Field of Schemes
@fieldofschemes.bsky.social
Sports stadium and arena news by Neil deMause (@neildemause.bsky.social), co-author of the book Field of Schemes.
That Trump wants his name on a stadium is no surprise, as he wants his name on pretty much everything. Commanders owner Josh Harris actually calling it "Trump Stadium" is another story, for a bunch of reasons.
Will the Commanders name their stadium after Trump? A mini-investimagation
I was traveling yesterday and missed the big (?) news (?) about how "a senior White House source" has been in touch with Washington Commanders owner Josh Harris about having Donald Trump's name on the...
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November 11, 2025 at 4:58 PM
That Trump wants his name on a stadium is no surprise, as he wants his name on pretty much everything. Commanders owner Josh Harris actually calling it "Trump Stadium" is another story, for a bunch of reasons.
While surely Royals owner John Sherman will use the actual poll responses in some way, you know his main concern in picking a stadium site is extricating public money — and by naming three possible locations, he creates leverage to up everybody's antes.
Friday roundup: Royals “poll” fans on why they need a new stadium, plus still more soccer teams, so many soccer teams
I'm posting this week's roundup from the road, so apologies if any news slipped through the cracks, and I'll try to catch up with it next week. But at least I'm not shutting down my site to take a ful...
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November 7, 2025 at 1:03 PM
While surely Royals owner John Sherman will use the actual poll responses in some way, you know his main concern in picking a stadium site is extricating public money — and by naming three possible locations, he creates leverage to up everybody's antes.
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Cover just dropped. Coming in 2026 from Oxford University Press.
November 6, 2025 at 12:27 AM
Cover just dropped. Coming in 2026 from Oxford University Press.
Spurs owner Peter Holt is set to get a $1.3B arena by putting down just ~$500m of his own money, and can recoup more through naming rights sales and jacking up ticket prices — while taxpayers put up the bulk of the cost and get no arena revenues in return.
Spurs owner wins vote to unlock $889m in arena subsidies after outspending opposition 32-to-1
Voters in Bexar County, Texas approved two measures yesterday to raise hotel and car rental taxes and use the proceeds to help build a new San Antonio Spurs arena and renovate their old one to be a ye...
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November 5, 2025 at 1:52 PM
Spurs owner Peter Holt is set to get a $1.3B arena by putting down just ~$500m of his own money, and can recoup more through naming rights sales and jacking up ticket prices — while taxpayers put up the bulk of the cost and get no arena revenues in return.
"Take my tax money or I won't give you more tax money" is novel, I'll grant that. Bibb says using stadium district taxes would "shift the cost of stadium repairs away from residents," but residents are who tend to go to Cavs and Guardians games, so wha?
Cleveland mayor wants new taxes to fund Cavs, Guardians upgrades to avoid using old taxes to do so
This week's candidate for weirdest headline, from yesterday at Cleveland.com: Bibb to Cavs and Guardians: No more bailouts until there’s a new game plan to fund stadium repairs So once the Cavaliers a...
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November 4, 2025 at 4:15 PM
"Take my tax money or I won't give you more tax money" is novel, I'll grant that. Bibb says using stadium district taxes would "shift the cost of stadium repairs away from residents," but residents are who tend to go to Cavs and Guardians games, so wha?
Phil Rogers writes the Bears owners are still trying to "find the necessary funding for needed infrastructure upgrades." Inserting both "necessary" and "needed" is piling on the owner view a bit, but on brand for a guy who once wrote a book with Bud Selig.
Sportswriters alarmed as Bears again do not get $1B in tax money toward new stadium
The Illinois legislature adjourned Friday without approving any Chicago Bears stadium bills, and people be reacting: Phil Rogers, writing as a Forbes "contributor," reports that "the wait goes on as t...
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November 3, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Phil Rogers writes the Bears owners are still trying to "find the necessary funding for needed infrastructure upgrades." Inserting both "necessary" and "needed" is piling on the owner view a bit, but on brand for a guy who once wrote a book with Bud Selig.
The response from Illinois elected officials to Bears execs' offer of $25m instead of the full $350-500m in remaining Soldier Field debt has been mostly LOLBears: State Rep. Kam Buckner called the offer "inadequate" and "disrespe
Friday roundup: Bears offer Illinois dimes on the dollar toward stadium, Browns considering $150k-a-seat PSLs
Apologies for this week's late roundup — I had to retrieve my now-repaired laptop from the shop and get settled back in before writing this. On the bright side (for you, the information-craving consum...
