The bill is enormous.
How much are Tampa-area politicians willing to spend public money to keep Tampa a “big league city?” The National Football League’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers franchise ownership wants a lot of taxpayers’ dollars to upgrade the team’s 28-year-old stadium. The ownership wants a ”Sunshine Canopy” which would protect customers from the Florida heat in the early part of the season. It is estimated that the stadium renovations would cost about one billion dollars and half of that money would go to constructing the “Sunshine Canopy”. The Tampa Sports Authority President and CEO, Eric Hart, said he expected the Buccaneers ownership to request somewhere between $700 million and $1.3 billion for stadium upgrades. Buccaneers ownership could pay one-third of the cost, with the public covering the other two-thirds.
The request comes at the same time that the owners of Major League Baseball’s Tampa Bay Rays’ franchise are looking for public money to build a baseball park in Tampa. The Rays’ business offices are at a stadium across the bay in St. Petersburg. The Buccaneers have been in Tampa since 1976. Is there enough money available to build a Tampa baseball stadium and renovate a Tampa football facility? That is a question that local politicians will have to answer but it looks as if it will cost taxpayers a lot more than a billion dollars to cover the costs of building a baseball facility and renovating a football venue. But that is how it is in the sports business today. Owners expect taxpayers, most of whom never use the facility, to subsidize a private business. Politicians will say a stadium creates jobs but most of those jobs are per diem and a lot of include minimum wage positions. Neither of the sports ownerships are threatening to leave the market. But the threat is there. Give us money or else.
Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191
Evan can be reached at evan_weiner@hotmail.com
