Alex and Bobby touch on Bally Sports making way for blackout-free baseball in San Diego, then welcome on journalist and stadium economics expert Neil deMause to try and dream up the ideal community-integrated ballpark, exploring the history of baseball in urban areas, the long shadow of mallparks, the ruthless efficiency of today’s mixed-used development stadiums, what ethical engagement with surrounding neighborhoods looks like, and much more.
Follow Neil on Twitter @neildemause.
Links:
MLB takes over Padres broadcasts
CityNerd’s top 10 urbanist ballparks
Field of Schemes
Join the Tipping Pitches Patreon
Tipping Pitches merchandise
Songs featured in this episode:
Roky Erikson — “Starry Eyes” • The Chicks — Texas Man” • snow ellet — “In Reverie” • Booker T & the M.G.’s — “Green Onions”
Episode Transcript
Theme
Tell us a little bit about what you saw and—and—and being able to relay that message to Cora when you watch Kimbrel pitching and kind of help out so he wasn’t Tipping his Pitches. So Tipping Pitches, we hear about it all the time. People are home understand, what Tipping Pitches is all about? That’s amazing! That’s remarkable.
BOBBY: Alex, I’d like to start this, uh, here episode, it’s a bit of business, bit of, uh, bookkeeping, little bit of finance for our listeners at home.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And for you, my—my co-owner here.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: Co-owner of Tipping Pitches Media. I would like to start this week by just talking about the three different concerts that we went through this month. Because if we talk about them all on the pod altogether, um, and we make them a regular feature of the show, the more we talk about them, the better the justification is for, um, spending the—the—the podcast money on future concert tickets.
ALEX: Right. We’re working our way there.
BOBBY: I think we’re—I think we’re almost there, you know? This is like—we’re going on three straight weeks of concert reviews in the pod.
ALEX: You’re right.
BOBBY: We are basically rerating its—we need to re-categorize the podcast as a music show on Apple Podcasts. And I don’t think anybody would be mad.
ALEX: Uh, I don’t think so either. I mean, we haven’t been a baseball podcast for, like, three years anyway. I feel like music—it’s probably been about 20% of our discussion or so over the last few years anyway, at least. So—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —yeah, I think—I think we’re there. Uh, I—I know that the—the shareholders who are listening right now may have input or thoughts.
BOBBY: It’s gonna be a little bit harder to get very—to get an—to get an artist from every concert that we go to on the pod, you know? Like, Steve is—is now a recurring guest and I think—
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: —that I feel pretty confident in saying that he’s willing to come back, you know? Every once in a while.
ALEX: Uh-hmm. Yeah.
BOBBY: Whenever we were going to see a PUP show, you know, we’re like, “Hey, Steve, come on through. Let’s chat on the pod.” But, um, I—I don’t—I don’t know for certain, but I don’t think that Hayley Williams would say yes to coming on the Tipping Pitches podcast.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I’ll—I honestly don’t know that I would say yes to that. I don’t know that I would be able to conduct an interview with Hayley Williams.
ALEX: Do you think—is Taylor or Haley more likely? Because—
BOBBY: Taylor York?
ALEX: No, no. Taylor Swift.
BOBBY: Oh, Taylor Swift.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: Oh. Oh, what—what kind of question is that?
ALEX: Because the answer is Taylor.
BOBBY: When was the last time you heard Taylor Swift speak in spoken voice for longer than three minutes? That’s an honest question. It—not in a documentary that she is an executive producer, by the way.
ALEX: Okay. Well—
BOBBY: Like, 2009.
ALEX: All I’m saying is that given the recent drama, she likely knows what, uh, what Cum Town is, which means she likely knows what Chapo Trap House is, which means we’re like inching closer.
BOBBY: Yes. If she does go to that page on Apple Podcasts, we might be one of the recommended podcasts underneath. Like, that is not, uh, totally out of the question. This is—
ALEX: And I don’t know what that says about us. I just want to say like I’ve—there are a handful of things—
BOBBY: What if—
ALEX: —wrong on either side of that equation.
BOBBY: I would like to put my foot down on the fact that we are not part of the dirtbag left podcasting trend. We are not. We talk about sports in a serious and professional and journalistic manner.
ALEX: We do.
BOBBY: That is my story, and I’m sticking to it.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Uh, this is a great podcast for that to be my story, because this podcast is actually serious and journalistic. We had a wonderful, wonderful—one of my favorite conversations in a long time with, uh, Neil deMause, who runs Field of Schemes. The blog [3:45] Field of Schemes, the book in 1998, um, contributes to places like Defector, and Hell Gate, and Baseball Prospectus. Uh, Neil is the stadiums guy, you know? All about funding stadiums, development of stadiums. He’s an—an incredible intrepid reporter on this topic and we’ve used his research on the show in the past, and so we figured it was high time to actually invite him on. You know, like, the—the—the elevator pitch for this episode is kind of like build the urbanist’s dream ballpark, whatever that actually means. We don’t actually really do that. We just kind of talk about some of the—basically, like, lay out a rubric for what is, like, uh, something close to an ethical stadium in 2023 and why some of these things seem so far away, so far from achievability. Um, it was a great conversation. I had a—I had a great time talking to Neil and I’m really thankful for all the time. We’re also going to hit a little bit of the Bally Sports San Diego Padres, that news that came out. Uh, but before we do, I am Bobby Wagner.
ALEX: I’m Alex Bazeley.
BOBBY: And you are listening to a podcast three degrees removed from Taylor Swift, Tipping Pitches. Want to make a podcast? Spotify has got a platform that lets you make one super easily and distribute it everywhere, and even earn money all in one place for free. It’s called Spotify for Podcasters. And, Alex, please, tell me how it works.
ALEX: Bobby, it would be my honor. Spotify for Podcasters lets you record and edit podcasts right from your phone or computer. So no matter what your setup is like, if you got a full studio or you’re staring at a Zoom screen right now, you can start creating today. Then you can distribute your podcast to Spotify and anywhere else podcasts are heard.
BOBBY: Video podcasts, video podcast are also available on Spotify. And when you want to take conversations with your friends to the next level, Q&A and polls are the best way to get them talking. With Spotify for Podcasters, you can earn money in a variety of ways, including ads and podcast subscriptions. And best of all, it’s totally free with no catch.
ALEX: We host Tipping Pitches on Spotify for Podcasters, it makes it really easy to distribute our podcast to all you lovely listeners. If it’s something you’re interested in trying out, you can download the Spotify for Podcasters app or go to http://www.spotify.com/podcasters to get started.
BOBBY: Thank you to new patrons, James, Zachary, Marissa, Mark, and Brenna, and whoever signed up in the—in the time between recording and publishing this podcast. We are recording this podcast on June 1st, uh, because my sister is getting married this weekend, so I’m attending that and unable to record the podcast, so we banked it with Neil. If anything happens between now and then, I apologize. Uh, but actually don’t, because this podcast is robust, you know?
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: We got a lot to talk about. We got—we got Rob quotes, you know? We got a great—we got a great interview and we have a Paramore show to review. So that’s—that’s—what else do you need? What did you think first Paramore experience live?
ALEX: It was my first Paramore experience live. Uh, they put on a banger of a show.
BOBBY: They really do.
ALEX: They—they had the place rocking. Uh—
BOBBY: The place being Madison Square Garden.
ALEX: The place being Madison Square Garden
BOBBY: — [7:14] hands were being scanned by Jim Dolan.
ALEX: Well—okay. So, I have a question.
BOBBY: Uh-huh.
ALEX: What—what was the—it—when you said face scanners, I—I assumed that, like, we would be doing that as we went in, but is it just—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —kind of like they have cameras that are—
BOBBY: I think so.
ALEX: It’s like—it’s the, like, Mission Impossible thing where there are, like, enhanced image—
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: —and then it’s like—and then they use a person—
BOBBY: And then the person, you’re facing a rap sheet.
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: Yeah?
ALEX: Rap sheet.
BOBBY: Okay. Talked about Jim on a podcast once is generally anti—this is surveillance state.
