Taxpayers would have to help pay for whatever the Blazers design.

Isaac declined to disclose any financial estimates, saying he’s still working on them. But he told city officials that the total cost of an earlier proposal would have been $100 million to $150 million.

As for the public subsidies, the city’s urban renewal agency has budgeted $5.4 million. But the city has the capacity to offer more than $50 million if it takes on riskier debt in one urban renewal district and redraws another district’s boundaries to swoop into the Rose Quarter.

Read the full article here. Sounds like the City will be footing part of the bill for whatever the Blazers decide to do. We can’t take these actions for granted.

Sign the petition to the Oregon General Assembly to give us our Blazers games.

Become a fan of SFC-Portland on Facebook.

Follow the Local Chapter on Twitter.

Tampa Bay Rays Seek To Remove Financial Doubt Or Else

by Jeremiah Tittle

Success on the field of play so often leads to success in the owner’s box. It is not the rule however. Stu Sternberg, the principal owner of the Tampa Bay Rays will attest to that. Since the Rays can’t pack Tropicana Field with Dickie V’s fellow ‘Amazing Rays’ fans the year after the team’s appearance in the World Series, Sternberg has no qualms about dropping the “air of uncertainty…will continue to linger” line in a press conference (press release below) after meeting with St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster yesterday.

The first line of the release identifies Sternberg’s efforts to extort funding from St. Petersberg to stay afloat although its clear this is not enough. While our friends in Santa Clara have identified the downfalls of being chosen by a professional sports franchise as the ideal site for their new stadium, it is not so often the case that an owner comes out and says that the entire region – including residents who live outside of the stadium’s zip code – will need to fork over cash to keep them in town.

For SFC, we’ve been there, done that. These are clear threats to not only the local politicians, but all the Tampa Bay Rays fans who’ve supported the team through the lean years, the hotter-than-hot day games, and, yes, that even includes Dickie V whose tears would flow like a two-year-old’s if the team were to leave the region for more solid financial footing.

Jeremiah Tittle is the Managing Editor of SportsFansCoalition.org. Reach him at Jeremiah@SportsFansCoalition.org.

RAYS WANT TO EXPLORE ALL POTENTIAL NEW BALLPARK OPTIONS IN TAMPA BAY REGION

ST. PETERSBURG, FL—Following a meeting with St. Petersburg Mayor Bill Foster, Tampa Bay Rays principal owner Stuart Sternberg said the team wants to explore all potential new ballpark options within Tampa Bay, including those outside St. Petersburg and Pinellas County.

“The future of Major League Baseball in Tampa Bay depends on finding the optimal site for a new ballpark,” said Sternberg.  “It is my conviction that if baseball is to survive and flourish in Tampa Bay for the long-term, we must rise above municipal boundaries and work together with a common interest.”
Added Sternberg, “We will consider any potential ballpark site in Tampa Bay, but only as part of a process that considers every ballpark site in Tampa Bay.”
Sternberg said he believes baseball can succeed in Tampa Bay and that he is committed to doing all he can to keep the team in the region.

“When I assumed control of the Rays almost five years ago, it was commonly assumed that winning would change everything at Tropicana Field.  Everyone believed that with a winning team on the field, fans would fill the stands.  That has not been the case.”

Sternberg continued, “Our ability to compete and, quite frankly, to survive rests on our ability to attract people and businesses to our ballpark.  Our customers are our fans.  And like any other business, we need to be in a location that is convenient for our fans to reach us.”

In discussing the Rays future, Sternberg confirmed that he wants the team to remain in Tampa Bay but for that to happen a regional discussion needs to begin soon.

“Baseball in the Tampa Bay area does not belong to Stu Sternberg, just as it doesn’t belong to St. Petersburg or Tampa, Pinellas or Hillsborough.  It is a regional asset.  It belongs to our fans throughout the region.  For this asset to be preserved, a comprehensive process to explore a new ballpark must begin.  That process needs to consider all possible locations throughout Tampa Bay – meaning Tampa and Hillsborough as well.”

Sternberg said being able to explore all possible stadium options to keep the team in Tampa Bay was “the right thing for our fans and for all the residents of Tampa Bay.”

Until that discussion began in earnest, he continued, the team cannot and will not make a decision on a future ballpark in Tampa Bay and the air of uncertainty over the future of Major League Baseball in the area will continue to linger.

“The Rays are a valued member of our regional community, and that’s exactly how we want things to remain,” Sternberg said.  “We appreciate all the support we have received from our loyal base of fans and supporters in both turning around this franchise and in trying to figure out how to keep it here in Tampa Bay.”

Are New Stadiums Worth It?

by Jeremiah Tittle

After a lot of grassroots organizing and countless hours trying to battle the miseducation campaigns waged by the San Francisco 49ers, Santa Clara Plays Fair came up short in trying to convince the people of Santa Clara – led like sheep to the slaughter at the polls earlier this month – that putting a new stadium in downtown Santa Clara would bankrupt the city or at least its taxpayers.

