The end of Yankee Stadium?

[dietzy]

Oh this would be a SAD SAD day in the world of baseball. I can understand the business side of wanting a new stadium with luxury boxes, but the history is AMAZING. And to tear it down? YIKES! Your thoughts?

http://money.cnn.com/2004/07/30/news/newsmakers/yankees.reut/index.htm?cnn=yes

[bd1222]

That's depressing - I can't tell you how many times I went with my dad to a Yankee game - and the chills you get walking into the stadium....It's so sad cause they a great stadium and I don't see why they need an updated one.....

I think it's one of the best stadium to attend baseball games at -...the fans - even the organist - and the Groundkeepers - doing the YMCA - you can't help loving that atmosphere.

That will be a sad day when they demolished it.

[pisces2473]

Can ANY Met fan stand him? ;)

[pisces2473]

Originally posted by MetFanL
And, no, I don't think any Mets fan likes him...
Yup, at least the few I know ;)

[kimmer23]

good tear it down! i cant stand the yankees!

[bd1222]

I think Brian Cashman definitely holds the team together (I met him at a sportwriter association awards meeting about 4 years ago- very cool guy!)- and of course Joe Torre - See I am a fan of the yankees and I have to say - Every team has their issues and all -

But I have to agree with you guys regarding George - he would be very dum to move to a new stadium - I don't care what anyone says - when you walk into Yankee Stadium - it's so nostaglic..

[cazort]

I can't stand the whole process of decision making for building/rebuilding/locating stadiums.

Here in Cleveland they built the Browns stadium in the stupidest location possible--RIGHT along a prime piece of lakefront property. It's this huge, massive eyesore that blocks out the view of the lake not only from the street, but also from the third and fourth stories of nearby buildings.

When you're watching a football game, who is watching the lake? You can't even see the lake from inside the stadium.

Professional sports is a total farce. I love sports, I love the games (especially baseball, and basketball), but professional sports is not about the game--it's about money. It's about managers making big bucks off working class people who pay high prices to see the teams. It's so totally disgusting. The whole culture of spectator sports has gotten so out of hand.

I personally think they should tear down ALL stadiums. I think the best sports teams in the country should practice in local fields in neighborhoods where kids from the neighborhood and schools can watch them for free and meet them.

I think that our nations' best athletes should work closely with kids in our public schools, to become role models and examples, to help encourage kids AND adults to become physically active and maintain themselves in good shape. Instead of making big bucks and endorsing commercial products, these people should be upstanding citizens.

Professional sports is so thoroughly disgusting to me...when I hear of a stadium getting torn down, my only lament is that I know they're going to build another one, and what's worse, they're probably going to use taxpayer dollars to do so. It absolutely sickens me, I think the people behind professional sports are criminals and should be locked up and have their fortunes confiscated.

[red]

i don't agree with this for nyc right now. even if the team pays for the stadium, the city/state will have to kick in for infrastructure. and this is while they are cutting funding to public schools and reducing funding for public transit. it just seems frivilous.

[dietzy]

I think it is good and proper that the Yankees are offering to not take any government or public monies for the new stadium. So many cities do that (including the new parks in Pittsburgh) and the city rarely gets their money back from it. Plus the Yankees generate plenty of income to do so.

I have only been to Yankee Stadium once...hope to go again in the near future. But it is indeed a magical place as many have said. It is like going to Wrigley or Fenway. But better! It is the YANKEES! Think of the numbers of legends that have played on that piece of property!

I would think that even if they do build a new stadium that they would 1) Make it look like a classic ballpark...like PNC Park or the Phillies new stadium...GORGEOUS! 2) Receive historical status for Yankee Stadium and therefore not be able to touch it and get government assistance to maintain it. What would you do with a huge place like that just sitting there? Beats me! But don't tear it down!!

[cazort]

Originally posted by dietzy
I would think that even if they do build a new stadium that they would 1) Make it look like a classic ballpark...like PNC Park or the Phillies new stadium...GORGEOUS! 2) Receive historical status for Yankee Stadium and therefore not be able to touch it and get government assistance to maintain it. What would you do with a huge place like that just sitting there? Beats me! But don't tear it down!!
That would be really cool.

[red]

yes, i know they do it all the time, but there is nothing wrong with yankee stadium! and if you don't have money to fund your schools or the transit system, then why worry so much about stadiums. it's like all you hear between the yankees, jets, nets and mets! do we really need 4 new stadiums RIGHT THIS MINIT?
i also feel like what about tradition? yankee stadium is the house that ruth built!

[pisces2473]

But reeeeeeedddd, new stadiums bring in more people from outside of NYC and they spend all their $$ on dumb souvenirs, touristy shit, etc. Who cares about SCHOOLS???

PS. That was ALL sarcastic.

[dietzy]

I wonder if George is reading QLC and seeing all of this...HAHA!

If you are George...DON'T TAKE AND DESTROY WHAT LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY AND CLASS IS LEFT IN BASEBALL BY TEARING DOWN YANKEE STADIUM! If you want a new stadium, why not just buy out another team in another city...or come and buy the Pirates! We already have an awesome stadium, but need someone with money to give a good team to play in it!

[bd1222]

Red - you said it perfect! Leave the stadium alone!!!

