The enhancements, which would have included wifi access across the stadium, a new jumbotron and 2,000 additional seats, were being positioned as a lynch pin in a bid for an upcoming Super Bowl. But the city’s Mayor and its Sports and Exhibition Authority said no.
“What they’re asking for is tens of millions of dollars in public money, out of a fund that doesn’t have nearly enough,” Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto said. “They want to have a state-of-the-art wifi system for eight games a year. I want state-of-the-art wifi in every one of my schools for 180 days a year. I want to have the ability to reinvest in neighborhoods, not just reinvest in a Jumbotron.”
As the Field of Schemes watchdog blog noted, that’s not a perfect equivalence: the fund in question is reserved for capital improvements at Pittsburgh stadiums. (So it couldn’t be used for schools.) But if the fund runs dry — if it’s exhausted on a particularly expensive upgrade, e.g. — monies would then be siphoned from the city’s general fund, so leaders have reason to be cautious.
Back home, Cuyahoga County Councilman Dale Miller made a similar observation during county council’s most recent deliberations on the Q renovation plan. He suggested it was imprudent to create a reserve fund that would be used exclusively for debt service on the arena renovation when “we can’t even pay for basic maintenance.” (County financial adviser Tim Offtermatt had suggested earlier that the county Sin Tax, which was renewed in 2014, would likely be insufficient to cover maintenance costs at the three Cleveland stadiums in the future.)
Like in Cleveland, which has been promised an All-Star game if the Q is renovated, Pittsburgh had been attempting to lure the 2023 Super Bowl with the Heinz Field upgrade. Those attempts have halted for now.
Said Mayor Bill Peduto: “I would like [the Super Bowl], but it’s not that important to me. I’d rather have quality schools, I’d rather have adequate staffing of police. I’d rather have safe streets.”
Steelers officials have naturally expressed frustration in their comments. They said there was a “lack of cooperation” and called their relationship with their landlord (the Sports and Exhibition Authority) “no longer functional,” but there has been no threat that the team will abandon the city if the upgrades aren’t publicly financed. In fact, in 2013, after more than a year of litigation, Peduto and the SEA got the Steelers to pay an additional $2.1 million in annual rent to fund an earlier stadium expansion.
Field of Schemes approves of the elected officials’ actions:
“Peduto and the stadium authority are doing their job,” author Neil deMause argued, “which is to protect money controlled by the public from being used on anything that it doesn’t have to be.”
This article appears in Mar 1-7, 2017.
I observed during the depths of the Mike White kleptocracy (enabled and supported by chief consigliere Fred Nance, coincidentally) that, just as communities across the country were seeking ways to link up to the rest of the world, The City Of Cleveland’s “leaders” seemed intent on closing the city in on itself, and systematically ignoring any evidence which suggested that Cuyahoga County was not at the center of the universe. I think it was to avoid stories just such as this…We don’t WANT to be bothered by the experiences of other communities…We don’t WANT to know what other cities are doing successfully that we can’t figure out…We don’t WANT to know that other communities might actually have civic, corporate and political leadership which is not awash in self-dealing and corruption…What does it matter what other cities do? They’re not Cleveland, and casual corruption, craven corporate self-dealing, and civic thuggery are how we do things here…Pay no attention to what happens elsewhere…
Yeah. Ignorance IS bliss….isn’t it.
WHY do these playgrounds of billionaires need continual “upgrading” and “enchancement” every few years? It’s all about ego…one guy gets a bigger scoreboard, they ALL need bigger scoreboards. And Joe Schmo is supposed to pay for that? Bullshit.
And seats get removed for restaurants so that Millennials can STAND around, drink craft beers, eat overpriced “bistro” fare, and text and tweet their friends about what a cool time they are having…or schmooze and yammer with their pals…instead of watching the goddamn game they supposedly came their to see! And this is called an “upgrade”…sounds like the opposite to me. Isn’t all that what local bars are for?
Ballparks and football stadiums used to go DECADES without being constantly renovated…were they built to last instead of crumbling in 10-15 years? YES. Did people constantly want…or.get brainwashed into thinking they wanted…even MORE distractions and bells and whistles and lights and sound systems to divert them from watching their team on the field? ? HELL, NO!
Whatever happened to going to a game to WATCH it and have a few brews and snacks and not having to be constantly distracted with taxpayer-funded diversions? WHY do people need Wi-Fi at a sports venue? This is all about short attention spans and billionaires with their greedy paws out. If Pissburgh can JUST SAY NO, why can’t Cleveland?
Chuckles the Clown
We’d all agree that we’d like to have “quality schools, adequate staffing of police and safe streets,” but it shouldn’t be an either/or situation.
You do realize that the vitality of a healthy arena (or in this case, stadium) downtown directly impacts the flow of monies that fund these things? It’s basic economics that many of you don’t even want to consider or just blatantly ignore.
Yes, these billionaires should give their share, but it’s also partly the publics responsibility to keep the arena/stadium that WE OWN in good playing shape.
By the way, any remember what downtown Cleveland looked like before The Q?
So “the public” has to assume the responsibility to keep the arena/stadium that WE OWN in good playing shape? I highly resent being expected to pay for the upkeep of venues I can no longer afford to attend more than a handful of times a season…once, twice, three times a year… because of skyrocketing ticket prices.
And I was not some fair-weather, casual, bandwagon-hopper, either…30-40 games a season at crumbling Cleveland Stadium, and 40-50 games a year(for decades)in Chicago, at ‘unimproved’ (and lovely) Wrigley and Comiskey.
I strongly suspect that crappy Tribe teams in the past were not the only reason that attendance fell at the Jake for so long. Working slobs just couldn’t afford shelling out a couple of Benjamins to take their wives and kids to a weekend game anymore, not with stagnating wages and the escalating costs of putting their asses in those seats.
Easier and cheaper to stay home and eat and drink those snacks and beers, while watching the game on STO. A lot less hassle and no fifty bucks to park…and no Millennials bumping into you while texting… and then puking up booze and pizza bits on your shoes.
Chuckles the Clown