ALEX: Right, exactly. Okay. I just wanted to know.
BOBBY: Yeah, I don’t, uh, I don’t think it’s anything fancier than that, but I do think they have, like, clear entrances that incorporate some of this technology. I’m actually not really sure. Entering into Madison Square Garden is truly one of the more chaotic experiences you can have, uh, in the world. They’re just like—everybody’s yelling. It does kind of seem like you’re going into the back entrance of a cafeteria, and then you’re just there. It is also like the world’s most famous—
ALEX: And, like, [8:13] I’ve entered an arena in my life. It was like, “Are we going in the right direction?” And then we were, like, at our seats.
BOBBY: You got to hand it to James. You really got to hand it to James.
ALEX: You—you really do.
BOBBY: Uh, a phenomenal concert. If there was anybody listening who was at that show, uh, we shared that space together, and I feel great about it. I—I feel great about the fact that you got to—to see me see one of my favorite bands.
ALEX: I know.
BOBBY: That—that is like a connection. You know, later this summer, we’re gonna go to the coliseum together, the baseball stadium that you grew up going to. And this is kind of like a connection back into my childhood. I—I first saw Paramore in concert in middle school, seventh grade.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: I just got dumped earlier in the day. I got the flu. I think I’ve told this story on the podcast. So now we’ve bridged eras and it feels great.
ALEX: We really have.
BOBBY: Um, vibes are high—vibes are not high at Bally Sports right now. They’re being sued, ruled against by multiple judges. They’re being lambasted by Rob Manfred in the press, which, uh, is a fate worse than death. Um, also a fate that I wish that we will—will get—I hope that we will get one day.
ALEX: Oh, my God.
BOBBY: I would love to be lambasted by Rob Manfred in the press.
ALEX: I welcome it.
BOBBY: Uh, if you don’t know, the Bally Sports bankruptcy has spread its wings to San Diego. They have missed payments to the Padres and MLB has now taken back the broadcasting rights. They have guaranteed that they will make up at least 80% of the money that is owed to the Padres, um, by charging, uh, 19.99 a month through Major League Baseball television to people in the San Diego area. It is an—it is—it is an added cost, an extension, um, on to what MLB TV already costs if you live in that area. If you’re out of market—there’s kind of some confusion in the wording of this at the beginning. If you’re out of market, you will still be able to access Padres games. Uh, here’s the quote from Rob, it’s the banner of a quote in the Evan Drellich article, “RSNs, whoever the hell owned them, had made hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in profit off these long-term agreements. To turn around and say, ‘We’re going to squeeze you and make you take lower rights fees,’ didn’t sit very well with us.
ALEX: First of all, such an un-Rob Manfred quote.
BOBBY: I know. We got Rob—he’s hot under the hood.
ALEX: That’s like—
BOBBY: And they got him mad.
ALEX: Like, this is—he’s channeling his best, like, Joe Biden and trying to be, like, relate—he’s like—
BOBBY: “Listen—”
ALEX: —”Who—listen, Jack, whoever the hell—”
BOBBY: —John—”
ALEX: —”hell owned these damn RSNs better—uh, get prepared for the fire to come their way.”
BOBBY: “Listen, Jack”—did you see that Joe, uh, Joe Biden fell earlier today?
ALEX: No. Is he okay?
BOBBY: I think so. Yeah, I think he’s fine. I just thought I ask. Yeah, Rob’s mad. I—I have a question for Rob.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Who was on the other side of those agreements?
ALEX: Right. Yeah, who were the payments being made with?
BOBBY: Who was making the other hundreds of millions of dollars? Who was also profiting during all that? Who was sacrificing access to watching baseball in exchange for those same hundreds of million dollars of profit? Were there—was there anybody on the other side of it or was it just RSNs making the money? I’m actually not sure.
ALEX: He’s so pure. He’s just so—you know, he gets out there and he’s like, look, “I—f I pretend hard enough that I don’t know what an RSN is, the public might be on my side.”
BOBBY: Yeah. Uh, who’s the—
ALEX: “Like, if I’ll burrow into my hole deep enough, they’ll come with me.”
BOBBY: Who’s the only person that has a lower approval rating than Rob Manfred in the MLB owners? Regional cable executives. He’s finally found someone to punch down to. Congrats, Rob. You did it. Um, do you have, like, uh, resounding take coming out of this? The fact that—so the Padres are the first team that MLB is going to distribute their rights and actually charge for, um, that I’ve seen so far. The—the 19.99 a month extension that Major League—Major League—MLB.TV is the first of its kind, though not all that surprising. Uh, we kind of predicted that this is exactly how it would go. This is the—the future is now. Uh, do you have, like, a resounding take from all of this?
ALEX: I don’t know that I have a take. I—I saw a lot—there was a lot of grumbling over the fact that Padres fans are going to be charged 20 bucks a month to stream games through MLB.TV.
BOBBY: That’s a lot.
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: I thought it was gonna be like 9.99.
ALEX: It—it’s—
BOBBY: That’s like—20 bucks a month is more than Netflix.
ALEX: Because we really are—I—I mean, we can quibble with the price point all day long, but like, I—I don’t know. I—it does feel like we’re moving towards a world in which—like, all of a sudden, if you live in San Diego, you can watch Padres games black-out free through MLB.TV, which is, like, two years ago, a world I think we couldn’t have even conceived of. So it’s like—I think there’s gonna be a lot of rockiness to the rollout in the coming years, “rollout,” aka, I don’t know, various bankruptcies, right? Like, it’s very telling that like—
BOBBY: I love telling all my stuff out through bankruptcies.
ALEX: I know. Like, it’s very telling that, like, none of this is actually happening until someone else makes a stumble. Like, MLB was never going to be the initiator in this sort of thing. They were gonna wait and see where the chips fell. But, uh, I don’t know. I have—I’m—I’m not losing any sleep over the RSN executives and their wallets. I think that, like, it—it heralds maybe a better future for—for streaming, even if we’re not there yet.
BOBBY: It does feel like it removes some of the more Byzantine hurdles that there were in this process. Like, I was—like, all of a sudden, we don’t actually need to have blackouts and you can, like, over the top—
ALEX: Right. Like, just turn it off.
BOBBY: Like, you can actually go straight to the consumer. It’s like, “How—how did this happen, this thing that we’ve been talking about for a decade?” Um, but like they couldn’t have even— they couldn’t have even continued it for free for half a season, like in the middle of this bankruptcy. I mean, I know that they’re trying to recuperate some of that money so that they cannot take the full hit of the Padres’ rights fees, but like, you know that MLB has that money in the—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —vault or whatever. Like the—in the central MLB bank account, the central MLB fund that will float teams’ money when they need it to extort a city and move stadiums, or when they need it because a cable company goes bankrupt, or when they need it because their crypto executive runs off to a country that won’t extradite him, for example. Um, you know, so like, they couldn’t have even done that little gesture of goodwill where they don’t charge the Padres fans until 2024. I mean, it’s like they—they had it ready to go. 19.99, they knew the price point. They paid—
ALEX: Yeah.
BOBBY: —the McKinsey consultant to figure out what they should charge in order to actually make up enough of that, um, 80% that they’re going to guarantee the Padres without actually pissing off too many fans so that not enough will sign up for it. Like, it was already ready. And, uh, this, like, faux outrage against the RSNs trying to renegotiate this stuff when they’ve been telegraphing that they were going to do that for years because they’re spoiled brats, spoiled by the sports leagues by the way. Uh, it just—it doesn’t track for me personally.
ALEX: Right. I mean, they spent the offseason setting up a department to do this exact thing, right? So the—the idea like—
BOBBY: I know. Remember when they were, like, hiring the blackout czar?
ALEX: Right, exactly.
BOBBY: Who—who got that gig? Why didn’t I get that gig, the blackout czar?
ALEX: If anyone knows—
BOBBY: You could’ve applied.
ALEX: —DM—DM is open. I know.
BOBBY: Do you think it was one of those, like, easy LinkedIn applies, just like click to apply.
