Peter Schorsch
For Daytona, Miami, Jacksonville and Orlando, it’s hurry up and wait.
The highly anticipated decision on how the state will spend $7 million in tax dollars on stadium upgrades this year is now in the hands of the full Florida Legislature.
With it, comes more than a little doubt as to whether it will happen in 2015 at all.
One team – the Jacksonville Jaguars – is not taking the delay well, particularly after the protracted review process by the Office of Economic and Demographic Research, which ranked EverBank Field second on the list.
Pending “alternative sources” of money, scheduled Filed Club seat upgrades are now on hold. They were part of nearly $100 million in renovations.
“We won’t go forward,” Jaguars spokesperson Paul Harden told Jim Turner of the News Service of Florida. “We’ll look for alternative sources, if they’re there. This is a publicly owned building. It’s the city of Jacksonville’s decisions.
“As far as the football team is concerned,” he added, “these are the dollars they were planning on spending for the upgrades.”
In other words: “Let’s take our ball and go home. So there!”
Nevertheless, the style of brinksmanship is nothing new for sports teams. They routinely exaggerate the consequences of cuts in state funding, notes reporter Noah Pransky in his Shadow of the Stadium blog.
With only $18 million investment in upgrades – state funding or not – the Jags would realize as much as $2.3 million every year, not to mention payouts for such things as naming rights. If the same money came from the state, a similar return would take nearly two centuries to recoup, figuring a 6 percent sales tax rate on the additional revenue.
In fact, the team had already sold the naming rights to the not-quite-yet “upgraded” club seats last week, so the returns are there – with or without taxpayer money.
Pransky suggests Jaguars owner Shahid Khan just finance the renovations – outside construction funding should not be much of an obstacle – and reap the return on investment over the next decade.
Besides, sinking $30 million in state monies over 30 years into club renovations might not be the tourism-driven investment Florida lawmakers had in mind when passing the bill in 2014.
When sports teams fail in obtaining a state subsidy, they often pay for the (very profitable) renovations out of pocket. Kahn and the Jags shouldn’t worry. In Florida, the they still have the option to return to Tallahassee, hat in hand, to start the process again in 2015 … or 2016 … or 2017, and do on.
