Kriseman‘s office apparently agreed, confirming Tuesday afternoon the city attorney is now reviewing the video of the press conference, specifically looking to see if Sternberg violated his contract with the city or if any Montreal parties committed tortious interference by trying to lure the team out of its contractual obligations.

 

According to Kriseman spokesperson Ben Kirby, “The City Attorney’s office has been in contact with the general counsel for the Tampa Bay Rays and received assurances that the Rays will not commence exploration of the shared city concept, or conduct any other activities related to a pre-2028 future stadium site, without an agreement with the City of St. Petersburg. The Rays’ general counsel also confirmed that all conversations related to Montreal were limited to the time period after expiration of the use agreement.”

More at Florida Politics

Nice of a local restauranteur to break up the Q&A by kissing Sternberg's a$$.

They're acting like this is a "trade mission" to get Montreal visitors

Live feed

https://www.abcactionnews.com/live3

3 hours ago, OnWis97 said:

I'm curious...has anyone here been to MLB games both at the Metrodome and the Trop?  If so, is one appreciably worse than the other?

 

I, of course, have been to many games at the Metrodome.  But I've never had the "pleasure" of going to the Trop.  The Metrodome was just so sterile...I've been to 30 MLB parks (counting defunct; the Metrodome is the only full-time dome I've been to) and it's the worst one by far.  Not sure whether the Trop is as bad, but it cannot be that much better.

 

That all said, the Twins did draw well at the Dome when the team was doing well.  The Rays don't even seem to draw during good times.  As far as I can tell, there are two key possibilities: 1) The interest in baseball / the local club is just not there or 2) the location is really that difference-making.  The Metrodome had one thing going for it; its downtown location.  But I question whether it's a good idea to bank on location / dumpy park are the problem, to the tune of, say $1 billion (and at least half public).

I have.  Originally, The Trop was designed as Kaufman Stadium (before its1997 renovation) but with a dome.  I don't think it was really completed until the mid-2000'.  Metrodome seemed more cramped on the concourse to me and lots of bare concrete

8 minutes ago, MJWalker45 said:

They'd have to go with the Army model. That's the simplest way to go. They may get that big payoff game at Michigan or Alabama, but they will also probably be looking at games against their old conference mates just to get 12 games in. Heck, Rutgers and Maryland may be very happy to host them early in the season or even in the middle of the Big Ten schedule. 

Rutgers has just one non-conference date available...in 2022.

Army is a national brand and is a draw.  UConn football isn't.

13 hours ago, MJWalker45 said:

And everyone that's freaking out about football may not realize this actually helps them in that they can pretty much pick their poison throughout the year. The only detriment to them is they will probably have to play their hardest games at the start of the year just to make sure they get games against the big boys. 

They're UConn.  Beggars cannot be choosers.  Little to no football media rights, unless they partner locally with SNY, and which opponents can they really bring in who aren't FCS like Stony Brook, Delaware State, or and IVY? I guess BYU will always take a call.

What can they honestly make as a schedule for 2020 outside the three homes games they have (Maine, Indiana, and UMass) and the road game at Illinois?

3 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

We know that NFL teams have their entire player payroll completely covered by shared revenues.  I wouldn’t be at all surprised if MLB clubs were in a similar position.

 

That’s before the first ticket is sold.  No major-league sports team loses money.  Ever.  Not even the bad ones or the poorly-supported ones.

In 2017, the Rays (reportedly) had $205M in revenues and a player payroll of $70M, or about 35% of revenues. That was tied at 4th lowest percentage of revenues.

8 minutes ago, AustinFomBoston said:

Completely forgot about TV deal, Merch, etc. I just assumed with such bad attendance they weren't making that much to begin with. 

 

 

Their "new" local TV deal, which is in reality a 15-year extension of the current contract starts this year went from $35M/year to $50M for 2019 and will reportedly average $82M over the contract.

And they also get a piece of the national deals, plus a MLB revenue sharing distribution check.

19 minutes ago, AustinFomBoston said:

Is there a reason Tampa Bay won't let the team out of it's lease?

 

Yes. Because "Tampa Bay" is a body of water, an estuary connected to the Gulf of Mexico, not a municipal government.

The city of St. Petersburg has given the Rays full opportunities to find an agreement for a new stadium within the area since 2016. The lease buyout to remain in the area, started at $42M then and lowers annually until 2027.

2 hours ago, RyanMcD29 said:

Some big news breaking this morning as UConn might be on the verge of returning to the Big East while making football independent

Good luck with making out a football schedule for 2020 as an Independent.

1 hour ago, Red Comet said:

[checks date of story]

 

This story didn't come out on April 1st? They're actually serious?! This has to be, without a doubt, the absolute dumbest idea I've ever heard. And they expect both cities to give them new stadiums they'll use for half the season?! Someone needs to give the Rays owner a mental health test for the sake of MLB.

Manfred spoke openly about it in the last 48 hours. He deserves an Oscar, Emmy and Tony nomination for his performance, along being charged with Extortion too.

3 minutes ago, Ice_Cap said:

No more prestige events for dictatorships, please.

You were first, but I've the same idea.

3 hours ago, B-Rich said:

THIS.  

 

As a baseball fan, I've experienced first hand how long of a drive it is across downtown Tampa, across the Howard Frankland Bridge and down the Pinellas peninsula to this stadium, and how far away the stadium is from the existing and potential fan base (which I would, in fact, extend up to Orlando).  As a planner, I always wanted to find a accurate graphic to show how badly this stadium is located in terms of being accessible to its fan base. 

