MLB commish: Rays need a new stadium 'expeditiously'

Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig waded into the increasingly tense stadium debate on Tuesday, saying the Tampa Bay Rays need a new ballpark "expeditiously."

Selig, who spoke exclusively to the St. Petersburg Times, said the small-market Rays cannot compete with larger ball clubs without the guaranteed revenue that comes with a new stadium.

He called the proposed Al Lang location outstanding, and promised St. Petersburg an All-Star Game if a waterfront stadium were built.

"There's no question that the Rays need a new stadium. There's just no question," Selig said by phone from his offices in Milwaukee. "Look, and I've said this in a lot of other places, I'm grateful they're having a wonderful year this year.

Selig, baseball commissioner since 1992, said he was pleased by the small attendance gains the Rays have made at Tropicana Field this year. But for a team leading its division, it's not enough.

He also maintained that baseball can succeed in the Tampa Bay area.

"I could take you from city to city to all of our projects," said Selig before rattling off a list of cities initially wary of investing in a new ballpark. "Once a stadium's up, there isn't a city anywhere that's disappointed."

Selig said his office plans to help the Rays sell their plan.

"It's moved ahead in every other city," Selig said. "We've had a lot of tough times in other places, too. But every city has made the same choice when confronted. I'm certainly hopeful St. Petersburg will (follow)."

Comments

[Rick K]

Aaron, this is some very good reporting. The longer version of the article covered many different points. Great job for calling the commish.

NOW I suggest someone at the Times call the owners of other teams with newer urban stadiums, as well as the Mayors, Chamber Presidents, and Police Union heads in all those towns. This debate still is too lopsided towards the negatives, without enough attempts to balance the presentation.

Aaron is doing good work.

The people of this region could benefit from further exploration of Selig's claims.

[Dave in St Pete]

Hey Bud,

If MLB wants the Rays to have a new staium then MLB better buy some land and hire a contractor!

No new WATERFRONT stadium.

[get-smart]

Buddy Boy is another crook trying to hold the city hostage. Throw all the bums out!

[Ray F]

I think Bud Selig is trying to be honest with the area in saying what he said.

St Pete needs a new stadium for the Rays to remain here and maybe the team leaving is fine for all you transplants who grew up with allegiance to other teams and could care less about the Rays, but think about the generations that will be here after you're gone.

Baseball is bigger than any one of us. The traditions, the memories created, the legacy will last a lot longer than all of you who are willing to pi$$ it away.

Great job St. Pete.

[Rick K]

Let's see....

1. Tampa Tribune editorial Board
2. St Pete Times editiorial Board
3. Nearly every downtown restaurant owner
4. Majority of traffic-dependent downtown businesses
5. Developer of Signature Tower
6. Owners of the Bayfront Hilton
7. A leader of the Chamber of the Commerce
8. Rays ownership (who have invested nearly half a billion dollars in the team)
9. The Commissioner of Major League Baseball, who has access to loads and loads of data about the economics of baseball teams
10. Rick K, Leroy, Ray, Gary, and a few others on these boards

All of the above support moving forward and continuing to try to find ways to make these proposals a reality.

All of the above have been called greedy.

Which is one way of admitting that all of the above believe that the financial advantages of these proposals exceed the financial costs.

Many of the ANTI's who oppose these proposals do so because they DON't want growth downtown, period. They don't want more people downtown, period. They want these giant chunks of prime real estate to remain underutilized. They want downtown how it is today, period.

[Dave in St Pete]

As I write this there are 35 comments on the main paost of this article. 2 do not say anything about the stadium, only the Nurse proposal. Of the other 33 only 5 are pro stadium. That's 85 percent against.

Think the council will get the message? The red signs say it all.

[Easy Majority]

Rick, your list (of self-interested parties) pales in comparison to those opposing this plan (and the recent Times poll proves that beyond a doubt).

