As politicians all over Tampa Bay slash jobs, trim arts budgets, shut down recreation programs, close public swimming pools and eliminate cable access programming in reaction to the property tax crisis, consider this:
Hillsborough politicians said "yes" to spending $1.5 million in taxes for new $4,000 high-definition television screens for the exclusive use of patrons in the plush club level section and the überpricey luxury suites at Tampa Bay Buccaneers games.
In other words, you may find yourself stuck without a job or a pool or a children's arts class, but you can take comfort from the knowledge that millionaire Bucs fans won't have to watch inferior TV.
Last week, the Tampa Sports Authority approved a spending plan for Raymond James Stadium, nearby Legends Field and other authority properties. Half of the capital improvement budget is going for the televisions. Another $350,000 will replace refrigerators and ice makers in the luxury suites — because there is nothing worse than having to drink your vodka warm.
The stadium operates at a deficit (due to a horribly lopsided contract with the Tampa Bay Bucs, more on that later), so the money for those improvements is going to come from taxpayers in Hillsborough County. To the tune of more than $3 million.
Sports Authority officials say they have no choice.
"Our contract says that we need to keep a first-class facility," said Mickey Farrell, operations director for the Sports Authority. "We're required to do that."
He's talking about the 1996 pact that kept Malcolm Glazer & Family from moving their newly acquired team out of Tampa Bay, although there was no solid indication that the team would really do such a thing, beyond the saber-rattling necessary to secure a brand new RayJay stadium in a voter referendum that year.
The contract is, with no exaggeration whatsoever, a sweetheart deal for the NFL team. The Bucs agreed to pay a fixed lease of $3.5 million a year to the Sports Authority, an amount that will never increase, even in the 30th and final year of the contract in 2026. Imagine locking in your apartment rent or small business lease for the next three decades, and you get an idea of just how lopsided the provision is. (The Authority also gets $2.50 on every ticket sold at the stadium, but the fans pay that, not the Bucs.)
The Sports Authority, then, pays all the costs of maintaining RayJay (along with a handful of golf courses).
The Bucs, then, get all of the profits produced at the stadium during football games. Ticket sales, beer, hot dogs, other concessions, luxury suites, advertising signs and parking fees.
The contract goes even one better for the Glazers: The Bucs get the first $2 million of profits from non-football shows, such as concerts, motocross, high school games, monster truck pulls and the like — even though they have nothing to do with booking them or producing the shows or even attending them and having a corn dog.
Anything above the $2 million mark in non-football profits is split 50-50 between the Bucs and the Sports Authority. How often has that happened? Once. This year, in fact. It could very well also be the last time it happens, given the fact that almost no big, lucrative concerts want to book a government-subsidized stadium when they can, instead, book a government-subsidized Ford Amphitheater.
Thanks to Kenny Chesney's July 2006 show at the stadium, however, profits went above the $2 million mark — by $30,000. So let's do the math together: For doing nothing on non-football events, the Bucs get $2,015,000. (The actual budget shows the team was paid nearly $1.8 million once other direct costs were taken out.) The Sports Authority did all the work and received no more than $15,000.
Sounds fair.
So now we come to the matter of the HDTVs.
The Super Bowl is coming to Tampa again in 2009. The Sports Authority decided to be extra-good hosts and give those folks who can afford somewhere north of $1,000 a ticket (on the scalping market) a nice perk: the lifelike wonder of high-definition television.
But seriously, for $1.5 million in a brutally tight budget year for government and households alike, couldn't we just ask the well-heeled fans to turn around in their seats and watch the game LIVE? In the remarkably ultra-high definition of real life?!?
Apparently not.
The budgeted HDTVs will not be installed in the open concourses above and below the luxury levels (where the proletariat buy their beers and take their pisses) because, as Farrell explains, their longevity out in the open air and exposure to rain, humidity and sunlight hasn't been proven. Plus, he said, HDTVs are the league standard in luxury suites and boxes but not in open concourses.
Board members defended the expenditure this year by pointing out that the television replacement had been planned for some time, since the federal government is mandating digital broadcast signals by Feb. 2009.
"It's going to have to be done anyway," said Bob Buckhorn, a board member who once served on the Tampa City Council. "Do you time it for the Super Bowl to spruce the stadium up a bit for the fans? Sure."
"The capital improvements were scheduled to happen at some point," echoed board member Mark Proctor, a GOP political consultant and past chairman.
Proctor adds out two mitigating facts: First, the Sports Authority did trim its administrative costs and tightened its belt this year, chopping $100,000. Second, the Authority would have had millions of dollars on hand for such improvements if it hadn't been forced a few years back to begin paying property taxes, part of a statewide push by elected property appraisers to put publicly owned professional sports stadiums on the tax rolls.
The biggest villain here is the 1996 contract, which left Hillsborough taxpayers holding the bag for another 20 years. City and county leaders negotiated the deal and — with a few notable exceptions that included then-County Commissioner Chris Hart and Tampa City Councilman Charlie Miranda — voted to approve it.
When it comes to taxpayer subsidies of the Glazers' personal fortunes, the worst is yet to come.
"Here's the problem, and it's always been my concern," warned Proctor. "A normal landlord would add 5 percent [a year for rent increases], but we gave them a deal that keeps it the same as it was in 1996. Where this gets really serious is about seven or eight years from now." The stadium will be more than 15 years old at that point and, through normal wear and tear, some things are going to need to be replaced, resulting in a "huge spike" in the capital improvement budget. "Income will remain relatively level," Proctor said, "but the expenses will go sky high."
Just exactly how high is sky high?
Over the next two decades, fixing up RayJay will cost $52 million. The Authority believes it can pick up about half of that cost from the pittance the Glazers allow them to keep each year. Who will pay the remaining $25.6 million?
That's right. Taxpayers. The ones not going to the library or not attending a concert in the park or not getting their kids into the Head Start program or not surviving a heart attack because a new fire station planned for their neighborhood was scotched or not moving into affordable housing.
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This article appears in Aug 29 – Sep 4, 2007.