Mediocre Fred's Mediocre Blog (Ret.)

Talking to Myself

Today's Musical Selection: "Ball of Confusion" by the Temptations

"It's like coming this close to your dreams, and then watching them brush past you like a stranger in the crowd."
-Dr. Archibald "Moonlight" Graham, "Field of Dreams"

I'm still trying to sort out what went on in the stadium hearings in DC yesterday. I've been having extended arguments with myself over how disturbing a development this is. I was thinking of posting this internal monologue here, but I figured it would only confuse and bore people.

Oh, what the hell. It's my blog.

"All right, break out the champagne! We have a stadium!"
"Are you nuts? We don't have a stadium! And pretty soon, we're not going to have a team."
"You did see the outcome of the hearings, didn't you? Seven votes for a stadium! Point me to the party hats!"
"Not so fast, big boy. The agreement says the city must find 50% private financing for stadium construction. If they don't find that in six months, the whole deal goes kablooey. As in zero funding. Want to explain the guaranteed stadium part again?"
"It's a face-saving technicality. It's even a good thing for the city... less public money going into the stadium."
"And you know what will have even less public money going into the stadium? When they don't build it at all."
"Be serious, man. You don't think businesses will be lining up around the block for a piece of this action? I'll bet they have two dozen financing offers by sundown."
"Not without an equity stake. You may not have noticed, but DC intends to seek private financing while maintaining total ownership of the stadium. Sound like a good deal to you? You want to help me pay for my house?"
"That can be negotiated. But what, you're afraid that MLB won't go for the public-private financing split? Nothing's wrong with it. It's the same stadium either way. The deal doesn't put MLB or the new owner on the hook any more than the old deal did."
"That's not the deal-killer. The killer is the uncertainty. Despite what you seem to think, we don't know that there will be a stadium. Try to understand this. There is no guarantee that a stadium will exist, in 2008 or ever. That's why the deal is doomed."
"And once again, you're worrying about an eventuality that isn't going to happen. The financing will be there. You're telling me that in the entire Washington business community, the one that agreed to the tax that was funding the original deal, no one will kick in $150 million? Hell, I'll bet the new owner would gladly kick in the $150 mil. For the chance to operate in Washington? He'd make it back 100 times over."
"You're missing the point. There is no owner. MLB is brokering the sale. And they know they'll get a lot less money if they're just selling a piece of land, rather than a piece of land with a house on it."
"Well, suppose one of the groups steps up right now and agrees to pay the $150 million. Problem solved."
"No, problem not solved. In fact, that's exactly what MLB doesn't want to happen."
"I'm not following you."
"If, say, Fred Malek's group is paying $150 million for the stadium, that's $150 million that isn't going to MLB. And MLB wants to extract every last possible penny."
"Fine. But the $150 million is still out there. They'll find it."
"What, you have a crystal ball now? There's no way of knowing that the money is there. And you think we're going to get a new stadium bill with the new Council? After three leading stadium supporters were voted out of office? You must be crazy."
"The new Council only comes into play if the private financing doesn't come through. Which it will."
"You need to look at the bill again. The Council has to approve the private financing. If they wanted to, they could kill the plan by voting down any deal that the city finds."
"That's not what the bill says. Show me the text."
"I don't have the text. But the Washington Post reported it that way."
"Did the Post read the text? Reporters have been wrong before, you know."
"True enough. But you're depending on the certainty of a private financing plan which does not exist at this moment."
"I'm telling you, it will come. And if it doesn't, what's MLB going to do? They already voted to move the team to Washington."
"Which was contingent on DC having a stadium in hand by December 31st, which this bill does not provide. The agreement between DC and baseball was very carefully structured, and it requires the stadium to be fully funded by the end of the year. As it stands, that's not happening. And MLB certainly can walk away."
"And do what? Go back to Montreal, where they already sold the turf? Back to San Juan, where they already promised not to play? To Mexico, where the players union would start a riot? There's one city, and one city only, that has a major-league facility right now that's not in use: Washington. Baseball's threatening to shut down its business operations and refund the ticket deposits? It's an empty threat. The wheels are in motion. Baseball can't afford to stop now."
"For 2005, sure. But what about beyond that? RFK might be the only baseball-ready facility available now, but that's not necessarily true down the road."
"And who's going to come up with that? Portland? Las Vegas? There are no viable alternatives of DC's caliber. MLB has to make this work."
"Well, it's certainly true that right now, neither Vegas nor Portland can approach DC as a market, and neither actually has stadium funding in place. But who's to say what might happen in a few years? Open up this window, and if a Vegas or a Portland steps up with an air-tight fully-funded stadium plan, maybe MLB decides that the risk is too great to go to DC."
"What happened to your 'Money is King' argument, smarty? No owner is going to pay the same money to go to Vegas or Portland that he'd pay to go to D.C. The profit potential's not nearly the same."
"Is that still true when you factor in Angelos? He still has to get paid. Are you confident that DC + uncertain stadium funding - Angelos compensation is still greater than Vegas + rock-solid stadium funding + no payoff?"
"Have you seen the population numbers in Vegas? The whole metropolitan area is 1.5 million. D.C.'s over 4 million. Plus, Vegas is surrounded by... desert! Not much hope for regional brand-building."
"Portland's bigger than Vegas."
"Portland's still less than 2.5 million, and the Mariners will want to be paid off."
"What about the elephant in the middle of the room... New Jersey? It could solve a lot of baseball's competitive-balance problems. They weren't a factor this time around because they got a late start, but do you think they couldn't put together a proposal given a year?"
"Are you insane? Three words, buddy: Yankees. Mets. Phillies. It's the Angelos nightmare times three. Try again."
"You seem awfully sure of yourself. But here's three words for you: Thirty. Three. Years. Don't you know the history? Don't you know that the DC baseball effort has been a case study in Murphy's Law?"
"You're letting the past failures scare you unreasonably."
"Given our history, how can you be anything but scared?"
"Because MLB and DC both have skin in the game. They've come too far to fail now."
"It only seems that way because everything's been moving at the speed of light the last few months. But the truth is, there's nothing binding baseball to DC right now. Nothing. No staff, no tickets, no entrenched apparatus. Just a bunch of deposits and some merchandise. And here's what really scares me: this all has to get resolved by the end of the year."
"That's an artificial deadline."
"No, it's very real. You can't leave the stadium funding up to the hew Council. This has to happen by year's end. There's almost no wiggle room. And right now, MLB's so pissed at us that they'd just as soon punt the whole mess. If we had another year, I might feel better about this. But now, there's just too many ways it can go wrong."
"You're forgetting the most important thing: DC is baseball's best option. And baseball is DC's best option, too. Both sides know, in the end, that it's to their best advantage to make it work.Reason wil prevail, because the costs of failure are unacceptable for everyone. Baseball knows DC is a gold mine, and they know this is their last shot. We're in, baby."
"We're screwed."

You see my dilemma. I really don't know how to feel right now. Part of me says, "This is no time to panic," and part of me says, "This is the perfect time to panic!"

Pray for me, friends. Please pray for me.

Posted by Fred at December 15, 2004 08:10 PM