ALEX: Right. Just upload file and then—
BOBBY: Upload your resume and cover letter.
ALEX: Yeah, yeah. Exactly.
BOBBY: Uh, okay. Uh, so this—this next segment with Neil deMause, um, the genesis of it was, um, actually a DM from a listener, uh, back in November. Um, that listener’s name is Annie. Uh, she wrote in to share a YouTube video, uh, from the YouTube account CityNerd, uh, ranking the 10—uh, The 10 Most Urbanist Baseball Stadiums and explaining urbanism through the concept of baseball stadiums, uh, which is a really cool video. We’ve linked to it in the description. And—and he was asking us what our thoughts were on this video and maybe we could talk about that during the offseason. Uh, we actually saved this podcast for the summer, even though the—the, uh, season is raging on, Alex and I, as we have discussed on the show a lot. Have quite a bit of travel, we’re doing a lot, we’re running around, we’re going to concerts, we’re going to weddings. We’re doing all these sorts of things, and so, uh, I felt like it was a good time to kind of do one of these more, uh, evergreen, uh, episodes exploring kind of some of the—the animating—the animating, like, structures of the show, like, uh, of the conversations that we have week in and week out, kind of doing like an episode that can stand up and support some of these—um, support some of these, like, long-held opinions that we have. Um, and Neil is such an expert in this—in this field that we decided that we would have him on to discuss the idea of urbanism and ballparks, and stadium development, and a little bit about the A’s, and a little bit about the stadiums of yesteryear, that we pined for now. Um, and it—it went really great, so I’m really excited for everybody to hear it. Alex, is there anything else about kind of, like, this topic that you wanted to, uh, set the table with before we get into our conversation with Neil?
ALEX: No. I think this was a really valuable discussion, as you mentioned. I personally learned a ton, uh, and I—and—and I think it—it at least left me with some really sort of interesting questions to ponder about the responsibility of teams, to the cities in which they—they exist. And kind of how we can—and sort of how we can push beyond the sort of top-level idea of—of publicly funded ballparks bad, privately funded good, and think more critically about what it’s like for stadiums to really integrate themselves in their communities. And—and to really ask ourselves what the community gets in return, right? And so—
BOBBY: Yeah.
ALEX: —I—I think this conversation illuminated—illuminated that a lot for me and—and I hope that, uh, it does for the listeners as well.
BOBBY: I just think we—we have such a limited—not we like you and me on this podcast, but like—
ALEX: Right. We’re good. We’re—we’re [18:36]
BOBBY: We in, like, in the—in the arena of sports discourse have such a limited imagination about what a stadium can be and what a stadium can do. And the way that that works out in practice is that most of these stadiums ended up being like hundreds of thousands of tons of concrete that 81 baseball games get played in the year with three concerts, and that’s it. And like the other 250 days, though the stadiums are not really doing anything except absorbing heat and accelerating climate change, you know? So like, I—it’s particularly interesting to me, in light of the fact, that the A’s are—are trying to pull one of these over and we talked about that a little bit in the show. Um, or we talked about that a little bit in the interview with Neil. Um, and, you know, particularly interesting in the context of other sports leagues not using as much public funds and, um, different sports leagues seemingly caring—caring more about the notion of, like, um, a green stadium, like a climate net zero stadium, even though that’s kind of like a myth. But, um, I don’t know. There are a ton of strands that we can pull even further. I’m excited to talk more about this topic in the future, perhaps with Neil, perhaps with other people. Um, so, yeah, let’s, uh, let’s just get into our conversation with Neil deMause, uh, Field of Schemes.
SPEAKER 3: [19:59] what can I say or do for you my little—
BOBBY: We’re now pleased to be joined by Neil deMause, like the moss on the trees and the rocks as he, uh, instructed us how to pronounce it. And, Neil, thank you so much for joining Tipping Pitches.
NEIL: Well done. I’m glad to be here.
BOBBY: Uh, we’re really excited to talk to you. Uh, a few months ago, we got a—a DM from a listener who shared a video, uh, with us from a YouTube account called CityNerd and he was ranking basically the top 10 urbanist ballparks. And so we set out to kind of, like, do an episode kind of, like, building the “dream urbanist ballpark” whatever that actually means. There kind of is no right answer to this question, but, you know, given all of your work, we wanted to talk to you, um, because we wanted to talk about, you know, urbanist and practice, but also like urbanist in the development stage, and since so much of your work is focused on, you know, the funding for these stadiums, the planning for these stadiums, how they exist kind of politically in communities, we wanted to talk to you. But, um, for the listeners at home who, you know, who have maybe followed a little bit Field of Schemes and seen your blog posts, and seen your writing in—at Baseball Prospectus, can you just kind of, like, give a background how you carved out this, like, very specific niche that is, like, super relevant and super useful to a podcast like ours?
NEIL: Yeah, totally fell into it. Um, this was, uh, in the mid-1990s, and my co-author, um, the book Field of Schemes, Joanna Cagan and I were both working on a little political zine in Brooklyn, um, called the Brooklyn Metro Times that me and a bunch of other people had started. And, uh, we were looking for stories to write and saw, “Oh, well, you know, look, the Cleveland Browns are trying to get several, uh, hundred million dollars from the city of Cleveland for a new stadium, at the same time that the Yankees are trying to get money from New York City from for a—for a new stadium. And, you know, New York City was closing libraries and Cleveland schools were in receivership. We thought, “What a funny coincidence. This will make a great thousand-word article, right?” Um, I’m from New York. Joanna’s originally from Cleveland. So we started researching and, uh, and very quickly, I—I remember distinctly, it was a conversation on the phone where one of us said, um, “I just had like an hour and a half conversation with a woman in Milwaukee.” And some—and the other said, “I just got a 70-page fax from Seattle.” And I said, “You know, maybe this is a bigger story than we’re realizing.” So, uh, yeah, we started researching it and it turned into, you know, more articles, and then eventually into the book, Field of Schemes. And then we started what we originally thought would be a, you know, a short-lived, uh, website to do little updates of anything that happens to happen, you know, after the book comes out. And 25 years later, here we are. Uh, Joanna—Joanna has fortunately retired from this. She’s gone off to do other things, but, uh, I’m still, uh, still wrangling the website and dealing with stadium deals that seem remarkably unchanged from 25 to 30 years ago.
ALEX: Yeah. So that’s what I was gonna—I was gonna ask, because, like, obviously, the blog is relevant enough to still be around today. The—the—we just—we’re just talking about the Oakland A’s stadium, um, which is a whole saga unto itself. Um, but I’m kind of curious how you’ve seen the—the landscape of—sort of ballpark economics change over the years, as we’ve transitioned out of the—the—sort of, I guess, ballparks era of like Camden Yards and Oracle towards these big sort of multipurpose—uh, what—what are they called? Mixed-use developments. Um, how have you kind of seen the—the shape of all that change in your time covering it?
NEIL: I mean, it’s interesting. There are definitely some changes, right, like—like you said that this sort of ballpark district thing has become way more popular. Um, there are maybe certain funding mechanisms like, you know, “Let’s use tax kickbacks instead of money upfront because that looks a little bit better.” Um, Definitely using state-of-the-art clauses, right, to say, “Oh, the city has to continue to pay for upgrades to this, you know, to keep it in line with other top stadiums.” That’s something that’s used a lot more than before. But honestly, you know, I’m amazed. I mean, again, we went into this way back when, thinking we’re sort of catching this moment in history and there’s, you know, one chapter in the book, uh, The Art of the Steal that talks about sort of the stadium playbook, um, and, you know, what the different mechanisms that they use. You know, threatening to move, claiming it will be a big economic boom. Um, you know, trying to rush it through the legislature, you know, in a matter of days, you know, before anybody notices it. Um, and, you know, when we revise the book years later and as we continue to—you know, as I continue to do the website and other articles, it’s amazing how much it hasn’t changed, you know? I mean, really, the playbook is—is identical and I think because it continues to work, you know? Um, I think 30 years ago or 35 years ago, team owners hit upon a formula, which was, “If we play cities off against each other, and, you know, make local officials promises of, ‘You’re gonna get economic development or if you don’t, by the time anybody notices, you’ll be out of office.’” Um, you know, and it—it continues to work, you know? And, uh, again, it doesn’t happen everywhere. We just saw recently the, uh, Arizona Coyotes get turned down for a new arena on—in a public vote. But it works often enough that I don’t think that the sports industry is going to change its tactics until, you know, something really dramatically changes about politics in this country.