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October 31, 2025 at 5:25 PM
The response from Illinois elected officials to Bears execs' offer of $25m instead of the full $350-500m in remaining Soldier Field debt has been mostly LOLBears: State Rep. Kam Buckner called the offer "inadequate" and "disrespe
With polls showing voters opposed to the Spurs arena measures, owner Peter Holt will need all of that $6.5m for last-minute campaign ads. His arena was built in 2002 and renovated in 2015, you'd think he'd be in no rush, but billionaires gonna billionaire.
Spurs owner pours $6.5m into campaign to win Tuesday’s arena subsidy vote
poEarly voting is underway for San Antonio Spurs owner Peter Holt's ballot measure to get $311 million in Bexar County tax money over 30 years (about $150 million in present value) as part of a $750 m...
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October 30, 2025 at 1:33 PM
With polls showing voters opposed to the Spurs arena measures, owner Peter Holt will need all of that $6.5m for last-minute campaign ads. His arena was built in 2002 and renovated in 2015, you'd think he'd be in no rush, but billionaires gonna billionaire.
The Mavs and Stars each have several cities they can play off for arena subsidies, but both also need to outmaneuver each other, something the cities could use as leverage. Hoping city officials play things smart is usually a bad bet, but fingers crossed!
Mavericks, Stars owners launch war for Dallas arena supremacy, taxpayers hold on to your wallets
A shooting war has broken out between the owners of the Dallas Mavericks and Stars, with the Mavs owners filing suit yesterday against the Stars owners for ... well, it's complicated. But suffice to say that it all looks to have to do with two elements that are increasingly common factors in sports arena scheming: an expiring...
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October 29, 2025 at 5:15 PM
The Mavs and Stars each have several cities they can play off for arena subsidies, but both also need to outmaneuver each other, something the cities could use as leverage. Hoping city officials play things smart is usually a bad bet, but fingers crossed!
Clark Hunt probably isn't undecided but is weighing how to extract the most tax money — like if he puts a county funding measure on the ballot in 2026, how can he still threaten a move to Kansas if it fails, given Kansas wants an answer by the end of 2025?
Chiefs owner to decide soon how much to demand for what kind of stadium and where, maybe
One of the prerogatives of being a sports team owner is you get to have your every utterance turned into a full-length news article, and Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark Hunt took advantage of this on M...
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October 28, 2025 at 8:34 PM
Clark Hunt probably isn't undecided but is weighing how to extract the most tax money — like if he puts a county funding measure on the ballot in 2026, how can he still threaten a move to Kansas if it fails, given Kansas wants an answer by the end of 2025?
Even if Cleveland getting $80 million in exchange for dropping its legal challenges turns out to be maybe an okay tradeoff, the Browns owners get to keep haggling for more subsidies from the state and county as long as they want.
How much is Cleveland’s mayor giving up in exchange for $80m Browns payout?
Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb and the Cleveland city council are fighting over whether the council will get to rework Bibb's settlement of the Browns stadium standoff, and I almost wrote about it yester...
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October 28, 2025 at 1:42 PM
Even if Cleveland getting $80 million in exchange for dropping its legal challenges turns out to be maybe an okay tradeoff, the Browns owners get to keep haggling for more subsidies from the state and county as long as they want.
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Stitch it on a pillow.
October 24, 2025 at 11:07 PM
Stitch it on a pillow.
IL's gov said he's OK to pay for roads and infrastructure but not a stadium, kind of a slippery slope when Bears execs want $855m in traffic and transit upgrades, and when the biggest stadium subsidy ever was just approved involving mostly indirect subsidies.
Friday roundup: Pritzker endorses “infrastructure” spending for Bears, Royals could soon propose Kansas vaporstadium
It's Friday, which means I had to take valuable time away from reading about the Mafia luring rich people into playing in rigged poker games in order to hang out with NBA players who scored 6.6 points...
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October 24, 2025 at 2:29 PM
IL's gov said he's OK to pay for roads and infrastructure but not a stadium, kind of a slippery slope when Bears execs want $855m in traffic and transit upgrades, and when the biggest stadium subsidy ever was just approved involving mostly indirect subsidies.
