As the city of Anaheim and the Angels next month start negotiating a new stadium lease, we have a slight sense of foreboding. City governments are notoriously poor deal-makers when it comes to professional sports franchises, and Anaheim has a long history of striking lopsided deals. We all love the Angels. But the team’s name starts with Los Angeles, which tells you everything you need to know about who usually gets the upper hand.
The city government isn’t inspiring confidence on the “we’ll stand up for taxpayers” front. The council has, in general, shown itself to be too comfortable with the city’s old subsidy-laden development model. And it voted in January to extend the current stadium lease to allow more time for discussions. By letting the team to tie up the site for several years, the deal gave the Angels a stronger hand. No wonder people are worried.
Fortunately, Mayor Harry Sidhu outlined praiseworthy points in an op-ed for the Register last month. He vowed to secure market value for land around Angel Stadium and market rent for stadium use, and to protect Anaheim’s budget. The only way to accomplish such things, however, is to let the team walk if its demands are too aggressive. Few elected officials have such courage, which is why sports teams typically take taxpayers to the cleaners.
These long-awaited negotiations remind us why cities should never be involved in sports deals, which should be market transactions devoid of city ownership and subsidies. As the VoiceofOC reported, the Angels earn $100 million a year at the stadium but Anaheim has only received $1.6 million since 2010 largely because of the money the team spent to renovate the facility.
Think of the years of missed financial opportunities. It’s no surprise. Professional sports franchises don’t spur significant economic growth, studies show, but shift around entertainment dollars. We hope the matter is quickly resolved, but the city needs to remember that its main goal is to protect taxpayers – not, as the mayor wrote, to “build on the legacy of baseball in Anaheim.”