BOBBY: Do you think that there’s anything that—any reason that Major League Baseball is uniquely suited to executing this playbook? So, you know, we’re—we’re, um, ostensibly like a leftist baseball podcast that cares about these things, but—so we talk about, like, the other sports leagues and how they execute all similar playbooks in terms of the owners. They share strategies and whatnot, um, in terms of like leveraging politicians, for example. But given that baseball is kind of, like, the oldest sport in America, it—for—at—at its beginning is kind of, like, the most directly urban sport in America, just because the way that the ballparks were built and needed to be accessible walking before the advent of automobiles. Like, do you think that there’s anything about the legacy of Major League Baseball that makes them execute this style of planning in a different way than other leagues?
NEIL: I think—I guess I would say that the one thing that works both for them and against them is that fans of baseball tend to care about the stadiums a little bit more than other sports, right? You know, I mean, obviously, football fans care about where it’s played than basketball fans, and hockey, soccer, but, you know, the attachment to baseball stadiums just because they’re so unique and so, you know, there’s—there’s so much that goes along with the history of a team, right? Um, that—that makes fans care a little bit more about it. So that both enables you to sell it—sell it as, “Oh, you know, we can have a nicer stadium like these other teams have.” And this is going to be something that’s a real benefit to the fans, but also means you get more pushback against, uh—uh, tearing down old stadiums, right? So, you know, you certainly still have Fenway Park and Wrigley Field in a way that you wouldn’t necessarily in other sports, um, because there was attachment to those. So, um—and again, I think the other thing with baseball is that one thing it’s done very well is to place teams in the largest markets, right? I mean, there are not any Green Bays in baseball, and there are not, you know, a lot of major cities since Washington got the Nationals, right? There aren’t major cities that are missing teams, um, so that’s, you know, to their credit, but it also makes it a little bit harder to pull off move threats, right? And they still do it, but, you know, it’s not like when every team in the NFL used to threaten to move to Los Angeles, because they could, um, or even when every team in the—in baseball threatened to move to Washington because they could. You know, now it’s harder, you know? I mean, the Brewers are sort of making noise about, “Well, you got to, you know, give us stadium upgrades if you want to keep the team.” It’s like, “Where are you gonna go?” You know? I guess you could go to Nashville, but is that really an improvement?
ALEX: Um, yeah. I mean, the—the threats feel so empty when you kind of look at them on their face and then you realize that like they’re very meaningful to about seven politicians in every single city. Um, are there—throughout kind of your—your research and the work that you’ve done, are there particular examples of cities that you think have either excelled at sort of balancing the—the development of, like, sports stadiums versus, like, the community needs? Are there—are there ones that stand out or ones in your mind that ring as particular, uh, cautionary tales?
NEIL: Uh, I’m afraid to credit anybody because all—uh the jinxing it, right? I mean, years ago, it used—I used to say Minnesota, you know, Minnesota is the poster child for holding the line on, you know, putting money into sports stadiums no matter how many times the Vikings and Twins come back. And then the Vikings and Twins came back one more time and got everything that they wanted, right? Um, on the flip side, Seattle used to be the example of a city that, you know, gave its teams whatever it wanted, whatever they wanted. Um, and then after a few times like that, they actually passed the laws, you know, limiting the amount of subsidies and, um, you know, just—not preventing them, but sort of putting some guardrails on it, um, and managed to, uh, you know, to get the—the Kraken without putting up a whole lot of public money. So it—you know, it’s—it’s—it’s kind of hard. Um, I would definitely say Indianapolis has not had a good time of it, um, just because they put so much money into both the Pacers and the Colts buildings, and then continue to put in over and over and over again, uh, because they’ve signed really bad leases that have enabled the teams to say, “Oh, thank you for the arena. Now, we’re gonna leave again if you don’t give us a new lease. Oh, thanks for the money, you give us a new lease. Now we’re gonna leave for real if you don’t give us more money.” Um, so—so, yeah, um, it’s, uh, it’s—I imagine that whoever—whoever is—has been the—soccer is going to end up eventually smartening up and whoever has, you know, held the line is eventually going to end up, uh, end up in a bad situation.
BOBBY: It’s been funny to watch over kind of, like, the last—so we’ve been doing this podcast for almost six years, but we’ve obviously kind of done our homework a little bit on these sorts of stories over the—over the 21st century. And it’s just—it’s funny to watch this as a case study of the sunk cost fallacy for these different governments and just like, “Well, we did already give them $500 million last time. And if we lost them after that, well, then people are going to be doubly mad as us and it—that—that way doubly mad at us.” And then that kind of just playing out to the owners, realizing that they can just continue to ask for money, because there will be some city somewhere, and maybe that city is Las Vegas, or maybe that city is probably not Montreal, but maybe that city is somewhere in Florida, or Nashville, or whatever, who can—can sell this as, like, a big, shiny new thing that is, um, ripe for “economic development,” whatever that actually means in this case.
NEIL: Yeah, but there doesn’t even have to be a city, that’s the amazing thing, right? You know, the Yankees got a new stadium by alluding to—”Well, if we don’t, uh, if we don’t get a new stadium so we can compete with the Baltimore Orioles,” which I swear was what they said. As crazy as that sounds, we could move to Charlotte, you know? I mean, it—it’s like not even plausible enough to be a, you know, bad movie and yet this is what actually happened. So, you know, it’s—it’s about giving cover, right? You know, you want the politicians to be able to say, “Well, I did give away half a billion dollars, but of course, I had to do it because I couldn’t risk the team leaving town.” So it has to be sort of like, um, you know, plausible deniability where they can say, “Well, you know, this is why we did it.” Um, and I think, you know, it’s the same thing we’re seeing with the A’s right now with—with Las Vegas, you know? I mean, none of the people in Las Vegas who are saying, “It’s going to create—have money rain from the sky, and there will be, you know, jobs for everyone. Everyone will have five jobs available.” Um, nobody actually thinks that anyone is going to believe that, but you just throw enough of that—of that at the wall, right? Then it—it gives cover for the elected officials to say—you know, who wants to vote for it, but are afraid of getting, you know—uh—uh, they’re, you know, attacked and—and, um, they can, at least say, “Well, this isn’t the ideal situation, but, you know, I felt like I had to do it in order to make sure we had a team.” So—
ALEX: Yeah. It—it’s something that actually I’ve been thinking a lot about, because I—again, when—when we talk about stadium developments, um, there’s a lot of talk about the economics of it and how are we going to pay for it, right? Who’s going to foot the bill? What are the special tax districts—
BOBBY: Yes.
ALEX: —that are going to be created. I had to bring it up, right?
BOBBY: By the way, so we need to—we need to create a drinking game for the listeners of the Tipping Pitches that anytime Alex says, “Special tax districts,” you take a drink. And anytime Alex says, “I thought I would never have to talk about special tax—tax districts again, you finish your drink.”
NEIL: Oh, man.
ALEX: Yeah.
NEIL: And—and so if somebody makes the mistake of, uh, of doing that with the—with your podcast and then on my blog, they’re all be an alcoholic in no time.
ALEX: But—but it—it really is like—like I think we get really mired in conversations around, like, um, you know, the—the—the cost of it all, right? And I think that sometimes it—it maybe, um, I don’t know, misses the forest for his trees a little bit and that recognizing it’s one part of this bigger part of a puzzle, right? And—and it may be allied to the question of, how do teams actually in good faith engage with cities that they want to build ballparks in, right? Aside from who’s paying for it, who is actually benefiting from it, right? Is this something that you kind of think about in your writing? And how do you sort of square those two ideas when thinking about how sports teams should—should approach these issues?
