In today’s world, getting large construction projects done takes time. In fact, just getting the county/city to approve a large project will take many months, if not years. Just getting a permit can take upwards of 9-12 months. That is just the beginning. The reality is that new projects of big sizes can and do take years to fully build.
As one company described to City Journal, the process of trying to build infrastructure projects today can be…painful:
“There’s always another rule, another process needed to discuss a new issue. Approving infrastructure projects…(should) not (be) delayed by years of legal handwringing. The current approach is exhausting. An environmental review process for infrastructure can drag on for years: negotiations among multiple agencies, public hearings, then a huge report meant to satisfy a court that no pebble was left unturned.” – City-Journal.org, 02/15/25
That is, unless you are a sports owner. In that case, massive projects should and do get agreed upon in weeks, if not a month or two…max. I have written numerous times about how almost every sports owner runs the same play every time. The sports owner will come out and demand a new stadium and mandate that a deal must be done within weeks due to…reasons unknown. If this isn’t good enough, then the team will possibly relocate. The purpose is clearly to pressure local leaders into agreeing to the project without any time to properly review and vet it. Most local politicians have never dealt with contracts that are this big and complicated. Therefore, the teams will drop a large stack of papers on the desk of city leaders and tell them that they must approve within days.
Let’s look at some recent examples…
In 2021, the city of Oakland, California, was still trying to build a new ballpark for their local team, the Oakland A’s. In California, a sports team must have an environmental report finished before a new venue can be built. Therefore, the Oakland A’s had one done for their proposed waterfront ballpark at Howard Terminal. This was a massive project that included 2 million square feet for businesses, 3,000+ housing projects, and a new ballpark.
If local leaders wanted to review or respond to it, the city gave them 45 days to do so. Except, it was 6,000+ pages. When local officials complained, the city gave them…15 more days. So, 60 days to go over a 6,000-page legal document.
“This is a massive project and a huge EIR at 6,000 pages. We need time to understand what’s in this report and how this project will impact the neighborhoods surrounding the project site…We don’t know how the developers plan to mitigate the significant and unavoidable impacts of increased traffic and congestion on the air quality in West Oakland. These are the kinds of issues addressed in the EIR that we need time to digest, and we need the time to properly review the information.” — NBCBayArea, 2021, Liana Molina, senior Oakland campaign director at East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy.
Just a few months ago, Denver was awarded a National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) expansion team called Denver Summit FC. The team was tentatively scheduled to begin play in 2026 and planned to “build a 14,500-seat stadium” and “include a 3.5-acre park as well as a mixed-use development.” The owner of this team, Rob Cohen, told ESPN that he wanted to open their stadium by the spring of 2028, which is an insanely tight deadline that required the project to begin right away.
To top it off, Cohen emphasized in an interview that it is the owner’s “intent that we will pay for and build the stadium.” However, I am not sure that Cohen understands what it means to “pay for and build the stadium.” Taxpayers are, in fact, going to pay for a decent part of this project. Even though the owner stated that he would “fund the stadium in its entirety,” he demanded $70M of taxpayer money or else he would “move elsewhere.”
Then the team went to the city council to request the $70M. Here is where the fireworks started…
- The city council refused to give the money to the team due to the “lack of detail” that was given to them.
- Several councilmembers told the team directly that they wouldn’t approve this request with so many “missing details.”
- For example, how could the council approve this measure considering they still did not have a “specific breakdown of how the money will be spent”?
- One councilwoman explained that it was difficult to give money now considering the community benefits agreement wasn’t finished, the infrastructure planning was not finished, and the financial terms between the team and city were still unknown.
- Another councilwoman refused to approve the money because she wasn’t being told where it would go. She also vented at the team for making her ask “several times” about why the documents given to them lacked significant amounts of relevant data.
- Another councilwoman expressed her frustration at the city for “rushing to accommodate the team’s deadlines.”
Even setting aside the $70M request, the team was also saving money thanks to taxpayers in other places:
- Property Tax—The city currently owns the property where the stadium will be built. The city will continue to own it but will lease it to the team for a “very low cost.” This saves the team from paying property taxes, saving the team many millions.
- Headquarters—The headquarters and training facility will be “privately financed by the team.” When the team says privately financed, they mean somewhat privately financed, given that the city will pay $15M to “build the training fields and share-use fields.” The team will pay for the “design, construction, and other development costs.” In terms of who maintains the fields, the language used in the proposal says that the team is “largely responsible for maintaining and operating the fields.” I suspect the team will use this language to wiggle out of the full costs somehow.