Worcester should serve as a warning to cities hoping to repay sports project costs with tax revenue from new development (*cough San Antonio*) that there's no guarantee the new housing will get built, plus taxes on new residents aren't a free windfall.
Worcester stadium red ink shows dangers of hoping to cover taxpayer costs with housing magic beans
It's now been more than seven years since the Pawtucket Red Sox owners cut a deal to get $105 million in public cash to move to a new stadium in Worcester, sparking a throwdown between economists Andr...
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October 23, 2025 at 1:39 PM
Worcester should serve as a warning to cities hoping to repay sports project costs with tax revenue from new development (*cough San Antonio*) that there's no guarantee the new housing will get built, plus taxes on new residents aren't a free windfall.
Stories like these support owner Peter Holt's attempts to make this into a vote on whether to keep the Spurs, while downplaying the $750m+ public cost and that San Antonio just built a new arena 23 years ago amid promises of redevelopment that never came.
How to threaten to leave town without threatening to leave town: San Antonio Spurs edition
Early voting has started in the San Antonio Spurs arena public funding ballot measure, and the local news media is on the job warning that the team could move so that its owners don't have to. Today's...
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October 21, 2025 at 2:49 PM
Stories like these support owner Peter Holt's attempts to make this into a vote on whether to keep the Spurs, while downplaying the $750m+ public cost and that San Antonio just built a new arena 23 years ago amid promises of redevelopment that never came.
Why is MO sec'y of state Denny Hoskins editorializing in ballot language about how the Chiefs need subsidies or will move to Kansas, when 1) it's not clear they would and 2) he didn't also warn of how stadium subsidies would affect other state budgets?
Missouri official tags ballot measure to repeal $1.5B stadium subsidy with language warning it would make Chiefs move
A Missouri law firm is trying to get a pair of ballot initiatives on the November 2026 ballot to overturn the $1.5 billion in Kansas City Chiefs and Royals stadium money the state legislature approved...
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October 20, 2025 at 3:58 PM
Why is MO sec'y of state Denny Hoskins editorializing in ballot language about how the Chiefs need subsidies or will move to Kansas, when 1) it's not clear they would and 2) he didn't also warn of how stadium subsidies would affect other state budgets?
Oh come on, ChatGPT, you link to fresh arena vaportecture and don't clown on the woman in the short-shorts who is about to jog right into a stair railing? Also, how is it a half-billion-dollar bribe when the public is spending $850 million? Zero stars!
Friday roundup: Stochastic parrot edition
Guys! The AI industry needs our help! Nobody wants AI, and AI has lots of AI, so AI is paying AI to make more AI and sell it to AI and making it up in stock price, and that can't end well! Let's help ...
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October 17, 2025 at 12:33 PM
Oh come on, ChatGPT, you link to fresh arena vaportecture and don't clown on the woman in the short-shorts who is about to jog right into a stair railing? Also, how is it a half-billion-dollar bribe when the public is spending $850 million? Zero stars!
Bexar County voters oppose spending $150m in tax money on a Spurs arena by 46-40%. San Antonio would also put in $549m toward the arena, but city officials say the whole deal falls apart if the county's arena ballot measure doesn't pass on November 4.
Spurs arena vote faces “uphill battle” as poll shows residents currently oppose using tax dollars
The first polls are in for the November ballot measure to raise hotel and car rental taxes and use part of the proceeds to pay about $150 million toward a new San Antonio Spurs arena, and they're not ...
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October 16, 2025 at 2:39 PM
Bexar County voters oppose spending $150m in tax money on a Spurs arena by 46-40%. San Antonio would also put in $549m toward the arena, but city officials say the whole deal falls apart if the county's arena ballot measure doesn't pass on November 4.
Even if Illinois Rep. Kam Buckner's transparency bill is just the opening of negotiations on the Bears stadium, it's a start — especially given how often sports projects get rushed through the approval process without much public oversight.
Illinois bill would require sports projects to include independent analysis, public hearings, repayment of lost tax revenue
In the midst of all the Chicago Bears stadium drama, in which team owners are still requesting around $1 billion in infrastructure spending and tax breaks, Illinois state representative Kam Buckner ha...