Here you go:

Council of Neighborhood Associations (CONA)

Council of North County Neighborhoods (CNCN)

Alliance for A Livable Pinellas

St. Petersburg Preservation

League of Women Voters

Audubon Society

Sierra Club

St. Petersburg Downtown Neighborhood Association (DNA)

The St Pete Creative Network

Surfriders Foundation

Florida Native Plant Society

[atrulyconcernedcitizen]

This is rapidly becoming a JOKE!!! Bud Selig...the man responsible for presiding over MLB's steroid scandal!!! Bud Selig the man reviled in his own hometown for his stadium scam. And now he is trying to foist that scam on us. COME ON FOLKS WAKE UP AND SMELL THE COFFEE!!! PLEASE
READ THIS...
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE4D9123FF932A15751C1A9659C8B63

[Dr_Dug]

Bud Selig is an Assclown!!! And so is the St.Pete Times news!! All Assclowns!!
Read the truth behind Bud "the assclown" and how he's screwed people for the brewers(owns Team).

Tommy G. Thompson played a key role in the building of Miller Park in Milwaukee with public money while he was governor of Wisconsin. Like many other residents of the state, he feels a bit jilted.

''The Brewers made it clear that if we built a modern, state-of-the-art stadium, it would provide them with the resources to field a winning baseball team,'' Thompson, now the secretary of health and human services, said. ''The Brewers need to put an end to the games. They need to invest in a winning team.''

Other politicians are more outspoken. Referring to the family that owns the Brewers, State Senator Mike Ellis said, ''The Seligs just scammed the living dickens out of the people of this state.''

It was agreed in 1995 that a retractable-roof stadium would be built for the team. The stadium was ready for the 2001 season. When it opened, the Brewers had not won a divisional race for 19 years and had not had a winning season in eight years. Each of the three years in their new digs, the Brewers have had a substantially lower winning percentage than in any year from 1995 to 2000.

When the deal was hammered out, the stadium was to cost $250 million, with the Brewers contributing $90 million. The Brewers were to receive (and have received) all revenue from the stadium, even from events other than baseball.

The state's Legislative Audit Bureau reported that as of the end of 2001 the stadium's total cost rose to nearly $425 million. The Brewers' share stayed at $90 million, $41.1 million of which came from a 20-year naming-rights deal with the Miller Brewing Company. The balance appears to have been borrowed by the team, and $36 million of the associated team debt was canceled by the quasipublic Stadium District in September 2002.

The Stadium District was supposed to contribute $3.85 million a year toward maintenance and repairs, costs normally assumed by the team. For ending that obligation, the Brewers' debt to the district was extinguished. The upshot is that the Brewers appear to be contributing only about $13 million of their own funds to stadium construction, and the audit bureau is concerned that the ballpark may suffer from inadequate maintenance resources over the years.

Meanwhile, the Brewers' ownership has decided that the team cannot be competitive in the near term. The opening-day payroll was reduced from $52.7 million in 2002 to $40.6 million in 2003 and to a projected $30 million for 2004. (The Brewers have dumped the salaries of seven of their higher-paid players from last season.) Fans want to know what happened to the promise of a competitive team.

Fans might also want to know what the Brewers are doing with their revenue-sharing money from Major League Baseball. During the labor negotiations, Bud Selig, who put his 30 percent interest in the Brewers in a blind trust after becoming commissioner in 1998, reportedly insisted that the new agreement restructure the revenue-sharing plan so that the third quartile of teams receive a proportionately larger benefit than the bottom quartile.

His family's Brewers just happen to be in the third quartile and just happen to have increased their net revenue-sharing receipts by more than any other team. It rose from $1.5 million in 2001 to $9.1 million in 2002 to an estimated $18 million in 2003, according to a financial analysis the Brewers provided to potential investors in July.

The labor agreement is clear that each club must use its receipts ''in an effort to improve its performance on the field'' and that the commissioner ''shall enforce this obligation.'' Thus, the Brewers appear to be violating their covenants with the people of Wisconsin and with the players' union, as the commissioner seems to be idly standing by.

