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Field of Schemes How the great stadium swindle turns public money into private profit

Companion website to "Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public Money Into Private Profit" (Bison Books)

That Trump wants his name on a stadium is no surprise, as he wants his name on pretty much everything. Commanders owner ...
11/11/2025

That Trump wants his name on a stadium is no surprise, as he wants his name on pretty much everything. Commanders owner Josh Harris actually calling it "Trump Stadium" is another story, for a bunch of reasons.

I was traveling yesterday and missed the big (?) news (?) about how "a senior White House source" has been in touch with Washington Commanders owner Josh Harris about having Donald Trump's name on the Commanders' new stadium, something that White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said "would be...

While surely Royals owner John Sherman will use the actual poll responses in some way, you know his main concern in pick...
07/11/2025

While surely Royals owner John Sherman will use the actual poll responses in some way, you know his main concern in picking a stadium site is extricating public money — and by naming three possible locations, he creates leverage to up everybody's antes.

I'm posting this week's roundup from the road, so apologies if any news slipped through the cracks, and I'll try to catch up with it next week. But at least I'm not shutting down my site to take a full-time editing job: While I'm very happy for Tom Scocca's bank balance and health coverage, he's...

Spurs owner Peter Holt is set to get a $1.3B arena by putting down just ~$500m of his own money, and can recoup more thr...
05/11/2025

Spurs owner Peter Holt is set to get a $1.3B arena by putting down just ~$500m of his own money, and can recoup more through naming rights sales and jacking up ticket prices — while taxpayers put up the bulk of the cost and get no arena revenues in return.

Voters in Bexar County, Texas approved two measures yesterday to raise hotel and car rental taxes and use the proceeds to help build a new San Antonio Spurs arena and renovate their old one to be a year-round stock show and rodeo venue. Though early polling last month had showed Proposition B traili...

"Take my tax money or I won't give you more tax money" is novel, I'll grant that. Bibb says using stadium district taxes...
04/11/2025

"Take my tax money or I won't give you more tax money" is novel, I'll grant that. Bibb says using stadium district taxes would "shift the cost of stadium repairs away from residents," but residents are who tend to go to Cavs and Guardians games, so wha?

This week's candidate for weirdest headline, from yesterday at Cleveland.com: Bibb to Cavs and Guardians: No more bailouts until there’s a new game plan to fund stadium repairs So once the Cavaliers and Guardians owners agree to a new way to fund stadium repairs, then Mayor Justin Bibb will agree ...

Phil Rogers writes the Bears owners are still trying to "find the necessary funding for needed infrastructure upgrades."...
04/11/2025

Phil Rogers writes the Bears owners are still trying to "find the necessary funding for needed infrastructure upgrades." Inserting both "necessary" and "needed" is piling on the owner view a bit, but on brand for a guy who once wrote a book with Bud Selig.

The Illinois legislature adjourned Friday without approving any Chicago Bears stadium bills, and people be reacting: Phil Rogers, writing as a Forbes "contributor," reports that "the wait goes on as the team tries to find the necessary funding for needed infrastructure upgrades and assurances on pro...

The response from Illinois elected officials to Bears execs' offer of $25m instead of the full $350-500m in remaining So...
31/10/2025

The response from Illinois elected officials to Bears execs' offer of $25m instead of the full $350-500m in remaining Soldier Field debt has been mostly LOLBears: State Rep. Kam Buckner called the offer "inadequate" and "disrespectful."

Apologies for this week's late roundup — I had to retrieve my now-repaired laptop from the shop and get settled back in before writing this. On the bright side (for you, the information-craving consumer of sports subsidy news, surely not for me, the lowly scribe of such reports), even more stuff h...

With polls showing voters opposed to the Spurs arena measures, owner Peter Holt will need all of that $6.5m for last-min...
31/10/2025

With polls showing voters opposed to the Spurs arena measures, owner Peter Holt will need all of that $6.5m for last-minute campaign ads. His arena was built in 2002 and renovated in 2015, you'd think he'd be in no rush, but billionaires gonna billionaire.

Early voting is underway for San Antonio Spurs owner Peter Holt's ballot measure to get $311 million in Bexar County tax money over 30 years (about $150 million in present value) as part of a $750 million public funding deal, and here's what's happening: Opponents and proponents of the measure disag...

The Mavs and Stars each have several cities they can play off for arena subsidies, but both also need to outmaneuver eac...
29/10/2025

The Mavs and Stars each have several cities they can play off for arena subsidies, but both also need to outmaneuver each other, something the cities could use as leverage. Hoping city officials play things smart is usually a bad bet, but fingers crossed!

A shooting war has broken out between the owners of the Dallas Mavericks and Stars, with the Mavs owners filing suit yesterday against the Stars owners for ... well, it's complicated. But suffice to say that it all looks to have to do with two elements that are increasingly common factors in sports....

Even if Cleveland getting $80 million in exchange for dropping its legal challenges turns out to be maybe an okay tradeo...
29/10/2025

Even if Cleveland getting $80 million in exchange for dropping its legal challenges turns out to be maybe an okay tradeoff, the Browns owners get to keep haggling for more subsidies from the state and county as long as they want.

Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb and the Cleveland city council are fighting over whether the council will get to rework Bibb's settlement of the Browns stadium standoff, and I almost wrote about it yesterday but didn't because 1) I slept late, 2) my regular computer is in the shop and it takes me foreve...

Clark Hunt probably isn't undecided but is weighing how to extract the most tax money — like if he puts a county funding...
28/10/2025

Clark Hunt probably isn't undecided but is weighing how to extract the most tax money — like if he puts a county funding measure on the ballot in 2026, how can he still threaten a move to Kansas if it fails, given Kansas wants an answer by the end of 2025?

One of the prerogatives of being a sports team owner is you get to have your every utterance turned into a full-length news article, and Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark Hunt took advantage of this on Monday, revealing that he's definitely going to demand a new something somewhere: "I wouldn't say we'...

IL's gov said he's OK to pay for roads and infrastructure but not a stadium, kind of a slippery slope when Bears execs w...
24/10/2025

IL's gov said he's OK to pay for roads and infrastructure but not a stadium, kind of a slippery slope when Bears execs want $855m in traffic and transit upgrades, and when the biggest stadium subsidy ever was just approved involving mostly indirect subsidies.

It's Friday, which means I had to take valuable time away from reading about the Mafia luring rich people into playing in rigged poker games in order to hang out with NBA players who scored 6.6 points a game so that I could instead sum up the rest of this week's stadium and arena news,...

Worcester should serve as a warning to cities hoping to repay sports project costs with tax revenue from new developmen...
23/10/2025

Worcester should serve as a warning to cities hoping to repay sports project costs with tax revenue from new development (*cough San Antonio*) that there's no guarantee the new housing will get built, plus taxes on new residents aren't a free windfall.

It's now been more than seven years since the Pawtucket Red Sox owners cut a deal to get $105 million in public cash to move to a new stadium in Worcester, sparking a throwdown between economists Andrew Zimbalist (a paid team consultant), who said it w0uld all work out great, and Victor Matheson and...

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