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October 15, 2025 at 4:58 PM
Even if Illinois Rep. Kam Buckner's transparency bill is just the opening of negotiations on the Bears stadium, it's a start — especially given how often sports projects get rushed through the approval process without much public oversight.
The Browns deal still needs signoff from the Cleveland city council, whose members have many feels about it, one telling Bibb, "You have lied with the dogs, and now you have fleas."
Cleveland mayor okays Browns’ Brook Park move in exchange for $80m in future payments
After fighting tooth and nail to derail the Cleveland Browns owners' attempts to move to a new stadium in nearby Brook Park, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb abruptly called a truce yesterday, agreeing to ...
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October 14, 2025 at 12:09 PM
The Browns deal still needs signoff from the Cleveland city council, whose members have many feels about it, one telling Bibb, "You have lied with the dogs, and now you have fleas."
It's easy for Spurs owner Peter Holt to be confident of winning tax money for an arena when he's spending $2m to get voters to go his way, but just in case may as well employ the "You don't want to find out what'll happen if you make Dad mad" strategy too.
Friday roundup: Spurs owner wants arena subsidies so he can be “scrappy,” A’s owner gets closer to unlocking county stadium cash
Some weeks, when all the work of this website feels like an endless repetition of the same stories over and over and over again, I try to remind myself that while the general shape of the stadium swin...
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October 10, 2025 at 2:20 PM
It's easy for Spurs owner Peter Holt to be confident of winning tax money for an arena when he's spending $2m to get voters to go his way, but just in case may as well employ the "You don't want to find out what'll happen if you make Dad mad" strategy too.
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Just a friendly reminder that any researchers with working papers in the public finance and sports space should reach out to me. I've got a standing offer for a special issue and would love to take the editor up on it. Papers don't have to be US-centric but lessons for policy in US is needed.
October 9, 2025 at 9:19 PM
Just a friendly reminder that any researchers with working papers in the public finance and sports space should reach out to me. I've got a standing offer for a special issue and would love to take the editor up on it. Papers don't have to be US-centric but lessons for policy in US is needed.
Browns officials said because the stadium site was formerly an auto plant that employed 16,000 workers, the $70m for traffic and transit upgrades is “relatively modest”; nice attempt at anchoring, need to remember to use that next time I'm asking for $70m.
Browns owners want $70m in state road upgrades on top of $600m in state stadium money
The Cleveland Browns owners' campaign for a new stadium in Brook Park has been a weird one, and not just because of the ever-changing funding scheme that ended up with the state raiding a pool of uncl...
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October 9, 2025 at 11:22 AM
Browns officials said because the stadium site was formerly an auto plant that employed 16,000 workers, the $70m for traffic and transit upgrades is “relatively modest”; nice attempt at anchoring, need to remember to use that next time I'm asking for $70m.
The new Rays owners want a lot of land, and a lot of money for building stuff on it, and are looking for a government entity willing to hand it over to them — and in time to open a stadium by spring 2029. "Audacious" seems like a good word for that, yes.
New Rays owners vow to get taxpayer-subsidized stadium district by 2029
New Tampa Bay Rays owners Patrick Zalupski, Ken Babby, and Bill Cosgrove held their first press conference yesterday since buying the team, and a lot of it was focused on plans for a new stadium in th...
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October 8, 2025 at 12:24 PM
The new Rays owners want a lot of land, and a lot of money for building stuff on it, and are looking for a government entity willing to hand it over to them — and in time to open a stadium by spring 2029. "Audacious" seems like a good word for that, yes.
Clark Hunt has offers of $750m in hand from KS and MO, but continues to say he needs county subsidies as well, which does make one wonder whether the Chiefs really need a new stadium if it'd only be profitable if taxpayers cover more than $1B of the cost.
Chiefs owner still mulling all stadium options, seeking to increase $750m public price tag
Kansas City Chiefs executives have been pretty quiet about their stadium plans since June, when they asked for and got a one-year extension on Kansas's offer of sales tax subsidies that could be worth...
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October 7, 2025 at 12:35 PM
Clark Hunt has offers of $750m in hand from KS and MO, but continues to say he needs county subsidies as well, which does make one wonder whether the Chiefs really need a new stadium if it'd only be profitable if taxpayers cover more than $1B of the cost.