- Stadium—The district and the team would split the design, construction, and development costs for the stadium, which is estimated to cost $20 million to $25 million.
You may be wondering why the owner keeps making promises yet never seems to back them up with what is actually the truth. Something stuck with me about Cohen when he was first introduced as the owner. In an interview with ESPN, he claimed to be investing an amount that was “the biggest in the history of women’s sports.” When asked for details about this large investment, the owner pivoted and admitted there’s “no way to prove that or disprove that.” I mean, it is straightforward. Just show us what has been done and the receipts.
In April of 2025, the Commanders announced that they were going to build a new stadium at their former location, RFK. The team gave a vague outline of where the team got expensive lands for free, and taxpayers gave the team at least $1.1B. Yet even though city councilmembers still had few details about the agreement, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser decided to set a deadline of July, which was weeks away. If the city didn’t just approve the proposal, the mayor claimed that the Commanders would “feel blindsided”.
“The deal that the mayor submitted to the council was one that had very little revenue actually coming to the city’s general coffers. Revenues that would be generated from taxes and fees related to the stadium were either going to go back to the stadium or actually were sort of being waived. And that gave members a lot of pause” – WTOP, 12/25/25, D.C. Council Chair Phil Mendelson
When July arrived, DC lawmakers again told the mayor and team that they “needed more time to review the term sheet and funding commitments.” Other lawmakers admitted publicly that previous stadium agreements with the local MLS and MLB teams “took months” to put together and agree on. The Commanders complained and were apparently “outraged” at DC lawmakers not rubber-stamping the proposal. Never mind that at this point, DC lawmakers STILL DID NOT HAVE ALL THE INFORMATION. For example, city leaders still had not been given a “full explanation of the Bowser administration’s revenue projections for the project” and an “analysis of how much the proposed tax exemptions for the Commanders will cost the city.” DC lawmakers eventually gave the Commanders a reworked version of the agreement that saw the city get a small amount of yearly revenue from parking and revenue that would go to upgrades for the local metro rail station. The Commanders team president called this revised offer “unworkable and impractical.” How dare the city ask for a small amount of actual money back after giving the team billions of taxpayer dollars?
Eventually, the team met DC lawmakers behind closed doors and ironed out some differences. The city council was able to get this project and approve it within 60 days. The Commanders created an exclusivity window that forced the D.C. Council into a timeline that didn’t allow for research and input. One local global negotiation firm wrote about how a $1 billion commitment…“requires comprehensive analysis that can’t be rushed without significant risk.” For example, when Field of Schemes looked at the details of the agreement, he found that DC taxpayers may end up paying over $6B, not $1.1B.
For years, I have written about how poorly the Kansas City Royals have gone about trying to get a new ballpark built. In 2024, Jackson County voters decisively rejected an increased stadium sales tax for the Kansas City Royals (and Chiefs). The Royals lost the vote because they took the approach of wanting every resident to be “confused about every detail of their potential ballpark.” Rather than finish important deals months before the vote on the new sales tax, the Royals were completing them “just a week or two before the sales tax vote, leaving people with little opportunity to read or review (any) documents for themselves.” The Kansas City Star wrote about how residents were “sick of secret negotiations” by the Royals.
If we fast-forward to today, the Royals are still trying to build a new ballpark. The city has freely acknowledged that the proposal in front of them involves taxpayers giving the team $600M. But this time, the team is trying to get it approved without needing a public vote. Thankfully, the Royals are not making the same mistakes. They are being transparent and open with everyone involved. Just kidding.
To start off, we still to this day do not know with certainty where the new ballpark will be located. Which is just…crazy. But almost every part of the deal is still unknown. This week, a resolution was approved that allowed the terms of a lease to be finalized for Washington Square Park. Included in the resolution was a part that requires the “inclusion of parks and recreational areas and facilities that all inhabitants of the city may use.” Except, that is it. There is nothing else about this sentence. A Parks Board Commissioner told the Star that “We don’t even know what that exactly would entail.” The Star also wrote a story on the park’s language and noted, “What that may look like, or where? Again, unclear.” The resolution also includes languages mentioning “pedestrian bridges.” Beyond that, there is nothing else about the bridges, so people are wondering where they think a bridge would be located, if anywhere.
