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ESPN's Stadium
Show a Winner
By Randy Williams
Since "Outside the Lines" was conceived, the series has been one
of television's most interesting and provocative. ESPN's latest
such effort, "Stadia Mania," hosted by Bob Ley, didn't disappoint.
Ley is one of the best investigative journalists in sports and seems
built for his role in "Outside the Lines." His work is
augmented by solid reporting from several sources, including
Greg Garber and Rich Eisen.
ESPN led off the show by indicating how pervasive the new stadium
craze is in professional sports. In the 1990s, about 75% of teams
in the big four sports, have built, plan to build or seek to build
new homes. Forty have built facilities, 20 have sites under construction,
10 are preparing to break ground and 20 are pushing for a new place
to play.
The Washington Redskins opened Jack Kent Cooke Stadium in 1997 and
were able to sign two key free agents - defensive tackles Dana Stubblefield
and Dan Wilkinson - as a result of the newfound revenue windfall.
Greg Garber did a good job of interviewing Stubblefield,
Wilkinson and Redskins owner John Kent Cooke.
Garber said the Redskins have the NFL's highest average ticket price
and were able to dole out a team record $25 million in signing bonuses
this offseason. He did nice work in pointing out the differences
between the Skins' new stadium and its predecessor, RFK, noting
that JKC generated $40 million for Cooke in 1997, double of what
RFK did in 1996.
Garber notes that because NFL teams share television revenues equally,
the income generated by a stadium can be what tilts an otherwise
level field.
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft said "The teams that
have new stadiums versus the teams that don't have stadiums is the
differential of revenue generated between $25 and $35 million dollars
a year. So it's hard to compete on an apples to apples basis."
In Major League Baseball, where revenue sharing does not exist,
Garber notes that six of the seven teams that built new stadiums
in the last decade made the playoffs within two years. The seventh
made the postseason in four years.
The "Outside the Lines" crew did a great job of talking
to people ranging from owners to ordinary citizens for its report.
The show detailed some of the battles being waged over proposals
to publicly finance new stadiums.
In San Diego, voters will take to the polls Nov. 3 to decide if
they will pay 67% of the $411 million bill for a new stadium for
the Padres. But, Garber reports, "while other teams are trying
to build new stadiums to finance winning, the Padres have financed
winning to try to build support for a new stadium."
He notes that this strategy, which has included the acquisition
of several pricey players, has led to a loss of $50 million. Thus,
Padres President Larry Lucchino says "We are not willing or
able to subsidize baseball indefinitely in San Diego. There is not
long term viability for the Padres without a new ballpark."
One of the ugliest stadium fights is taking place in Denver, where
Broncos owner Pat Bowlen is offering to pay $100 million and asking
the public to contribute up to $400 million. Sal Paolantonio
did well in interviews of Bowlen, John Elway and outraged citizens,
who elected to pay for Coors Field just seven years ago and face
another vote in November.
Elway, speaking like a man who wants to appease his owner,
said "It's a matter of whether (the people of Denver) want
the Broncos or they don't. I mean that's really what it comes down
to. And whether that's a threat or not, that's kinda life."
Life to Orioles fans is Camden Yards and ESPN tells how the Baltimore
edifice led a baseball building boom, paving the way for new parks
in Cleveland, Denver, Atlanta, Phoenix and Arlington, Texas. Rich
Eisen, reporting from Arizona's Bank One Ballpark, made an excellent
point, noting that no parks were built exclusively for baseball
from 1970-90.
Bill Johnson, a designer for the firm that designed Bank One and
Atlanta's Turner Field, said "No one's building multi-purpose
anymore for a very good reason - baseball and football are fundamentally
incompatible and it's based on the geometry of the fields."
Eisen plays the role of jokester on "Sportscenter"
but here he showed he can be a respectable journalist, noting
that "Intimate seating and massive revenues don't exactly go
hand in hand a problem that has surfaced in arenas for other sports.
Chicago's United Center and the Fleet Center in Boston have been
criticized for a lack of intimacy and closeness, especially compared
to their tightly packed predecessors."
According to Eisen, a study showed that 47% of the seats at the
Fleet Center "would fall completely out of the Boston Garden."
ESPN talked extensively about the non-baseball entertainment that
proliferates most major league parks.
Designer Johnson said his job is to create an environment where
baseball is the centerpiece of a half-day of activities. Meanwhile,
Braves President Stan Kasten said the modern fan needs to be
entertained, implying that the game is not always enough for
the modern fan.
ESPN duly noted that the top five attendance draws - Colorado, Baltimore,
Arizona, Cleveland and Atlanta - play in such new age parks.
Mary Ann Heaven reported from Yankee Stadium, discussing
owner George Steinbrenner's movement to move to a new locale. Heaven's
interviews with the Boss, Governor George Pataki and Bronx Borough
President Fernando Ferrer provide a well-rounded picture of the
situation surrounded the league's marquee franchise. A new stadium
would cost up to $1.1 billion, Heaven said.
"Commissioner" Bud Selig sounded like Steinbrenner's puppet
when he said, "But it's a fair statement to say that the Yankees,
in terms of doing proper long-range planning, are gonna need a new
ballpark with new revenue streams."
Heaven said the Yanks are considered the richest team in the league,
with estimated annual revenues of $140 million. A new stadium with
naming rights and added luxury boxes could bring in an additional
$30 million to $60 million annually, she added.
ESPN also addressed the safety of the parks, focusing on
the April 19 incident in the Bronx when a beam crashed through a
seat. The stadium hadn't been inspected by infrastructure engineers
in 19 years prior to the accident.
This segment, authored by Kelly Neal, featured visits with structural
engineers at Wrigley Field and Soldier Field. Neal learned that
a serious structural defect was found at Wrigley in the 1980s, adding
that the club now spends $1 million a year for maintenance and repair.
The structural problems at facilities in recent years - at Montreal's
Olympic Stadium and Seattle's Kingdome, for example - may have led
the New York Islanders to leave the Nassau Coliseum last week, claiming
that the site is not properly maintained and "presents a risk
of serious personal injury to occupants of the facility."
The part I found most interesting was the segment about corporate
names being attached to arenas. Forty stadiums generate more than
$1 billion through name sales, Ley said.
Continental Airlines, for example, has a 12-year, $29 million naming
deal with the former Brendan Byrne Arena, which doesn't seem to
sit well with the former governor. "There's something more important
than money in identifying a state and identifying the attractions
of a state," he said.
There are certainly things more important than money but "Stadia
Mania" simply reinforces the belief that cold, hard cash is
the name of the stadium game.
For their part, Ley & Co. did an excellent job with this
edition of "Outside the Lines," jamming a couple hours
of information into the 60-minute program. The only problem with
this series is that it isn't on often enough.
Top quote: Columnist George Will's statement that the three
most important
things to happen to baseball since World War II are "Jackie
Robinson, free agency and Camden Yards."
Top quote II: Stanford economist Roger Noll, author of Jobs
& Taxes: The Economic Impact of Sports Teams and Stadiums,"
said "If anybody who votes for a sports team because they think
ordinary working people are going to be made better off in their
daily working life, that is a huge mistake and the person that is
causing them to believe that is basically committing a public fraud."
Bakay speaks: Resident ESPN funnyman Nick Bakay delivered
a humorous piece about the lunacy of stadiums named after corporations.
These parks "inspire all the passion of an algebra equation," he
says. Hey Nick, what about your trademark "Tale of the Tape?"
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