NEIL: I mean, sure. Absolutely. You know, I mean, there’s a lot of different ways to do a stadium right and to do it wrong. Um, and, you know, you can do the funding right or wrong. You can do the design right or wrong. You can do the urban design in terms of how it fits into—right? I mean, you know, there are certainly examples of stadiums that got, you know—were well—you know, were funded according to a fair formula, but they put them in the wrong place, right? So, you know, you have to schlep all the way to the middle of nowhere to get to them and it’s—um, and there’s the opposite, you know? I mean, I—I’m a Mets fan and the, uh, deal that New York put in for, uh, for, uh, you know, paying for the new stadium was fairly horrible in terms of both upfront money and, you know, funneling a whole bunch of money, that parking money that was otherwise going to the city, to go to the team. Um, and tax-exempt bonds and all the usual stuff. Um, I think they did a decent job of—of designing the stadium, you know? Certainly compared to the new Yankee stadium where I—after I first went to the two of them because they opened the same year, I took 2009. And after I went to the—to the two of them and people asked me, “What do you think of them?” I said, “Honestly, the difference is that the Mets had the good sense to stain their cinderblock’s brick color.” Right? Which you wouldn’t—
BOBBY: Yes.
NEIL: —think of it as a—as a large thing, but at least they made the effort to be like, “We’re going to build this big hulking stadium, right? But we’re going to make it feel like a stadium.” Whereas the Yankees went—is feeling like, “We’re the Yankees. We don’t have to care what—how our fans feel. We’re going to make it look like a, you know, monument to commerce and, you know, it will be gray and steel, and just, you know, about, uh, transferring money to us.” So it’s—
BOBBY: Got it. That was just—that was one of the most validating 90 seconds in the history of this podcast, because I have been saying that since the second I walked in the new Yankee Stadium. It looks like a concrete palace and so ugly. It’s like a business park in a suburb. I just can’t stand it. So thank you, Neil. Thank you.
NEIL: Well, you know what? Lonn Trost, the, uh, the COO of the Yankees said when they were designing, he said, “We want this to be like a three-star hotel that happens to have a ballpark in the middle of it.” And—I mean, I want to say they succeeded, not in a good way. Um, but on the other hand, you know, Yankee Stadium by virtue of the fact of where it is, right? That they built it—
ALEX: Yeah.
NEIL: —next to the old one, um, is part of a—you know, uh, it’s fairly well-knit with—with its community, right? You know, I mean, you’ve got all those little diners and, uh, and bars, and donut shops, and things like that up and down 161st Street. Um, so it actually is part of a neighborhood and—a neighborhood that grew up with the previous stadium, but with the Yankees there. Um, whereas the Mets are in a parking lot in the middle of nowhere, on the train line at least.
ALEX: Yeah.
NEIL: Um, but, you know, there’s not a lot to do around there and there’s—it’s not, uh, integrated with the surrounding neighborhood at all, unless you try and save money on parking by going in parking in Corona, which is—I, you know, highly recommended, then you can grab some food before going into the game. It’s cheaper. But, you know, I mean, again, there’s—there’s—there’s so many ways in which these things can be done well and poorly even at the same time.
BOBBY: Yeah. Tell me if you agree with this kind of characterization of how ballpark development—the era of baseball ballpark developments. Like, there’s the early days where they’re building stadiums, like kind of pre-car, uh, boom where it’s all—it has to be walkable or accessible via public transit. And that’s like the, you know, the turn of the 20th-Century stadiums, and we have a couple of leftovers, um, from that era in terms of, um, Wrigley Field and in terms of Fenway. Um, and then, like, kind of in the middle of the 20th Century, there’s like the—the more so car-focused big parking lots, big, um, like coliseum-style, uh, stadiums. And then, uh, kind of like in the 1990s, you know, the Orioles start the trend of the downtown ballparks, so to speak. Camden Yards becomes, uh—uh—you know, kind of throwing it back to that, like, 19—early 1900s era where the ballpark is, like, right there in the middle of the city, you can walk to it. It’s a lot of brick, it’s very beautiful. And nowadays, we’re kind of in that era where the downtown ballpark is, like, the sexy thing to build, um, and maybe in practice is a little bit better for the people actually going to it. But I feel like now the ways that it gets—gets funded and the way—the people who had actually benefits like you’re alluding to Alex, are maybe not always, uh, as pure of heart as they would like you to believe. So, are—do you—do agree with those kinds of eras? And, um, if so, like, do you think that we’re headed in the right direction at least with getting back to the more, like, downtown accessible stadiums?
NEIL: Yeah. I think I would fine-tune it a little bit. Um, and—and the turn of the 19th and the 20th-century stadiums, right, were about the expansion of the cities, right? And in fact, a whole lot of the, like, late 19th-century stadiums were built by people who own streetcar lines, right? And they were like, “We’re gonna put this way at the end of the streetcar line, still in the city, right? But on the streetcar line, so people have to pay fares on my streetcar in order to go watch baseball.” Um, so you had a lot of that. Again, Yankee stadium was built in—you know, at the same time the subway was expanded up to the Bronx. Um, and so it was all about, you know, the expansion of urban transit and the expansion of cities and more people moving from rural areas to cities, um, and sort of taking advantage of that concentration of population. Um, the post-war stadiums that were, um, you know, sort of the concrete doughnuts, right? You know, the ones that were sort of—
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
NEIL: —more—more multipurpose were about—um, I mean, honestly, they were about two things, right? They were about—about relocation to the west and the Sun Belt, because a lot of people were moving there and a lot of teams started following them. And then it was about white flight, right? It was about, you know, suburbanization and being like, “Well, you know, uh, the people with money are moving out to the suburbs, so we need to be near them and have a place they can go and park their cars.” And so that’s why you see places like—like Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, right? Which was built—
BOBBY: Right.
NEIL: Everything, everything was being built there. Um, the ’90s push, um, was—I mean, that—honestly, I think ballparks may have been coined by Rob Neyer, the baseball writer. He was the first people—
ALEX: Uh-hmm. I think you’re right, yeah.
NEIL: —I heard talked about it. And, um, he was talking about, like, SkyDome, um, and I—I would say even Camden Yards and some of the ones afterwards, it had like all of these, like, food courts and SkyDome has a hotel and all this other stuff built—built into it. A lot of those are downtown, right? But this was all happening at the same time as sort of the—what’s called the urban revitalization, right? You know, the era of, uh, of, uh, of cities. Um, the—what’s it called? Somebody called it the great—um, not the great return, it’s something like that. But, you know, where the children of all the people who—from white flight, from the ’50s started moving back in and recolonizing the cities. Um, so it goes hand in hand with that and hand in hand with, um, the desire to redevelop areas that—in the’ 60s and the ’70s and the ’80s had become, uh, either depopulated or just depopulated the people with money, right? And people who were poor had moved in and say, “Oh, okay. We can use this stadium sort of as a battering ram to, you know, go in and, you know, create a whole new district that then, uh, you know, sports fans who have more money would like to go and—and buy housing.” And, um, so I mean, I think in every stage of that, it wasn’t—none—you know, none of those people were driven by—by pure, uh, moral goals, right? They were all driven by the desire to make money. It’s just that there were different things that you made money on, right? You know, in 1880, you made money by selling streetcar tickets. In 2023, you make money by selling condos. So, um, so, yeah, I mean, I think—I think it makes absolute sense. I don’t know sort of where we’re headed from—from here, because I don’t know whether we’ve—
BOBBY: Yeah.
NEIL: —reached sort of the peak of, um, uh, you know, downtown revitalization and 4. Um, it seems like we’ve—you know, it’s run a lot of its course, um, but I don’t know where it goes from here and I think—I mean, honestly, probably the next big factor will be climate change, right? You know, it’s less going to be teams moving between the suburbs and the urban areas, and more about when do all the teams in Phoenix pick up and move to Duluth, Minnesota?
BOBBY: The good thing—the biggest story in stadium development right now is actually the opposite of that trend then, Neil.
NEIL: That is absolutely true.