In fact, pretty much everyone seems confused. I guess we should just ignore the fact that the Royals have yet to formally announce anything? The Royals want $600M, yet there are “no official renderings or final funding commitments” from the team? That almost everyone realizes that the project’s “financial picture is still unclear”? Or that the Royals expect money from the state even though there has not been any discussion about the state giving them money? The Kansas City Star wrote about the Royals lack of disclosure by pointing out that “so many questions remain unanswered” and that a new Royals ballpark remains a “field of speculation.” One local councilwoman complained that the Royals “lack of transparency is glaring” after city leaders were asked to approve a ballpark deal yet still have “no photos, no nothing.”
Yet, none of this stopped the mayor from introducing Ordinance 260339 last week at a city council meeting. The ordinance made it possible for the city to negotiate with the Royals on their new $1.9B ballpark and for Kansas City’s city manager to submit an application for a tax-increment financing deal that would help finance the new ballpark (TIF deals allow for a company or city to receive revenues from any new sales and earnings in a selected area). Speaking of TIF, how exactly can anyone approve anything when the area for TIF continues to be “still undefined” by the Royals?
The city didn’t seem that bothered by any of this, and the ordinance passed. This means that city leaders could potentially approve the deal in the following weeks. The Pitch KC wrote that this “stadium ordinance just steamrolled through city government.” Who cares that the city is on the hook for debt? Or that the city’s general fund will be used if the TIF money doesn’t reach expectations (which is almost always the case)? As a city organizer told the council, you “seem focused on billionaires’ playgrounds and economic development over our people.”
“Who will pay for it? It’s unclear…But how much money the Royals, controlled by billionaire owner John Sherman, will pitch in is still an open question, because Sherman and the Royals have yet to announce it. What monies the state of Missouri and Jackson County might contribute, if the county contributes any, is also unclear. As for what the ballpark will look like, no official renderings have been released” — Kansas City Star, 04/16/26
The mayor continues to make the argument that his “very aggressive” timeline is necessary so that this deal can get approved right now. The mayor said in a recent interview that there was “time pressure” to approve the deal. Considering we still know almost nothing about the deal, I find it odd that the city must pass this mystery deal right now, considering no reason has been given as to why right now is mandatory.
For the last year, the new owners of the Tampa Bay Rays have been negotiating in secret with the city for a new ballpark. Then two weeks ago, the Rays announced that they wanted to build a new $2.3B ballpark. Essentially, taxpayers are being asked for a little more than $1B. Oh, and the Rays must receive the entire amount in several weeks. The team set a deadline of June 1st. Why this date? Well, the team claims that this date is mandatory due to “practical restraints.” And that is it…no explanation as to how or why the restraints become impractical if done after June 1st. The reality is that the team wants the agreement done with as few eyes as possible on the details.
The Rays released an outline for the financing of the ballpark. The team outline gave funding sources that they believe are available and other sources that could be created to help pay for a new ballpark. However, these numbers came from a team-paid-for study who has a long track record of atrocious predictions. Even worse, the study doesn’t explain how they got to the numbers on the sheet. I guess we just believe them? Still, the outline was missing the most important parts of any agreement. As the Tampa Bay Times wrote about the outline, it “lacked key information…was not reviewed by county staff…and it did not specify how much money would be drawn from various city and county pots.” After the team outline, Hillsborough County revealed how taxpayers could potentially help fund the new ballpark. But the highest amount that the county could give was just $702M, while the team has demanded that it get $750M.
But there are many questions left unanswered. In order for Hillsborough County to fund a new ballpark for the Rays, it would possibly need to take money already earmarked for other sports teams in the area. The Rays also cited that they could receive up to $30M from “federal disaster relief funding.” The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development states that this money is given “to rebuild disaster-impacted areas and provide crucial seed money to start the long-term recovery process.” Do they understand that this money isn’t for them? The city isn’t even sure if a major part of financing the new ballpark can even be used. The Community Investment Tax is a voter-approved “half-cent sales surtax that finances general government, public safety, and educational facilities” in Hillsborough County. But, as several county commissioners have stated over the last week, many of them promised the public two years ago that CIT money would be “ineligible for the use of the new public facilities.”
After it was reported that the county could possibly be short of the Rays $750M demand, the Rays CEO began crying to the media. He sent a letter to local leaders threatening that they either give the team what they want or else they will look elsewhere. To make matters worse, one commissioner is now claiming that the Rays “lied to his face” when discussing the deal privately. Thankfully, some can see what the Rays are doing. One local newspaper writer wrote a story noting how the Rays have “invented the rushed timeline, they have named the price, and they have determined where the public funding will come from. And they are acting as if none of that is negotiable.”
