The-Hogs.net - Washington Football Discussion, Redskins to Commanders Era

Gifting Daniel Snyder any money or land for a new Redskins stadium would be absolute madness

You’ve got to be either a drunk, a gambler or Daniel Snyder to tank your business in the NFL. The Washington Redskins owner has firmly established just what a bad investment risk he is. It is therefore the height of irresponsibility for any local government to even think of giving him a dime of public money, or a foot of free land, for a new stadium. It would be nothing but a bailout, welfare.

For 19 years Snyder has run the team as a wild personal indulgence, while a seemingly inexhaustible fan base picked up the tab. But no more. Oh, he’ll never go broke, for the simple reason that it’s virtually impossible to lose money as an NFL owner, especially of such a marquee franchise with so many built-in market advantages. Nevertheless, Snyder has done his best to squander and gouge until the team has suffered a precipitous plunge in attendance, ratings and game-day income. Legislators take note: This is what happens to people who partner with him. Nobody emerges with their name or business better off.

Even his fellow owner-billionaires in the NFL are embarrassed and unhappy about the yawning decks of unfilled seats, and the black mood of the few influentials who still go to Redskins games, a league executive told me. If there is one thing that NFL owners don’t like, it’s “apathy in a major market,” the longtime exec said. They are especially bothered by apathy in the nation’s capital, where they rely on strong interest and relationships to protect their business practices. “Washington, D.C. is Washington, D.C.,” the executive said, “and there is a trickle-down effect.” NFL owners put the blame for the bleeding of goodwill squarely on the so-called management of Snyder and his pally team President Bruce Allen, who they regard as “literally, a joke.”

All Snyder has done as an NFL owner is freeload off massive revenue streams he didn’t help create, while breeding fan ill will. He bought the Redskins for $800 million with a brand-new stadium that was the largest in the league, and sat back and collected his built-in cut of the league’s massive TV contracts — which paid every team $255 million last year no matter how they performed. He pressed long-suffering fans to pay $7 for short beers and $40 to park and gave them among the worst food for the highest prices in all of the NFL. In 2016, the Redskins offered the most expensive game day for a family of four in the entire league, though they’ve won eight games or fewer in 15 of 19 years.

All around Snyder is scorched earth. He has made FedEx Field, for which he sold the stadium naming rights for an extravagant $205 million back in 1999, perpetually synonymous with low quality. How’s that for branding?

Then there are the city fathers of Richmond. Here’s how they fared in becoming partners with Snyder. In 2012, they made an eight-year deal to host Redskins training camps through 2020, agreed to build the team an $11 million facility for free, and give the team an additional $500,000 a year in cash and services. In return, Snyder and Allen promised to lure thousands of tourists to the city, to flood hotels and restaurants, and to generate sponsorship fees that would pay for it.

None of it materialized. Richmond had to rob a school fund of more than $5 million to help pay for it and is facing $750,000 per year in ongoing debt payments. It’s a total albatross. When the Richmond city council expressed distress and unwillingness to extend the deal last summer, Allen told the Washington Times, “I’m not going to worry about that right now. I’m just hoping for some sunshine to dry out our fields.”

Now do the multiplication and think about the 10-figure damage Snyder could do to any city that takes on a billion-dollar stadium project for him. Even the best arenas rarely deliver on the extravagant promises of their builders; economists say a shopping center is a better investment for your community. To give a single tax dollar to Snyder given his track record would be absolute madness, and anyone who even contemplates it should be turned out of office for malpractice. If Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and various members of the D.C. Council continue to play footsie with Snyder, they will get burned, become just another in a long line of people who came to the Redskins with good reputations and left as damaged goods.

Snyder should be left alone to feel the effects of his own mismanagement, without relief. He seeded distrust with poor business practices and made fans hostages to his personal whims, until he has fatally weakened interest in the team. He should have to live with FedEx Field until it is totally empty. Maybe then he will finally get bored, and do everyone a mercy, and sell.

WAPO

A delegate from Virginia offers some common sense:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/vi ... 26985a6638

A Virginia lawmaker has filed a bill intended to head off a potential bidding war for a new Redskins stadium, proposing that his state enter into an agreement with Maryland and the District not to provide certain incentives to the National Football League team.