BOBBY: Heading to Las Vegas.
NEIL: That is absolutely true. And I—it seems absolutely crazy. And I don’t know if you saw, just today, there was a story about, uh—uh, Phoenix is, uh, is cutting back on, uh, um, you know, expansion projects that they—you know, to redevelop the areas outside the city, because there’s no more water.
BOBBY: Yeah.
NEIL: Um, and people are constantly arguing with me, “Oh, no, no. Las Vegas does a great job conserving water.” “Sure it does, but 30 years from now, you know, if the entire southwest is pretty much depopulated, or at least no more populated than it is now, um, that’s going to be a significant problem if you have the Las Vegas A’s trying to sell tickets to, you know, a state that has not—has not grown and has shrunk. Um, so, you know, I mean, I—I joke about Duluth, but honestly, when I did an article for, uh, for Defector a year or two ago, um, looking at what—since—every single sort of like, urban futurist I talked to, I said, “Where are people going to move to?” They’re like, “You know, Duluth, Minnesota has all this great infrastructure, because it was built for a bigger population.”
ALEX: Right.
NEIL: “And, you know, the weather is gonna be really nice there in another 20 years.” So who knows, you know? Um, but I—but I think that’s—I think that’s—you know, obviously, it has—if that message has not exactly gotten through to, you know, all the sports leagues, um, I think it probably is going to over the next five to 10 years, because, you know—I mean, it’s, again, the headlines are just going to grow, and grow, and grow, and the wildfires are just going to grow, and grow, and grow, and all of that.
BOBBY: Conversely, the guy who plays guitar in Mad Max Fury Road could just be the A’s entertainment for seventh inning stretch, you know?
ALEX: I’d watch.
BOBBY: I mean, you might have to.
ALEX: Uh, I—I mean, I—I do think we’re—we’re in this really weird stage of stadiums, right, coming out of that—that sort of downtown ballpark area where—where teams are starting to— where they used to say, “We want to kind of build the ballpark downtown.” Now they’re like, “We want to build the downtown, like, around us.” Right?
BOBBY: Yeah. Part of downtown.
ALEX: The Braves are like—are like, “Let’s build our—”
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: “—little kind of city that people can commute to.” Right? And—and I think it places baseball in this really weird position where it’s less about the product on the field at this point and more about this sort of facade of, like, entertainment, right? It’s like the kind of logical conclusion of late-stage capitalism that—like going to a baseball game means, like, staying in the hotel, and then go into the hotel, like, restaurant, right? And then go into the bar down the street, and then you go to the—the baseball game, right?
BOBBY: Right.
ALEX: And it’s like there’s this weird sort of—
BOBBY: Life park but for baseball. Baseball plus.
ALEX: Exactly. Yeah. And I—I don’t know. I just—I—I wonder how that contributes sort of to a sense of, I don’t know, social alienation in this—especially for folks who, as you mentioned, like, just don’t have the capital—
NEIL: Yeah.
ALEX: —to participate and how that might define the stadium going forward.
NEIL: Sure. Yeah. I mean, absolutely. You know, in—in the 1980s, the Yankee Stadium bleachers cost dollar and fifty and they were all full of people from the neighborhood who, you know, would go grab some fried rice around the corner, bring it in, eat at the game, you know? And would go to every single game, because for a dollar and fifty, you could afford it. Um, and it definitely is becoming something that is being sold to a, uh, you know, deeper-pocketed market. Um, I think part of that is because there are a lot more people with ridiculous amounts of spending money now than there were in the 1980s. You know, just the—the level of, uh, inequality and income is so huge that you would always be stupid not to try to cater to the—the market of people for money is no object. And that’s why you see, again, Las Vegas talking about building a 30,000-seat stadium for the A’s, it’s not because they think nobody will go see the A’s, although, probably nobody will go see the A’s, right? But, you know, I mean, again, the Mets and Yankees are not—don’t have that problem in New York and they both built stadiums that were 10,000 seats smaller than their previous ones, because the idea is create that artificial scarcity, right? Find a way that instead of having to figure out how to fill the seats, you know you’re going to fill the seats and it’s just how high can we jack up the prices. Um, and then the other piece that, you know, you mentioned is like that, um, team owners are realizing that—you know, there’s only so much you can make and actually selling the tickets, right? Um, where the money—real money comes in is—I mean, you know, TV revenues also or streaming revenues now, but also selling $20 pulled pork sandwiches and, uh, you know, everything else that you can sell in the—in the place and getting people to eat there and spend their money in there. And that’s where, again, I think SkyDome and Camden Yards really pioneered things because SkyDome had all the food courts and all the sort of self-contained, um, you know, places to spend money than it used to be. You’d go across the street to the souvenir stand. You go across the street to the restaurant, to the sports bar. Um, and then Camden Yards had the, uh, the Warehouse in Eutaw Street where it’s like, “Okay. We’re gonna have this area that’s—that’s sort of a, like, a traditional ballpark neighborhood, but it’s inside our gates. We control it.” Right? And that’s sort of led up to things like, you know, the Braves’ battery district and, you know, all these other areas where—and then, you know, the Red Sox, you know, basically taking over Yawkey Way and turning it into, you know, they’re sort of part of a gated community. Um, and so I think that, you know, the teams have realized that that’s a way to make—to increase your profits, um, you know, as it is probably, you know, doing additional developments around it. Um, and I remember—I don’t remember which, uh, which sports economist it was, I’m not gonna try and guess the name. But one of them was telling me about meeting with a—years ago, about meeting with a marketing guy, um, and saying, “You know, why does it have to be all this stuff around the, you know, around the game? You know, there’s, like, all the, you know, the ads and there’s—you know, trying to get you to buy stuff and there’s, you know, Ferris wheels and swimming pools, like”—and I—and the guy said, “You know, we break down marketing into different types of categories and different types of fans, and you’re what we call a traditional fan. You go there to watch baseball. Let me tell you this, there’s not that many of you.” And I think that’s sort of, uh, a strategy they’re taking, right, is you’re not—we’re not trying to build the fan who goes to 81 games a year and, you know, brings their own food in. We’re trying to go for the people who, you know, will bring the entire family three times a year, spend all the money they can, buy a lot of souvenirs, go home, and make way for the next people to come in the next game. Um, and it’s definitely a risk, I think, for—especially for a sport like baseball where, you know, it’s perpetually the sport of, you know, 65-year-old dudes, so you always have to worry about, you know, where the next generation is going to come from. Um, but it is—it’s the strategy that they’ve taken, and it hasn’t, you know, bit them yet. So, I—I guess I can’t criticize him too much. But, again, you know, I—uh, as someone who grew up in an era when, uh, when it was about—just about, you know, going and watching baseball, I do kind of miss that.
BOBBY: It’s fascinating that you say that, because, uh, you maybe can’t criticize them yet, because there’s not empirical evidence that this is going to fail spectacularly. But we often criticize them and suggest that this is going to fail spectacularly, because it’s never been harder—it’s never been harder to actually go watch a baseball game and just watch a baseball game. And we talked about that all the time. And it’s interesting, because, you know, looked at through the lens of a—of a stadium, the way that they’ve built these stadiums, the way that they’ve decided where to put them, what—what to put inside of them, how to develop them, how to fund them, um, has changed the actual in-person experience of the game. But it’s also just changed the way that MLB talks about itself, like the way—the things that they decided to put marketing capital behind, the things—the places that they decided to partner with, like, the notion of like an NFT baseball card. It’s—it’s like I do think that this all kind of stems from the same—I’ll call it a disease because I think that is bad for the game. I think it’s bad for people who actually want to enjoy the sport, and relate to it on a—on a normal, real world, not too expensive level. And I think it’s all kind of, um, you know, sprung from that same idea of, “We want to be like this holistic wide audience where we can kind of, um, I guess, like, rent seek at—in various aspects of our consumers’ lives.” And they are just consumers, they’re no longer fans. They’re kind of just consumers in the market.