According to one of the organizers, the 49ers spent what one San Jose State poly sci professor called a ‘crushing’ amount of money. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said it was the most spent per voter in the history of the U.S. – in excess of $300 - and that the 49ers blacklisted both he and Santa Clara residents from telling the other side of the story on local TV and radio airwaves leading up to the vote.

Now that the Santa Clara voters have approved measure J which would clear the way for Candlestick Park’s destruction with an eye toward downtown Santa Clara as the new site for a stadium, loads of articles have suddenly appeared in the media regarding the risks to Santa Clara – the risk of seat licenses and naming rights particularly.  SCPF has been trying to get that info into the news for an entire year but the media turned a blind eye. Now that the 49ers won, reporters are coming out of the woodwork to speculate on how risky the funding is for this project.

The day after the election, the San Jose Mercury News published a correct pie chart of the stadium construction costs that looks like the SCPF pie chart (numbers all come from the Term Sheet).  They should have been publishing that all along.

An additional hinderence is the lawsuit filed by Great America (Cedar Fair).  The city is trying to breach its contract with the company to lease the same piece of property to the 49ers.  The city doesn’t want to give them a rent reduction even though they must close on game days.  Maybe the good people of Santa Clara have an ally.  Or maybe there will be a settlement and the green ‘all systems go’ light will stay shining brightly.

Our friends at Santa Clara Plays Fair are  going to try to hold the city and the NFL team to its words, keeping the campaign promises in the final document. They made more promises than a politician the day before a primary – that conflict with the Term Sheet, mind you, which is non-binding.

Time will tell if these efforts to hold the city of Santa Clara, the city of San Francisco, the NFL, and the 49ers accountable. Rest assured, the good people at Santa Clara Plays Fair will continue to hold them accountable every step of the way, and Sports Fans Coalition supports their efforts 100% understanding that unchecked power will lead to abuse.

Jeremiah Tittle is the Managing Editor of SportsFansCoalition.org. Reach him at Jeremiah@SportsFansCoalition.org.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

June 14, 2010

Federal Communications Commission

445 12th Street SW

Washington. DC 20554

 

RE: Petition for Rulemaking to Amend the Commission’s Rules Governing

Retransmission Consent, MB Docket No. 10-71

 

To the Commission:

The record in this proceeding reveals a battle between broadcast media conglomerates and the pay-TV companies that distribute their programming.  The Commission needs to protect a group of people who pay their bills and contribute to ratings but have become collateral damage in this corporate smack-down:  sports fans.

Sports fans have become pawns in retransmission consent disputes.  When a broadcaster wants to gain leverage in a retransmission consent negotiation, it threatens to take away games from sports fans.  At the beginning of 2010, sports fans across the country narrowly missed losing the Sugar Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl, the Orange Bowl, and the NFL playoffs before FOX finally agreed to come to terms with Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks.[1]  In 2004, fans were caught in the middle of a major clash between EchoStar and Viacom/CBS in which fans’ access to the Super Bowl and March Madness was at risk.[2]

The Commission should protect fans from media conglomerates’ brass-knuckled business tactics and prohibit broadcasters from blacking out sports during retransmission consent negotiations.

SPORTS FANS COALITION

Sports Fans Coalition, Inc. (“SFC”) is a non-profit advocacy organization established last year to give sports fans a voice in public policy debates impacting fans’ access to professional and collegiate sports.  We have local chapters in major markets around the U.S., including New York City/New Jersey; Philadelphia, PA; Portland, OR; and New Orleans, LA.  We have testified before legislatures at the state and federal levels and have appeared on sports talk radio stations in every region of the U.S., from Southern California to Southern Ohio, Wisconsin to Tennessee, Colorado to North Carolina.  SFC is a member-driven organization, with all control vested in a duly elected Board of Directors consisting of seasoned professionals from the sports, business, government, legal, and non-profit communities, including a noted sports writer, a former public-company CEO, and former officials of the Bush and Clinton White Houses.[3] 

A common thread throughout our public policy agenda is the bedrock principle that when fans pay a price for their games through public goods, like tax dollars used to build a stadium, or special exemptions from laws passed to facilitate the sport, the fans deserve a fair return on that investment.

FANS HAVE BECOME A POLITICAL FOOTBALL

When it comes to retransmission consent disputes, the fans who are vital to the success of the game and who have contributed to its success through multiple public and private expenditures are treated like a fumbled pigskin.

