urbanSTL

http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/2015/11/05/ ... -upgrades/

While StanK keeps quiet, while trying to move to LA, Shad continues to commit to JAX. He seems very committed, putting up $45 mill. of his money to fix up the Jags stadium. While that is chump change to a billionaire, I believe Kahn is committed to JAX. At the very least, he speaks up and says that.

“I’m sincere in my commitment to Jacksonville and am extremely optimistic that we’re moving in the right direction, on and off the field,” Khan said in a statement Thursday. “We can never stand still, however. We can never underestimate the importance of exploring all means possible to strengthen the future of the Jaguars here in Jacksonville.”

~Shad Kahn

It does seem like he is posturing for a new stadium down the road. At least he has expressed a commitment. We will never get anything close to that from StanK.

DogtownBnR wrote:Nothing much new here, but I have major concerns with the NFL's perception on what should be their cut of the naming rights money and other revenues. Hopefully, the Task Force has a plan to counter these issues.

http://www.insidesocal.com/nfl/

This article is precisely the issue I was raising with my discussion on Zygi Wilf's deal in Minneapolis and how the NFL sees our proposal as a 68% NFL commitment. (It's also what Ray Hartmann was talking about when he said we were double counting.)
Anyway, from my far from complete knowledge, it does appear our proposal offers the NFL owner a comparatively crappy deal from their perspective. My gut says it won't be accepted unless Stan says, screw it, I want to stay,

$3M is cost to the city per year after you subtract tax revenue from having Rams per latest split with NFL. This is per dblnSouthCity spreadsheet a few posts back. It goes up each year from there about 1.7% per so stays about 3/10 of 1% of the budget for the next 35 years.

dweebe wrote:I'll be glad when all this is over, the Rams are gone and everyone can celebrate.

Like it's 1999. Oh wait, never again.

That piece by Vinny is total bs. He should do some research and see how many teams currently keep game day taxes. Rams keep 0 % right now. How many owners in the committees are going to say oh poor Stan he gets to keep 64% of game day taxes while I keep 0. Oh poor Stan he doesn't have to pay over runs while Minnesota and Atlanta deal had the team covering overruns.

^ I don't think the NFL would be as concerned with the game day taxes issue if we didn't ask for the owner and NFL to commit as much money from elsewhere.... Vinny is right that this would not be as good of a deal that Zigy got with the Vikings new home... not sure of other recent deals where the owner was threatening to jump ship. If they are looking for a roughly 50/50 split under fancy schmancy NFL Math (not sure if there is any relationship between Common Core and NFL Match) it certainly will be an issue of owners.

One thing that makes it so unfair to compare with other cities is that Stan hasn't negotiated this deal at all. Even in Minnesota where Wilf was willing to play the LA card hard, he was involved in the proposal. He was clear in what he wanted.

Our bid has input from the NFL and supposedly Demoff, but ultimately we're throwing things out there going "is this good enough?" And we won't really know the answer until it's potential too late.

The cost overruns factor is involved here as well. The reason Wilf in Minnesota and Blank in Atlanta are picking up the cost overruns is because those overruns are largely attributable to things they decided they wanted in their stadium.

Ultimately, I don't think the stadium we're talking about now ever gets built in it's current form. If Stan is forced to stay, he'll have alternative plans. I'm not saying drastically alternative (though it could be), but certainly he'll do his share of modifying this proposal.

Here's something I've been wondering. If our proposal does happen to be good enough to keep the owners from voting for Stan, what is the level of commitment? I'm not suggesting we do this, but could we effectively pull a "gotcha!" at that point if we really wanted to?

New study from the Mayor says the new stadium will only cost St Louis $1 million total. It includes sales tax revenue going to GRG and school district, not just city government. Would opponents still oppose the stadium if it only costs city $1 million?

http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/news ... t-for.html

^i think the argument they make is that unless they pass the bill, we can say "bye bye".

I'm not happy about the county not putting in their fair share at all. But I honestly don't understand why less than 1% of the city budget ($3 million a year) is somehow going to break the city's budget. I don't get the uproar about that.

^It's not. It's a drop in the bucket but it's high profile so it's a chance for people to throw their arms in the air and make a stink.

My favorite part is the either/or game... but what if we gave this much money to schools, homeless, bike lines, transit, etc. As if this type of investment would exist if it wasn't the for NFL and a stadium.

It's lowest common denominator crap. BS ignorant politicians play to pander to their base. Now we have a whole region playing it. I can't wait until its over. Then maybe everyone on this board can mothball the masters in finance and economics they suddenly found.