The bill from Del. Michael J. Webert (R-Fauquier) would prohibit Virginia from offering the team tax incentives, state or local appropriations or loans to build a stadium in the state. The measure would not take effect unless Maryland and the District have promised to swear off similar incentives.

“I don’t want Joe Sixpack paying for a stadium,” Webert said Friday. “Think tanks on the left and right show the subsidies that go to professional stadiums, there really is not the return on investment that everybody says there is.”

Similar bills failed in all three jurisdictions last year. Like Webert, D.C. Council member David Grosso (I-At Large) and Maryland Del. David Moon (D-Montgomery) will try again this year. Moon said if the measures don’t pass in Virginia and the District, he will consider a bill affecting only Maryland.

“We are hoping to get this thing done this year, especially since this game of pitting local governments against each other is now being publicly played by the team. It’s as good a time as any to not play Daniel Snyder’s game,” Moon said, referring to the team’s owner.

Redskins spokesman Tony Wyllie did not respond to a request for comment.

Gov. Hogan has been persuaded to take Maryland out of the reverse-competition for the next Redskin stadium. ("First prize: one week in Zurich. Second prize: two weeks in Zurich. Third prize: three weeks in Zurich").

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/m ... ddf8c05f97

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) informed the Washington Redskins that he is withdrawing from efforts to persuade the team to build its next stadium in Oxon Cove Park, adjacent to MGM ­National Harbor, “at this time,” his spokeswoman confirmed Tuesday night.

Hogan’s decision represents a reversal after acknowledging in December that he had negotiated a nonbinding land swap with U.S. Interior Department officials that could have cleared the way for the Redskins to build their proposed 60,000-seat stadium on the parcel of federal land in Prince George’s County.

Moreover, barring a change of heart, Hogan’s decision strips Redskins owner Daniel Snyder of significant leverage in getting his new stadium built — leverage Snyder was counting on when, and if, he starts negotiating with officials in the District on financial incentives and accommodations for the project.

Why should the District hand Snyder "financial incentives" to build on the RFK site?

I missed the last few paragraphs of the Post article:

While Snyder is eager to vacate FedEx Field, blaming the 22-year-old stadium for the team’s declining ticket sales and plunging attendance, he can’t do so until September 2027. The Redskins are contractually obligated to play there until that time.

But nothing precludes the team from staying beyond 2027. As owner of both the venue and land, Snyder could refurbish FedEx or build a new stadium in the shadow of the current one.

So Snyder claims that ticket sales are down because Jack Kent Cooke Stadium lacks appeal? (Let's call the stadium by its real name...not Snyder's trashy naming rights deal). Yet another "it's not that the Redskins lose, it's not the way the team is run, it's Spurrier, it's Cerrato, it's Zorn, it's Shanahan, it's that FG kicker, it's Curt Cousins, it's [etc etc]."

welch wrote:I missed the last few paragraphs of the Post article:

While Snyder is eager to vacate FedEx Field, blaming the 22-year-old stadium for the team’s declining ticket sales and plunging attendance, he can’t do so until September 2027. The Redskins are contractually obligated to play there until that time.

But nothing precludes the team from staying beyond 2027. As owner of both the venue and land, Snyder could refurbish FedEx or build a new stadium in the shadow of the current one.

So Snyder claims that ticket sales are down because Jack Kent Cooke Stadium lacks appeal? (Let's call the stadium by its real name...not Snyder's trashy naming rights deal). Yet another "it's not that the Redskins lose, it's not the way the team is run, it's Spurrier, it's Cerrato, it's Zorn, it's Shanahan, it's that FG kicker, it's Curt Cousins, it's [etc etc]."

The NFL stadium game is just nonsense. Every new stadium has to be more opulent and grandiose than any other and they're coming at the costs of hundred of billions of dollars. The costs of the stadiums themselves barely scratch the surface of the actual costs. They play games in these buildings. They're not doing anything that benefits society. So, if they insist on having ridiculous nonsense like in-ground pools and the ability to remodel on the fly for concerts they can pay for it out of their own pockets. Snyder is going to be awfully disappointed though when he spends that kind of money and finds out it wasn't the stadium: It's him.