Without sports fans, there would be no sports media economy.  The fans buy the tickets, watch the games, pay for their sports tiers, purchase their sports packages, and wildly support their teams.  That support is reflected in the public goods granted by government to keep the games going.  Broadcasters, who receive their FCC licenses from the public at no cost, acquire television rights from professional sports leagues, who negotiate those rights under a special federal antitrust exemption enacted just for that purpose,[4] or collegiate leagues, who enjoy non-profit tax status and often federal and state subsidies.[5]  The televised games often are played in stadiums and arenas built with taxpayer dollars or regulatory waivers.[6]  In addition to the public goods spent on sports, the fans themselves pay for sports programming with the legitimate expectation that they will watch the games for which they pay. 

Despite fans’ public and private contributions to sports, however, they are rewarded with threats and gamesmanship during retransmission consent disputes.  The recurring threat of blackouts during these disputes causes significant uncertainty, frustration, anxiety, and confusion for sports fans.  Fans must scramble to make alternate plans when disputes threaten to disrupt or block access to major sporting events.  For example, as the FOX disputes went down to the wire heading into New Year’s Day this year, fans did not know whether to go ahead with viewing parties.

Compounding the threat to fans is the practice by media conglomerates of tying broadcast carriage rights with non-broadcast channels.  This means, for example, that not only are games carried on one of the “Big 4” broadcast networks at risk, but so are games on cable/satellite sports channels.

In the past, if a broadcaster blacked out its signal from a pay-TV provider, fans could use their over-the-air antennas to watch a game on a broadcast station.  Not so today.  The federal government just finished a major publicity campaign leading up to the digital transition in which it reassured fans and the rest of the public that by subscribing to cable or satellite, viewers could watch digital broadcasts.  Those public service announcements did not add, “…and be sure to keep a spare digital antenna in your closet in case your games are taken away during a contract dispute.”  Fans shouldn’t be forced to purchase additional equipment—like digital converter boxes or antennas—just to prepare for the possibility of a blackout.

And in the event a blackout actually occurs, unprepared fans (or fans in areas without access to over-the-air signals) may end up missing the sporting event entirely.  The game, once played, cannot be replayed; the excitement for fans of a live sports broadcast is lost forever.

Sports fans do not care who “wins” in these disputes or how they get resolved.  Fans simply want to avoid being held hostage as broadcasters battle over fees with pay-TV providers.

“NOTICE” IS FRENCH FOR “SOAK THE FANS”

Some commenters in this proceeding suggest that the viewing public will be protected if given advance notice that a network feed may be withdrawn because of a payment dispute.[7]  But such notice would not actually serve sports fans’ interests.  It doesn’t do any good to tell fans that a game scheduled to be aired a month later might be unavailable.  That message – that a broadcaster may deprive fans of a big game in the future – only makes the situation more confusing.   

Taking steps to install a digital antenna and converter box—even assuming a fan can get them to work and over-the-air signals are available—is a major hassle that most fans will not undertake merely because there is a possibility of a blackout down the road. 

The prospect of switching to another service provider is equally problematic.  Switching takes time and money and may force the sports fan to give up other service features that are desirable (such as other sports packages).  And there is no assurance that, upon switching, the new video distributor won’t be subject to the same blackout risks a short time later.  Switching back and forth among providers every time there’s a fee dispute with a broadcaster is obviously untenable.

In short, receiving notice of a pending dispute is not helpful absent certainty as to the outcome.  Even then, fans aren’t looking to jump through hoops to watch a game; they just want access over cable and satellite to the same sporting events that are shown over the air for free.

PROHIBIT BLACKOUTS OF SPORTING EVENTS

From the fans’ perspective, the best solution would be a rule that prohibits broadcasters from pulling their signals—and blocking access to sporting events—in the first place.  The FCC has a long history of laying down ground rules for what is and is not permissible behavior during a retransmission consent negotiation.  Cable providers, for example, may not take down broadcast signals during a Nielsen ratings “sweeps” period.  This rule is designed to protect ratings harm to broadcasters during a negotiation.[8]  Why not protect sports fans, too?

Broadcasters have an obligation to serve the public interest, and the FCC can enforce that obligation by preventing them from withdrawing, or threatening to withdraw, popular sports programming from the cable or satellite services at the expense of sports fans, who do not want to be dragged into these fights.

If a broadcaster is willing to broadcast a game over the air for free, there is no reason why it should block access for fans who pay for a cable or satellite subscription.  If sports fans can look forward to big games without the stress of wondering whether payment disputes will disrupt access, they will reward the television networks and distributors by being loyal viewers.

Sports fans across the United States ask that the Commission bring an end to the personal fouls imposed on fans during retransmission consent fights.  Let’s put the fans on a level playing field for once and keep the games on.