[MetFanL]

Check this out...

http://baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=3293

The Evil Empire Strikes Back
Steinbrenner's Plan to Have Other Teams Buy Him a Stadium


by Neil deMause
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If there's one thing George Steinbrenner has always been good at, it's hiding his money. Whether it's starting his own cable network to keep his broadcast revenue out of the reach of his fellow owners, as he did in 2002, or paying himself a "consulting fee" to negotiate his own cable contract, as he did in the 1980s, The Boss has always been at the cutting edge of creative accounting, helping him evade attempts by fellow owners to force him to share the bounty that comes from operating the most lucrative franchise in baseball.
With his recently revealed plan to build a new $750 million stadium in the Bronx, though, Steinbrenner may have hit upon the biggest scam of his life. If the early reports of the plan to tear down the House That Reggie Remodeled and replace it with a new one across the street are accurate, Steinbrenner looks to have figured out a way to build a new playpen for the Yankees, replete with extra luxury suites and food courts and all the other gewgaws that he's been slavering after for decades...and force baseball's other 29 teams to pay nearly half the cost.

(We now pause for Larry Lucchino's head to explode.)

Here's how it works. According to early press reports, the Yankees are offering to pay the entire $750 million cost of building a stadium in Macombs Dam Park, across 161st Street from Yankee Stadium. The existing ballpark would be demolished to make way for a parking garage (though the New York Times has reported that the design would retain "the ball field and the most recognizable elements of the structure," which is hard to picture). The city and state would kick in somewhere between $300 million and $450 million to build a new hotel and conference center, and obtain new parkland elsewhere in The Bronx to make up for the destruction of Macombs Dam Park.

The Yankees would foot the bill for the stadium itself, though, a remarkable turnaround from earlier plans to have the city kick in at least half of the cost. How will they do it? The explanation is buried in a tiny clause hidden deep within MLB's Basic Agreement. According to Article XXIV, Section a(5) of the 2002 collective bargaining agreement, teams must make revenue-sharing payments on all baseball revenue, but can deduct "the 'Stadium Operations Expenses' of each Club, as reported on an annual basis in the Club's FIQ [Financial Information Questionnaire]."

That's all it says. But according to baseball sources, teams have been quietly allowed to count stadium construction debt as "stadium operations expenses," thus claiming it as a deduction against revenue sharing.

A few moments with a calculator--and a copy of Andrew Zimbalist's May the Best Team Win, which lays out the details of the new revenue-sharing plan starting on page 99--reveals the impact of this clause on George Steinbrenner's stadium plans. The Yankees currently pay a marginal revenue-sharing rate of about 39% of local revenue. (Low-revenue teams, interestingly, pay an even higher marginal rate, which may help explain why teams like the Twins are seemingly so disinterested in such aspects of the business as, oh, selling tickets.) Taking a deduction for $40 million a year in stadium bond payments would thus earn the Yankees a $15.6 million-a-year write-off on their annual revenue-sharing obligations. Over time, about $300 million of the House That George Built would be paid for by the other 29 teams.

While that last sentence rattles around in the minds of Kansas City Royals fans, let's return to the Basic Agreement for a moment. Teams are required to share "aggregate operating revenues from baseball operations," but not from non-baseball operations. Any revenue that Steinbrenner derives from the publicly funded hotel and conference center, then--and to be fair, it's still unclear who would end up owning these facilities, for now--would be pure profit, squirreled away from the prying hands of his fellow MLB owners were it to go into Steinbrenner's pockets.

If it works--and it's worth noting that there's nothing stopping the other 29 teams from rewriting the revenue-sharing rules in the next CBA in 2006--it's a breathtaking ploy to build a stadium with other people's money, and reveals a huge loophole in baseball's revenue-sharing plan, which was designed specifically to keep the Yankees from doing stuff like this. It also helps explain some puzzling events in baseball of late.

Why the St. Louis Cardinals ownership, for example, abruptly shifted gears in 2003 and agreed to foot the bill for two-thirds of the costs of their new stadium themselves. The new revenue-sharing plan, it seems, hasn't only shifted the dynamics of the free-agent market, to the chagrin of the Brad Fullmers of the world. It's also reduced the effective cost for teams to pay for their own ballparks, since they're no longer just really expensive piles of luxury boxes but now, in essence, "tax shelters" as well. For an owner, paying only 60 cents on the dollar can be enough to take a money-losing stadium project and shift it into the black.

If you approach this as a taxpayer, it's great news. While as a fan I'm horrified at the prospect of one of only three remaining pre-war ballparks meeting the wrecker's ball just so that George Steinbrenner can build a 162-man starting rotation, as a New Yorker it's at least nice to know I wouldn't have to pay tax money for the privilege. (That $300 mil. or so for the hotel complex notwithstanding.) For baseball fans, though, the new stadium economics threatens to radically skew the incentives that guide owners' investment decisions, leading them to chase more and more elaborate entertainment complexes more aggressively than ever at the expense of focusing on actual baseball. (Does anyone really think John Henry, no matter his professed love for Fenway Park, will stand by and pay $10 million toward a Yankees stadium without trying for one of his own?) If you can write off a Ferris wheel but not a shortstop, which are you going to choose to invest in?

There's an awful lot we don't know about the Yankees' stadium plan: A formal announcement isn't expected for several months at least, and with 2005 a mayoral election year in New York, a lot could change between paper and poured concrete. In the meantime, though, it's becoming apparent that the world of baseball economics has changed, with unexpected and wide-ranging effects. If the wrecking ball falls on Yankee Stadium, it could be the end of an era in more ways than one.