NEIL: Yeah, absolutely. You know, and—but I think that’s what every—anyone who gets into this business because they want to make money—I was gonna say instead of winning championships, but even in addition to winning championships, right? I mean, I’m sure that’s what—what they’re being told by Fox every year is, you know, “We need a bigger market. We need a bit more—more eyeballs.” Um, and so the idea is to expand, expand, expand. Um, and I—you know, again, I agree with you. I think a lot of these—these decisions are dumb, and especially when I’ve seen over the course of my lifetime. You know, again, I grew up going to Mets games, I got fairly cheap tickets, and I sat fairly close to the field, and those seats do not exist anymore, because there’s the—that—that location behind third base and the middle level is taken up by all the luxury suites. So, you know, my son grew up going to Mets games, and he sits, you know, a hundred feet further or 75 feet further from the game, which changes your experience of it. Sure, you got a big scoreboard, uh, video screen. It just—it wouldn’t—
BOBBY: Big—big—big scoreboard now.
NEIL: Sure. Absolutely.
BOBBY: Huge.
NEIL: Oh, yes. Um—
BOBBY: You see it from the freeway.
NEIL: Yeah. Um, but, again, it changes your experience of the game and it changes your experience of what fans are sitting with and who—you know, how you—so it’s—again, I—I think that it probably creates more fair-weather fans and fans who are going to come out just when their team is good. And I think there’s honestly some evidence of that. I mean, I haven’t done, like, a big, you know, regression analysis or anything like that. I do not have the math skills to do a big regression analysis, but I know people who do. Um, and I haven’t seen anyone sort of try to figure out, you know, whether, um, like older, you know, more sort of democratically designed ballparks, um, tend to maintain their—uh, maintain their—the tenants better. Um, but there is some sort of—uh, sort of, um, yeah, empirical evidence that like—you know, the—the Tigers, for example, always do really well in the Tiger Stadium, um, because, you know, even when the Tigers were terrible, it was fun to go see a game at Tiger Stadium. Whereas if you’re going to—uh, you know, one of the modern stadiums, if your team is bad, you know, it’s—it’s not the greatest experience, you’re a mile from the action, um, and it’s, uh—
BOBBY: You have more opportunities to ask yourself, why the hell you’re doing this?
NEIL: And you have more opportunities to ask yourself, why did I just pay 40 bucks for this as opposed to—”Well, you know—”
BOBBY: Yeah.
NEIL: “—I got a general admission ticket for $3 and that it doesn’t didn’t cost me anything, so—
ALEX: I mean, so—so given all of that, kind of all of this sort of context, um, I—if you were someone who was kind of thinking, if you had to put your—your best Dave Kaval hat on, you know—which I hope none of us ever have to do. Um, but, uh, you know, if you were kind of thinking about the—the best way to sort of integrate a stadium into the city, what are some of the considerations you would take? And this is obviously a—a massive question and you don’t have to dictate the size of the scoreboard, for example. Um, but I’m just kind of curious the sort of factors that you think maybe define these decisions and that have the potential to kind of go a different way if folks actually care more about, you know, being in and of the city?
NEIL: Yeah.
ALEX: Like, give us your—your first hundred days of stadium planning, basically. We love [53:31]
BOBBY: We just—we just elected the president of building a new stadium in the 31st baseball city.
NEIL: Well, am I—all right. So am I the mayor, or am I the owner of the team, or am I the, like, person who has been assigned by the owner of the team to come in and do the design? Like, what—I got to figure out what my motivation is here.
BOBBY: You are the, um, God, Lord oversight of building the best baseball stadium that will benefit the most people. I guess that could be the mayor, but usually it isn’t.
NEIL: Oh, man.
BOBBY: You know?
NEIL: Oh, man, then I just—then I just—I just order—order them to rebuild Tiger Stadium and no, um, you know—well, um—
ALEX: Can you—can you talk about that a little bit? Like, what was it about Tiger Stadium specifically? I’ve never been there, um, so I’m kind—
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
ALEX: —of curious what about it, specifically made it so kind of enticing?
NEIL: So Tiger Stadium, first of all, I mean, obviously, it had a ton of history, right? It was built over the, you know, the course of the 20th Century. It was right downtown in a neighborhood that was, despite, you know, a lot of the devastation that, you know, ended up, uh—uh, overtaking a lot of Detroit, um, largely due to—due to policy decisions that were made. Um, you know, it was still in an area that, you know, still had a, you know, fairly stable population, it had, you know, stories, it had all that. Um, so, you know, even though people mostly drove to it, because in Detroit, everybody drives everywhere. Um, It—you know, it felt like a—like a neighborhood ballpark. Um, the design was the antithesis of a modern, you know, stadium design. There were no luxury seats, and in fact—you know, one of the things that drives me nuts about some of the new stadiums is even aside from the luxury seats, for some reason, stadium designers have thought that the last—the one thing that the people in the expensive seats want is to be able to see the sky. I don’t know why. I don’t know anyone who goes to a baseball game to look at the sky, but I guess like, if they’re in the dark, they feel like it’s not luxurious enough. They want—they want to be able to see everything and everyone, and have it be their own personal panopticon. So when you have these stadiums built, the upper decks not only are higher up because they’re, you know, stacked on top of these luxury suites, but they’re set back, right? They don’t overhang. Tiger Stadium had a ridiculous overhang to the point where if you were sitting in the front row or the upper deck, you—it was like you could hear the, you know, pitcher and the catcher talk, and you felt like you were like—like leaning over in their ear. Um, so it was a crazy good ballpark to go to. Probably not unrelated to that, it had a, you know, huge fan base that, you know, went way, way, way back, so you ended up, you know, finding yourself sitting with somebody who did go into games for 50 years. Um, and it was just—it was just a really well—you know, it was both a place where you could have a great experience of a game if you knew nothing about baseball. And if you did know something about baseball, you would feel like, “Oh, my God, I can look out there and expect to see Ty Cobb.” So, um, you know, again, it’s not the only one, but it’s one of the ones that I—I really, really do more and especially because it had a, you know, concerted effort from a bunch of baseball fans, preservationists, um, you know, people concerned about, uh, about urban policy and urban spending, who spent over a decade fighting to—to, uh, save it. Um, and then were just—you know, in the end, unable to just because, you know, the, uh, the Tigers owners—two different— different Tigers—Tigers owners kept coming back and eventually convinced, uh, convinced the state government to pass it. So—so I still mourn on that one, but—uh, sorry. I got away from your question. It was how would I design something. I mean, I guess as someone who spent a lot of time looking at, uh, urban redevelopment, um, in New York, but everywhere, I think the first thing is sort of do no harm, right? How do you find a location that is going to be able to hopefully integrate with the surrounding neighborhoods, but even more than that, not devastate them, right? So you want something that is not going to, you know, land like a flying saucer and—and cause everything around it to be knocked down. Um, so you have to figure out, you know, basically, how can we recreate Wrigley Field if Wrigley Field weren’t in Wrigleyville to start with? And that’s hard, right? I totally—
BOBBY: Yeah.
NEIL: —um—and I think there are probably some places that have done a little better. I’m trying to think of anywhere that stands out. Um, uh, I’ll—I’ll give the Giants, um, some credit, you know, that’s—The Giants stadium is somewhere that—it wasn’t being used—it was a—it was a bus depot, I think, or something like that. Um, it wasn’t being used for anything, obviously, the gentrification of South of Market, you know, changed that area completely. But where the Giants put their stadium was sort of went hand in hand with this, you know, redevelopment that was happening already. Um, and it’s easy to get you on public transit. You know, there’s stuff around it, it feels like a neighborhood. Uh, Is everything perfect? No, but I mean, it’s one of the ones that I, you know, don’t feel sort of sick to my stomach, but I do. [58:22] Um, and I think it will probably stand the test of time a little bit better than, uh, you know, some—than some of the other ones that have been built. So—so, yeah, go in with some respect for the local neighborhoods, respect for the people who live there, um, try and figure out what they need. Um, try—and obviously figure out how the funding will work, try and figure out how to design something. It’s another nice thing about—about, uh—uh, Oracle is called now? I’ve lost track of the current name of the Giants Stadium, right?