After some Google search, I think I've about found it.   It's not perfect-- I was looking for one of those maps with scattered dots representing population density, but what I found should do. Here is a map, developed using University of Florida data, showing the 2005 urbanized/populated areas of Florida, focusing on Tampa Bay with the outskirts of Orlando in the upper-middle-right.  Tropicana Field is shown as the yellow dot in St. Petersburg: 

 

You'll see that there is while the Pinellas peninsula is almost 100% developed, there is still more developed area, with houses, neighborhoods; people on the immediate northeast (Tampa) side of the bay.  Being almost at the tip of the Pinellas peninsula, the stadium location stands out as being surrounded on almost 3 sides by water.  And there is a lot of development along the I-4 corridor to Orlando, which will become even more developed in the future, as these growth prediction map from the same source show: 

 

 

All of that red, orange and yellow growth is and will continue to be occurring north, south and east of Tampa.  Pinellas is built out, hemmed in by water, and can't grow anymore. 

 

An "urban" stadium located in downtown Tampa would become immediately more accessible to fans and a hit with purists, but it may be more advantageous attendance-wise to pull an Atlanta Braves or Texas Rangers and place a new stadium somewhere in the eastern 'burbs, maybe near the I-4/I-75 interchange.  I'm certain that a location there starts to get you a lot more Lakeland, Winter Haven, even Orlando fan flow-- heck, three of the four times I've seen the Rays I drove down from Disney, and the drive from the House of Mouse to the edge of Tampa is only 1/2 the total length-- you still have to cross all of Tampa, the Bay, and down a ways to downtown St. Pete to get to the baseball stadium.

And as McCarthy noted, the stadium is also a bad joke. It has the misfortune of being the last permanently domed baseball stadium built before retractable roofs became a thing, and also the last one completed before the renaissance in baseball stadiums began with Camden Yards.  I've been to a lot of baseball stadiums in my life, and the only worse one I can recall was the Kingdome-- a great big antiseptic mausoleum.  And just as the Kingdome was replaced after 23 years of baseball (1976-99), Tropicana Field needs to be replaced the same way after a similar time span (1998 to 2019 =21 years at present; give a few more years for a new stadium to be constructed). 

That's kinda of the problem.  There are only three municipalities in Hillsborough County: Tampa, Plant City, and Temple Terrace.  The rest like Brandon, Odessa, Lutz, Seffner, and Valrico are just names and unincorporated parts of the county with some having a Post Office.  Pasco and Polk Counties have more incorporated towns and cities, but then you're getting to places which the infrastructure is minimal.  Take a trip to Legoland Florida to experiences that on State Roads. 

1 hour ago, GDAWG said:

 

Didn't Pro Player/Joe Robbie/Dolphins/Land Shark/Sun Life/Hard Rock Stadium go through major renovations when the Marlins left?

Yes, it did.

1 hour ago, Magic Dynasty said:

Yes, but I'm not sure if the state paid for it. I was just listing Orlando examples that I know.

No, state money as Ross was rejected in 2013. 

The Miami-Dade County Industrial Development Authority issued the bonds on behalf of the Dolphins, all of which are to be repaid directly by Stephen Ross and the Dolphins. 

In addition, the Florida Legislature has another bill for 2019 which would further limit tax payer funded stadiums.

From the story:

Quote

The House Workforce Development & Tourism Subcommittee on Thursday backed a measure (HB 791) that would go further than a similar Senate proposal (SB 414), which would repeal an unused pool of sales-tax dollars intended for building and improving professional sports stadiums.

The House proposal, filed by Rep. Bryan Avila, R-Miami Springs, also would prohibit the use of revenues from tourist-development taxes or convention-development taxes to finance or construct facilities that would be used by sports franchises.

The bill also would remove authority for local governments to spend half-cent sales tax revenues on motorsports entertainment complexes.

To bolster his case, Avila pointed to local spending on Marlins Stadium in Miami and the Legislature’s 2013 rejection of a $350 million funding request by the Miami Dolphins.

2 hours ago, AstroBull21 said:

If taxes are used, I’d say it’s highly unlikely it’ll be sales tax.  There are hotel taxes and other tourist taxes that would likely be targeted.

 

The Buccaneers burned any chance of using sales tax back in the mid 90s

A 1% hotel tax increase was approved by the Hillsborough County Commissioners two weeks ago to become effective August 1.  It will go from 5 to 6% with those additional revenues to go towards marketing and capital budgets of Raymond James Stadium, Amalie Arena, and tourism bureau marketing (specifically for the Super Bowl).  A car rental tax isn't going to work as even though Tampa International Airport's traffic is up, rental car revenue has fallen due to rideshare apps. 

And the Community Investment Tax could be extended since its end coincides within the years of both the current Bucs and Rays lease.  It was secretly on the table late last year. 

13 minutes ago, SFGiants58 said:

 

Even a weaker players’ union would tell MLB and Stu to get bent with this idea. One of the biggest themes I noticed when researching the Expos’ San Juan games was how thoroughly the players hated it. No way that this gets approved.

 

It’s stadium blackmail after the Ybor City failure.

Yep. Tampa just inaugurated its new mayor last month, so it's putting pressure on her to adjust her opinion on tax payer funds for it. Then again, the county is needed more and the Hillsborough County tax rate is now 8.5%, the highest in the state