Sincerely,

Sports Fans Coalition

 

---

[1]   See Brian Stelter, Time Warner and Fox Reach a Cable Deal, N.Y. Times, Jan. 2, 2010, at B1 (reporting that an eleventh-hour retransmission consent deal “covering Fox stations in New York, Los Angeles, Orlando and other markets, avert[ed] a blackout of the weekend’s college bowl games in millions of homes.”); Marva Hinton, Will Fox Reach Deal with Bright House in Time for Sugar Bowl?, WDBO.com, Jan. 1, 2010, available at http://wdbo.com/ localnews/2010/01/will-fox-reach-deal-with-brigh.html (reporting, after a brief extension during talks between Bright House and Fox on the eve of the Sugar Bowl, that “[f]ootball fans are hoping that extension continues”).

[2]   See Robert Manor, Viacom, EchoStar Settle Things, Chicago Tribune, Mar. 12, 2004, available at http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2004-03-12/business/0403120344_1_echostar-communications-corp-dish-network-chief-executive-charlie-ergen (reporting that “Viacom early in the talks threatened to withhold the Super Bowl” from EchoStar’s subscribers); R. Thomas Umstead, Kicking Dish in the Pants, Multichannel News, Mar. 14, 2004, available at http://www.multichannel.com/article/59130-Kicking_Dish_In_The_Pants.php (reporting that several members of Congress wrote letters to the parties expressing concern that their constituents would “lose access to CBS coverage of the National Collegiate Athletic Association men’s basketball tournament,” and that “March Madness is going to turn into March Anger” if Viacom pulled its CBS signals).

[3]  See www.sportsfans.org.  We also have a non-controlling Advisory Board comprised of non-profit, academic, and corporate advisors.

[4]  See 15 U.S.C.§ 1291, Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 (granting professional sports leagues an  antitrust exemption for the collective negotiation of over-the-air broadcast rights to FCC-licensed broadcasters).

[5]   National Collegiate Athletic Association, NCAA’s Tax-Exempt Status, http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect/ public/NCAA/Key+Issues/Commercialism/NCAA+tax+exempt+status (“ The NCAA is a nonprofit, higher education association that is exempted from federal income tax by section 509(c)(3) of the federal tax code.”).

[6]   See Tom Ferrey, South Bronx Neighborhood Taking Hit from New Stadium, ESPN The Magazine, Sep. 19, 2008, available at http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=3598021 (reporting that “with the state chipping in for garages and the federal government allowing the aggressive use of tax-free construction bonds, the total public subsidy has grown to $656 million” for the new Yankees Stadium); Patrick McGreevy, Environmental Exemptions OKd for Football Stadium in City of Industry, L.A. Times, Oct. 15, 2009, available at http://articles.latimes.com/ 2009/oct/15/local/me-stadium15 (reporting that “the California Senate approved a measure . . . that exempts the [L.A. football stadium development] project from state environmental laws”).

[7]   See, e.g., LIN Comments at 14; NAB Comments at 62.

[8]   47 C.F.R. § 76.1601; Implementation of the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992; Broadcast Signal Carriage Issues, Report and Order, 8 FCC Rcd 2965 ¶¶ 108-09 (1993) (implementing the “sweeps” rule).

NFLPA Fires First Shot

by Scott Weiss

The NFLPA fired the first shot to start their new war with the NFL over TV revenues and the potential impact on the upcoming labor negotiations.  The NFLPA filed a complaint charging that the NFL did not try to maximize TV revenue during the past two seasons because they knew they would have to share profits with the players, and also that the NFL will stand to make $4 Billion from the new TV contract even if there is a work stoppage in 2011.  So, how does this all impact sports fans?

On the first part of the complaint regarding the charge that the NFL did not try to maximize revenue over the past two seasons, I take the side of neither the owners nor players.  I truly do not care how these two rich kids split up the billions in question.  However, point two should be critically important to all sports fans.  What kind of motivation will the owners have if they will be receiving $4 Billion even if there is not a season played in 2011?  Is there any way that there will be a sense of urgency from the owner’s side if they know that they have the TV revenue safety net to fall back on?  On this front, I agree with the players that the owners are playing dirty pool.

Once again, it would be the loyal football fans who get the short end of the stick in this high stakes poker game.  It is important to remind people that the NFL collective bargaining agreement expires in March 2011.  If unchecked by sports fans as represented by SFC, the NFL and NFLPA will drag us through the mud over the next nine months to either come to a new collective bargaining agreement at the 11^th hour or bring the game to screeching halt with a work stoppage.

This is the first battle in the professional sports collective bargaining wars of 2011.  Rather than hanging our heads, sports fans should see this as the best opportunity to establish a powerful and united coalition of sports fans to change the way the sports industry operates forever.

Scott Weiss is the Local Chapter Chair for SFC-New York/New Jersey.  He has been involved in the sports fans advocacy movement since 2000.  He is a life long fan of the Mets, Jets, Knicks, and Rangers.

Become a fan of SFC-NY-NY on Facebook.

Follow SFC-NY-NY on Twitter.