Field of Schemes

23/07/2025

An expiring lease, it turns out, is only an urgent crisis if team ownership wants it to be, to turn up the heat on local lawmakers to approve a deal ASAP; when it's team officials that want to take their time, leases can always be renewed or extended.

Work is finally starting in earnest on repairing Tropicana Field's roof, with completion set for December, and field repairs to follow so the Tampa Bay Rays can move back in next April. At the same time, the St. Petersburg city council is preparing for a vote tomorrow to formally terminate the new s...

22/07/2025

The most likely scenario for the Commanders remains that both Mayor Bowser and the D.C. council ignore the president, who either forgets about the entire thing or maybe just orders Google to label the team "Washington Redskins" and declares victory.

One of the great things about being an elected official, and more specifically about being president of the United States, and still more specifically about being Donald Trump, is that you can influence news reporting just by blurting out any half-formed thoughts that cross your mind, then watching....

21/07/2025

The Bobb report's proposed minor tweaks are hardly the biggest concerns in a deal that would include $7B+ in taxpayer cash and land and tax breaks. Economist J.C. Bradbury replied, "Someone paid for this? This is awful," which is the correct response.

Donald Trump dropped the other clown shoe yesterday, warning on Truth Social that "I may put a restriction" on the Washington Commanders that "if they don’t change the name back to the original 'Washington Redskins,' and get rid of the ridiculous moniker, 'Washington Commanders,' I won’t make a ...

18/07/2025

One reason we don't know the details of Hamilton County's new Bengals lease that could cost taxpayers $700m+ for stadium expenses is that county commission members haven't seen the final lease, even though they already voted to approve it, this is fine.

How's everyone doing out there? The news has been a lot lately, both the stadium shenanigans and the other non-stadium stuff, I get it, I'm as tempted as anyone to just shut off the outside world and watch Murderbot. Feel no obligation to read this week's news roundup if you're out of spoons, but do...

17/07/2025

Add it all up, and the county's $350m stated cost looks like ... let's call it "at least $700m." And with the added state money the Bengals owners plan to seek from Ohio's unclaimed property slush fund, total taxpayer costs could easily be more than $1B.

WCPO-TV has conducted an analysis of what exactly is in the new lease that Hamilton County signed with the Cincinnati Bengals last month, and, well, if you were hoping it shows that the public cost will be less than the $350 million the two parties announced at the time, you must be new to this webs...

17/07/2025

The assumption is DC councilmembers will ultimately ask for changes in the Commanders lease terms, but whether those will be significant enough to move the needle on "most lavish stadium subsidy in history by a factor of at least four" remains to be seen.

The deadline set by Washington Commanders owner Josh Harris and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser for the city council to approve a stadium deal expired on Tuesday, and the earth didn't open and the sky didn't fall. The only thing that actually lapsed was D.C.'s exclusivity period for holding stadium talks w...

16/07/2025

When pressed on the source of their projections of an economic windfall from an Atlanta All-Star Game, Cobb County officials said they came from the Braves and MLB, the Braves said they came from the league, and the league denied any role at all.

The MLB All-Star Game was last night, and the word being used to describe it most in headlines is "historic," which is the nice way of saying it was tied after nine innings and decided by a mini–home run derby because baseball changed the rules in 2022. And the thing about history is that it...

15/07/2025

Even if courts eventually rule it's legal escheatment, this is money Ohio could have used for literally anything else — but sports team owners were shouting the loudest, so they're the ones who'll end up getting the benefit of all those uncashed checks. https://www.fieldofschemes.com/2025/07/15/22937/ohio-really-does-plan-to-fund-browns-and-other-stadiums-by-seizing-billions-in-money-it-owes-to-private-individuals/

14/07/2025

Kicking the tires on Clay County seems to be Royals owner John Sherman's way of launching a bidding war between Kansas City and North Kansas City for his team's affections, even while he's still conducting a similar bidding war between Missouri and Kansas. https://www.fieldofschemes.com/2025/07/14/22929/royals-owner-opens-talks-on-north-kc-stadium-subsidies-to-go-along-with-his-750m-from-the-state/

11/07/2025

Congress mustering votes to override the DC council before it gets around to the Commanders deal in September seems remote, but if team lobbyists think they can scare D.C. councilmembers by threatening to release the kraken, you know they'll do so.

Okay, that's done, Friday roundup, let's get to it: Axios has more on the question of how Donald Trump could intervene in the Washington Commanders stadium brouhaha, concluding that "the federal government breaks leases all the time" and "Trump could muscle in a new agreement, cutting out the city,"...

11/07/2025

What is Diamond Baseball Holdings up to with its MiLB team-buying spree, and is it something specifically related to the evils of private equity, or just what any red-blooded rich dudes looking to line their pockets at public expense would do?

We'll get to the regular Friday news roundup in a bit, but first I want to take some time to dig into yesterday's long Defector article on Diamond Baseball Holdings, the private equity company that in the last few years has bought up a staggering 35% of all minor-league baseball teams. This is the k...