Pretty sure the new math from the mayors office ignores the $6m (average ) bond payment over 35 years out of its new $1m total equation. Basically it takes the $ that currently funds that payment, gives 64% of it to the Rams and says the $1.5m a year is enough to cover the payback of the naming rights $ used. So it leaves the original $6m bond payment unfunded from the game day taxes thus it would need to use general rev to pay it.

^ I agree, its using a controversial project to draw attention away from the fact that the majority of the alderman are not doing a very good job and couldn't get elected dog catcher in most cities. I cant wait for 2020 when the number of alderman is cut in 1/2. Most of them are unprofessional and know nothing about urban planning, public administration, or economic development, much less finance. They have no vision and act as if this money would have been used to build Metrolink, world class learning facilities, and crime free streets paved with gold....priorities??? Where has city leadership been the last 20 years when this wasn't a discussion?

dbInSouthCity wrote:Pretty sure the new math from the mayors office ignores the $6m (average ) bond payment over 35 years out of its new $1m total equation. Basically it takes the $ that currently funds that payment, gives 64% of it to the Rams and says the $1.5m a year is enough to cover the payback of the naming rights $ used. So it leaves the original $6m bond payment unfunded from the game day taxes thus it would need to use general rev to pay it.

$1 million is about a nickel per ticket over 35 years. We Rams fans would be willing to add that to the ticket tax. Or someone could break into Stan's house and find that amount in the sofa.

imthewiz wrote:^i think the argument they make is that unless they pass the bill, we can say "bye bye".

I'm not happy about the county not putting in their fair share at all. But I honestly don't understand why less than 1% of the city budget ($3 million a year) is somehow going to break the city's budget. I don't get the uproar about that.

Of course it won't break the budget. But a combination of bad decisions will over time break the budget.

Those of us critical of the plan simply think this is a bad financial decision that may not be worth it, even intangibly.

There ARE people out there who simply don't understand the reality of the situation and think this is a huge amount of money because the sum sounds like a huge amount of money and who think we can spend it on all kinds of other things.

But don't lump all of us who are critical of the deal into that category. These bad financial decisions add up. This isn't an "at all costs" things. Or it shouldn't be.

The NFL is like organized crime.

Stan Kroenke is like Snidely Whiplash.

NFL players get away with domestic abuse.

It's bloodsport.

The college football system is pure exploitation, mostly of young black men and their families.

Football causes lifetime brain injuries.

And, with all of this, football is the number one form of sports entertainment in the US. We say our local image is tied to having it.

Personally, I think this whole affair has made the NFL look awful. Pitting a poor city against a billion dollar entertainment enterprise is disgusting, especially when that enterprise is holding a gun to the head of the poor city.

Listening to 2,000,000 some-odd non-city residents chastise leaders of the city of St. Louis for questioning this vote/use of taxpayer funding while they pay nothing is equally disgusting. There is just so much wrong here.

All that said, as the Post Dispatch editorialized, vote for it anyway.

You gotta wonder....will Green, French, and other aldermanic detractors of this deal hold their ground until they get a "comprehensive plan"? Have they already agreed to a "deal"?

Will the aldermen raising serious questions about the propriety of all of this, especially the idea that only city taxpayers are being collared with a tax bill, oppose it till the end on fairness grounds?

Does Ray Hartman categorically oppose this deal?

Are passionate, pro-NFL, elected officials in STL County, St. Charles County, and Jefferson County trying to cobble together some kind of match? Or are they whistling past the graveyard of dead initiatives buried by divided government?

If the Rams do end up leaving, I don't put the blame for this on anyone in the city of St. Louis. We are at least still at the negotiating table. I put it on everyone that isn't.

If we can get the NFL to just agree the Rams must stay, then maybe serious negotiating can take place with Kroenke over a couple of years to satisfy all parties and maybe pair it with other development on the riverfront. It is fair to assume zero economic development in our region, I guess, but in Santa Clara they credit the stadium with attracting a multi-billion dollar facility from Levi Strauss that generates $16M each year in new tax revenue for that city. All cities who built stadiums recently say it is a terrible messy processes, but they all said it was worth it. A positive vote by the BOA keeps the ball in play. It will likely fail downstream anyway, since Kroenke has a tendency to act at the last possible minute to win, and has a history of suing his partners. But a no vote gives him an instant victory and the NFL can do what he wants and cite the BOA as their reason with no integrity issue to explain. http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt ... 7867e.html