I'm Taking My Ball and Going Home

Before you read the rest of this post let me just say I'm a soccer fan. Not only that, I'm a Real Salt Lake fan. Now that that's been disclosed I'll get to the point.

I'm not gonna pretend this is the only way to see it, but here's my biased history of the stadium debacle:

Major League Soccer has realized that teams in the league must own the stadiums in which they play in order for the league to make it in the long run. (And making it in the long run is only way the quality of the league will ever even approach the quality of european leagues.)

When MLS granted expansion rights to Dave Checketts and the city of Salt Lake there was an understood provision that progress toward a stadium begin quickly. Not to mention the fact that Real Salt Lake would not start making money until it could count on revenue from parking and concession sales, including (and importantly) beer sales which are not allowed in Rice-Eccles Stadium. Right now all the revenue from parking and food goes to the University. With its own stadium Real Salt Lake would also get revenue from naming rights.

So Dave Checketts immediately got to work on building a stadium. He said, many times, that his "dream" was to have a downtown stadium. He began negotiating with Earl Holden about acquiring the block just south of Little America, in between 600 and 700 South and Main Street and West Temple. Salt Lake City's mayor Rocky Anderson loved the idea, became involved with the negotiations and proposed using money from the Redevelopment Agency to help fund the project, perhaps even a deal where RDA money would be used to buy the land which would then be leased to Real Salt Lake.

So far the story of the soccer-specific stadium in salt lake city certainly seemed sensible. But, in the first of many acts of immaturity to lace our yarn, Curtis Bramble of the Utah State Senate proposes a bill specifically prohibiting the use of RDA money for projects like the one Rocky had offered. Why? Well, Bramble would claim that it was in an effort to "prevent abuses" of RDA money. Many familiar with Utah politics have suggested that State politicos didn't want Rocky to have another feather in his cap. Downtown Salt Lake City could certainly use what urban planners would call an "anchor" for the south. Rocky and RSL argued that projects like the proposed stadium are exactly what RDA money was meant for. Alas, Rocky is not well-liked in state politics. Hated might be an appropriate term. The Legislature blocked a development that would be good for their constituents just to excersize a personal vendetta against another politician. (I said biased history didn't I?)

Under the new laws the only stadium plan that seemed to make sense was one offered by Sandy City. Real Salt Lake chose it.

Interestingly, after it became clear that RSL would not be building in downtown Salt Lake City the Legislature voted to repeal the law restricting such use of RDA money.

With the Sandy stadium in mind and a preliminary deal already in place between RSL, Sandy City, and Salt Lake County, State Legislators released money from the Transient Room Tax to Salt Lake County. The County then decided they didn't like the deal. Re-negotiations began and a deal was reached that Salt Lake County mayor Peter Corroon called a much better deal for the citizens of Salt Lake County. This deal had the County purchasing the land and leasing it back to Real Salt Lake, it also required improvements to the site's infrastructure, things like sewer system upgrades, road expansion, and new roads which would be paid for with a combination of the TRT monies and between $8 and $15 million from Sandy City. Private investment would contribute an initial $80 million to the project and up to $450 million if the long-term plans for "Real City" were achieved. A few months after negotiating this new deal Peter Corroon renegged again. The County had taken upon itself the responsibility of evaluating Real Salt Lake's "financial viability" and Pete decided the team needed to be viabler. He said, "no deal" to RSL.

The (expensive) investigation into Real Salt Lake's financial viability was a farce. If Real Salt Lake were to go under the County would have retained ownership of the land, which would have been made much more valuable with development surrounding the stadium. (Even the E-Center has contributed to the development of surrounding land.) The risk to Salt Lake County was always minimal. The one time Corroon was pressed on that fact he responded by saying the County was not in the business of real estate projection. They were, apparently, in the business of Real Salt Lake projection. I think Corroon and the County Council just liked seeing their names in the newspaper and faces on the news. As I'll point out the decision not to fund the stadium was in no way a smart one for Salt Lake County.

Dave Checketts was understandably exacerbated by what happened, but he too acted like a baby. He threatened to move the team within a year. And persistant rumours about St. Louis appeared in both Salt Lake and St. Louis media. If they moved, the team could even keep their RSL logo and monogram!

During all of these goings-on the press was following suit when it came to irresponsibility. The media never once disclosed the details of the deal, such as the fact that the county would own the land, and own the stadium itself after a certain amount of time. Finally, after two years of reporting about the stadium, and publishing op-ed pieces against the "public subsidy of private enterprise" Heather May and the Salt Lake Tribune noted (at the very end of the article) that the Newspaper Agency Corporation, parent company of the Tribune and Deseret News, had received a similar deal to build two of their buildings, one downtown and one in West Valley City. The article also details subsidies given to (Energy Slut) Larry H. Miller for two sports venues, this, again, after two years of printing letters to the editor that suggested RSL do it the way Larry Miller and the Jazz did when "he built the Delta Center with his own money." They were letters to the editor, not articles, but noone bothered to print facts. . . .

It seems there were public officials who realized this was a win win situation. When it looked like Real Salt Lake was really headed for St. Louis, Governer John Huntsman Jr., Rocky Anderson, and State Senate President Valentine came to the rescue. The new deal is exactly the same except it skips Salt Lake County. The State took the TRT money back from Salt Lake County. Real Salt Lake will build their Sandy stadium, Sandy City will kick in, but the ownership of the land will now be the State's, not the County's.

Corroon and the County Council knew this would happen. They knew the money they had received was earmarked for RSL, they knew the State would react. So, if the County doesn't get the tax money and doesn't get the land, how was this at all a responsible decision for the County? Essentially Pete Corroon and co. turned down free land. Well done.

In the end, they're all dumb. It should be a downtown stadium, but politicians (and soccer team owners) can't see past their own egos. And the "journalists" are too busy shaping public opinion to report anything.

Here's to RSL making the playoffs this year. If not I may have to write a post about head coach John Ellinger.