Do the Brewers have a defense? First, we have heard that the team is loaded with $110 million in debt. True enough, but this is about the average debt level for a major league team. Much of this debt appears to be from the stadium. (The naming rights are paid over 20 years, so some of the team's share had to be financed.) That is, this debt is the product of an investment, not a bleeding income statement. Indeed, the Brewers' own financial analysis shows a $20.24 million operating profit for their three years in Miller Park.
Some additional debt may have been taken on when the 29 teams bought the Montreal Expos two years ago for $120 million. This is also an investment that should yield healthy returns when the Expos are sold.

Second, the Brewers will say that they are rebuilding and that all teams go in a cycle. Never mind that the team has been rebuilding for 11 years and never mind that General Manager Doug Melvin says they want to emulate Minnesota (a team Selig tried to eliminate three years ago and whose opening-day payroll grew from $40.2 million in 2002 to $55.6 million in 2003). The real point is that the team can be developing its minor league talent at the same time that it acquires new major league talent.

The team needs pitching and a right fielder; many promising young players have been available at a range of prices this off-season, but the Brewers haven't shown any interest. If a new stadium is to be successful in generating revenue, the product on the playing field must be attractive. By refusing to invest in today's team, the Brewers are squandering the rich revenue opportunities of a new stadium as well as breaking the bonds of trust with their fans.

And if the Brewers were really sacrificing 2004 to be strong in 2005 and 2006, why do their projections for payroll and player development expenditures remain flat from 2004 through 2006? Something here doesn't compute.

[Thomas]

"There's no question that the Rays need a new stadium. There's just no question," Selig said by phone.

- - - - - - - -

MLB Revenue in 2007 topped $6 billion. The results were far ahead of Selig's internal estimates and the $5.4 billion the league posted last year.

Selig said: "Make no mistake about it. Our sport is more popular than ever and it is still the national pastime. No question about it."

- - - -

Well Bud, then dig into those record breaking revenues and PAY FOR YOUR OWN STADIUM.

[Wow Dave]

85% of people on a message board that posted think that way? What the hell are we wasting our time for? That should be a good enough reflection upon the whole voting population.

[Rick K to Easy Majority]

Easy Majority:

I will be completely honest,

NONE of the groups on your list mean enough to me, since I have no idea what their motives are.

I haven't even heard of half those groups.

My point in offering that list was to refute the ridiculous claim that these proposals will not produce positive economic benefits.

Your point in offering your list seems to be to show that there are a number of small groups who would prefer that the waterfront stay as it is (or have Al Lang swapped out for a park).

Your list doesn't speak to the economics, which was my point. It seems like your list speaks to people who just prefer to NOT have the additional people these developments would bring to the City.

Or am I wrong?

[Joe Boltz]

I know we are all upset about the taxes we will be paying if the new stadium is built (most will come from tourists, not us). Has anyone thought about how much tax revenue will be generated by converting Tropicana Feild? There is no tax revenue now, but if you build shopping centers and homes, you will generate more tax money for the county. I don't know the exact figures, but I do know that more tax money will pay for more county services.

[Common Sense]

Joe, and what if it doesn't pan out like that? What if the tax revenue just isn't there and the costs for the new stadium start to add up? How will we pay for it then?

You guessed it, new taxes (and by cutting even more services, no doubt).

[Richard Bruce]

All of the pro-waterfront stadium arguments were made in support of Tropicana Stadium. The old promises didn't pay off. Why should we believe the new promises?

[Exactly!]

Richard, we shouldn't. We should tell them to:

1. Stay put and deal with it, or
2. Build and pay for their own stadium somewhere besides the waterfront, or
3. Try to avoid having the door hit them on the way out.

[Joe Boltz]

Common, How much are we paying per person now? I'm not sure myself. I see I'm paying for public transportation, I don't use. That is not my excuse, we should pay more for public transportation, but thats another subject. Is it a flat rate on the sales tax? or is it a bed tax for the hotels and motels?

[Dr_Dug]

Wow Dave...ditto!!