Tom Watson

The Old Ballgame

The calendar says January, but the temperatures and the bureaucrats are all whistling songs of spring - to be more accurate, of baseball and its economic benefits. Some equate new stadiums to a kind of municipal Loch Ness monster: the benefits are mythical but the suckers show up anyway. Others say big-time professional sports venues can turn communities around. After many years of yakking, it appears the Empire State Development Corporation here in New York takes the latter stance: today it voted to approve plans to build new stadiums for the Yankees and the Mets.

Said chairman Charles Gargano: "The state and the city are making an economic development investment that will not only assist with the development of new stadiums for the Yankees and the Mets, but will result in infrastructure improvements for the surrounding communities."

According to Crain's, plans call for new $800 million Yankees stadium and a new $444 million Mets stadium. The ESDC will issue $149 million in tax-exempt bonds for the projects pending final approval from the Public Authorities Control Board. As part of the new projects, both teams will sign non-relocation agreement that will keep the Mets in New York for 35 years and the Yankees for 40 years. The city would contribute $223.6 million toward parking and infrastructure improvements for both new stadiums. Both plans commit significant private money, unlike the previous generations of Major League stadiums in town.

Now, I'm a big fan (Mets) and would love to plant myself behind the third-base dugout in Fred Wilpon's new Ebbetts Field by the No. 7 line and watch David Wright smack fastballs into kingdom come. I'm sure Yankee fans (there are more of you) feel the same. But are these massive public-private partnerships worth it? Do big-time sports deals really help a city to achieve wider economic success, really help a neighborhood up off its knees? The debate has raged here in New York for years, and is now afire down in Washington DC where the Nationals are looking for a new publicly-financed stadium.

I'm not sure where I stand, although generally speaking, the more private dollars are involved, the better I'm able to understand the economics of helping a private business. But I am here to recommend a blog worth following if you're into this issue - the wonderful Field of Schemes, the companion site to the book by Joanna Cagan and Neil deMause. Talk about granular: these folks know the issues inside and out and they're following updates on a national level. Great stuff, well worth an addition to any wonkster's feed reader.

UPDATE: Field of Schemes analyzes the Mets deal, and finds one Hell of a bargain - the equivalent of Pedro offering to pay the Mets to let him take the mound.

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Posted at 4:20 PM, Jan 18, 2006 in Cities | New York
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