Toronto Blue Jays president Mark Shapiro announced Thursday that the Blue Jays will undergo a major renovation of Rogers Centre. Cole Burston/The Canadian Press
The last new stadium built in Major League Baseball was Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas.
Arlington is a Spanish word meaning “the confluence of six superhighways.” Not much to do there.
Knowing this, the Texas Rangers put the city in financial crisis and stretched it until it collapsed. A series of tax increases were imposed to cover the municipality’s contribution of US$500 million. The stadium, which opened in May 2020, ended up costing about US$1.2 billion.
There is a depressing uniformity in new stadium deals. A sports club starts campaigning for one. The city money. The club is buzzing about leaving. The city is collapsing. A Mephistophelian deal has been struck. Once the real cost of the stadium is calculated, local taxpayers understand what “Mephistophelian” means.
Buffalo has a bad case right now. It doesn’t need a new stadium to house the Bills, but it’s getting one anyway. Various levels of government contribute US$850 million – nearly two-thirds of the projected cost.
The Toronto Blue Jays have announced that Rogers Center will receive a $300 million renovation
So when a club near you starts talking about remodeling its house, it should cause you a sharp pain in your lower financial region.
On Thursday, the Toronto Blue Jays launched their plan to reno the Rogers Center.
Jays president Mark Shapiro said the goal is to “turn this ballpark into a ballpark.”
It’s a fine distinction, but he has a point. Rogers Center isn’t the most glamorous stadium in the game, but it’s close. Once you’ve been to a real ballpark — say, San Francisco’s Oracle Park — it’s impossible to find Toronto’s current baseball dungeon anything but dirty.
The proposed overhaul will begin this offseason and be completed by 2025 at the latest. Most changes will be cosmetic.
The field bleachers will be connected to the top of the fences, eliminating the gap that currently exists. Sections of seating on the 500 level will be converted into standing-room bars. The area between the foul lines and the first row of seats will be reduced.
Still, like any reno, the price tag will surprise you — “over $300 million,” Shapiro said.
All of these tweaks will make the Rogers Center less offensive to the eye, but they won’t change its basic flaws.
There will still be artificial turf. The building is still not draining. There will still be a sunroof. And because of this, I will still remind you of an Albanian pillbox.
Almost in passing during his half-hour presentation, Shapiro mentioned that this is the “mid-term solution.”
What is the long-term solution?
“New pitch” on the current site or somewhere else.
How do you define “long term plan”?
“Ten to 12 years.”
In ten years, Vlad Guerrero Jr. will be 33 years old. In baseball and corporate terms, 10 years is the day after tomorrow.
Investing $300 million in a building that you plan to either level or do rough work doesn’t seem like a great idea. But then one remembers what Rogers Inc. paid. for this building – 25 million dollars.
Taxpayers built the SkyDome. Rogers just took it over when everyone started to tire of it.
Shapiro said Rogers will pay the full cost of those planned improvements. He took care to note how unusual this was in the North American context. He called public funding of private sports facilities “a natural part of the landscape”.
As he said this, you started to get a slight buzz in the finances. Was that a message or a lift offer? Were they warming us up for the big request to come?
Someone asked Shapiro how he envisions this, still theoretical, new stadium being financed.
“In private,” Shapiro said. “I just don’t think there are examples of public funding in this country or this city … every time we’ve thought about it before, we’ve thought about private funding.”
It’s pretty straightforward until you consider that it’s not a promise. This is an educated guess.
Shapiro is a smart guy. He knows there is only one right answer to this question. To say otherwise—to introduce even the slightest hint of doubt—would create a fiscal panic.
But he’s not the guy to make that call. I’m sure he’s working with the information he’s given, which doesn’t mean it’s all the information.
If you were cynical, how would you sell the once-bitten, twice-shy tax-payer base by throwing some money at building your new stadium?
You wouldn’t just extend your hand. If you did that, you might not get it back.
You’ll start with a sweetener. You will show people what is possible. Open several new terraces and bars. Give everyone a shot of civic pride. Reducing or freezing ticket prices would be a smart move. An exciting, winning baseball team — just like the one the Jays have now — would go a long way toward winning friends.
And then when you’ve gone a little bit down the road, you’d come up with the idea that as good as things look now, imagine if they looked even better. You’ll say, “But hey, it’s hard for us. We are deprived of the last repair that we seemed to give you for free. And don’t get us wrong, we were happy to do it.
“You know, I just thought of something.” You wouldn’t want to help us, would you? Maybe fifty-fifty partners? That would be pretty fun, wouldn’t it? And you won’t believe how quickly you’ll get that money back through business growth. I happen to have a few graphics in my car. Let me go get them.
Give a little now in hopes of getting a lot later. Yes, I think you will.
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