BOBBY: Yeah.
NEIL: Is that—because it was built in a really compact area, because that was the only land they could get and because I think of also some of the seismic concerns, right, that you couldn’t build these soaring food courts, right? It really does feel very compact and very—and very sort of, uh, dense, right? You feel like you’re in a crowd of people when you’re going there. Um, and I think that’s—that’s a nice feeling. So I think they managed to sort of luck—between design and luck, and the fact that, um, voters in San Jose and San Francisco had both the ability to vote on these, uh, stadium proposals that they kept coming up with in the ’80s and ’90s. And also voted them down. Um, you know, we saw—it’s kind of the—the—one of the better examples of a stadium that has both a reasonable, you know, small amount of public money, a good design, and a decent urban character. Um, but, again, sort of—that had to be the perfect storm of, uh, of things coming together.
ALEX: Yeah. Well, I—and—and as an A’s fan, not to give the Giants too much credit here, but like they—they really, I do think, have done a pretty good job of—of not only saying, “Hey, here’s a ballpark, you can come and—and visit us.” We’re really doing that sort of outreach, right? Doing programs in the community that actually enable—getting kids access to baseball for free, right? They—
NEIL: Yup.
ALEX: —have their Junior Giants Program, which I participated in as a kid because you could just go and, like, play baseball, right? And, like, I think things like that are too often overlooked, right, in these conversations about, you know, community agreements, or—
NEIL: Right.
ALEX: —community benefit agreements, right? The other CBA on this podcast. And—and, like, all—and all these other discussions, I think that really falls by the wayside. Again, as you mentioned earlier in favor of, “Well, we’re going to create X number of jobs. It’s going to create X amount of tax dollars.” And I just think that—that rings hollow for most actual fans or even—especially non-fans.
NEIL: Yeah. I mean, I—I hate to keep bringing you back to the money because, uh, you know, again, it’s more than just how it gets paid for, but I feel—
ALEX: Right.
NEIL: —like if this rent-seeking, if this, you know, the—this carrot of you can get hundreds of millions of dollars of free money, right? We’re not out there, then team owners would have to start thinking completely differently, right? They would probably have to think more like, um, European soccer teams, right? Again, which—
ALEX: Yeah.
NEIL: Not that European soccer teams are idyllic, and there’s certainly lots wrong with them, but at least they’re trying to figure out how to market to the fans, right? You know, their—that’s their job. One, they’re not thinking, “How can we threaten to move to another city in order to get the most money?” Um, and, you know, you just really—it—it has really distorted American sports in such a huge way, um, that it’s become about chasing free money rather than about putting a product on the field and then—and then, uh, you know, trying to sell tickets. And the fact that we’ve had so many years of, not just the A’s, but other teams, deliberately getting rid of their good players so that they can lose games, right? Tells you there’s something wrong, right? That’s not how sports is supposed to operate.
BOBBY:
You know, you—you—you keep saying you hate to keep bringing it back to the money, but I—I would love to keep bringing it back to the money. I—is there, like, even a pathway to an ethical way to fund the stadium in 2023? Like, is there even—is there even a—a real—any sort of realistic scenario where you could see, “This is the plan and we’re going to fund it. And, um, I actually feel good about this?”
NEIL: Oh, man. I can answer that about four different ways. Um, those would be absolutely no way, only very occasionally, and I’m not sure what the fourth is yet, but we’ll start with the first three. Um, absolutely, the answer is all of this could go away if congress would just pass a bill saying, “We’re going to tax, uh, sports—or any kind of corporate subsidies, right? At some extortionately high rate and then there’s no benefit, right?” You know, if the A’s get half a billion dollars for—by moving to Las Vegas, then if John Fisher’s IRS bill goes up by half a billion dollars, he’s not going to do it, right? Because there’s no benefit to him. Um, the no way answer is, of course, that—that bill was proposed in 1998 by a Minnesota representative named David Minge and did not even get a committee hearing. So that’s not going anywhere anytime fast. Um, the other question is sort of how—when you talk about how can we get this done ethically, is the problem is that most of the time getting it done ethically is not the goal, right? Even getting it done is not the goal. It’s really just about the subsidies, right?
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
NEIL: So if you say to a team, “I’m sorry, we’re not going to give you money hand over fist. Um, you’ll have to find a way to build it yourselves.” The owner is most likely to say, “Well, that’s okay. Then I’ll just wait until somebody is willing to give me the money, right?” Um, and, uh, and, you know, we just saw that in, uh, in Calgary when the Flames arena went up in price and they said, “Oh, this thing we spent years and years saying we absolutely must have, it’s too expensive now. We’re going to come back later and try and renegotiate this.” Um, so I think in a world where you did not have massive subsidies, yes, some buildings would still get built. The Warriors arena is a perfect example, right? Not to keep coming back to the Bay Area, right? Um, and—and again, not to argue about whether it’s better for the Warriors to be in Oakland or in San Francisco, but San Francisco did not have a viable arena. That’s insane, right? The Cow Palace does not count. Um, so they—the fact that there was this, you know, huge vacuum for concerts on that side of the Bay, um, and, you know, more of the fans with money live there and all this other stuff made it—actually makes sense for the Warriors to move, even though they didn’t get a huge—a huge subsidy. You know, occasionally other places, you’ll see, you know, there’s, uh, um, a market that’s so good. Uh, again, Seattle with the Krakens probably a decent example, right?
BOBBY: Uh-hmm.
NEIL: Um, you know, here’s something that we can actually make money on, because it’s—it’s sort of a—a vacuum that, uh, that we can, uh, take advantage of. Um, but in most cases, you’re not going to see the new stadium. You know, with—with the Braves have torn down Turner Field and built their new stadium. If 20 years later, if they hadn’t been getting a ton of money for it, I can’t imagine they would have, even with the prospect of being able to build this ballpark or stick around, or at every—you know, the—the Rangers would not have torn—abandoned their own stadium. They built a new one right next to it that’s exactly the same only uglier and with a roof.
ALEX: The airplane hangar.
NEIL: The airplane hangar. If they had not—if there had not been money in it for them. So, it—that’s the problem, you know? And I think, you know, if you look at the ’70s and ’80s, you saw an occasional stadium here, an occasional stadium there, um, and I think it would be a lot more like that if not for the distorting effects of, you know, “Not we want stadiums, but, um, we want money.” And the way to get the money is to build the stadium. And because if you go to the state legislature and say, “I would like half a billion dollars, please.” They’ll say, “We’re sorry, we don’t have half a billion dollars for you.” If it’s—you go to the state legislature and say, “We would like half a billion dollars with a stadium that we’re building that will create jobs.” They’ll say, “Oh, okay.” Or at—at worse, they’ll say, “Well, we have to go and think about it for a couple of minutes.”
ALEX: Yeah, yeah. That’s the fictional reality that we accept, you know, for whatever reason. Given kind of all of this, I mean, are there—are there particular sort of developments or trends in the sort of ongoing saga of baseball, uh, baseball stadiums that, I guess, give you maybe hope for the relationship the teams have with kind of their host cities? Are we just kind of in this spot where we’re sort of at the whim of, you know, a handful of elected officials and, like, paid lobbyists on whether or not like the—the team is gonna stay here, you know?
BOBBY: And the 30 billionaires who elect them? Yeah.
ALEX: Right. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
NEIL: If someone who’s been writing about this for almost 30 years, I have long since abandoned anything resembling hope. Um, I mean, there are a few things, right, I think that it’s encouraging to see that teams are starting to rip out luxury boxes and turn to, at least, club seats or more sort of open-air seats, because they realized that, “Oh, even rich people don’t want to sit in a glassed-in living room. I mean, some do, right? But most of them want to go to a game to actually feel like they’re at the game. I think that’s somewhat encouraging, so you’re seeing a little bit better design there. Um, I think that, uh, while teams have not, uh, have not, you know, gotten rid of the, um, uh, upper decks that are 10 miles away from the field, that at least realize that they have to think about a little bit more and try to be a little bit more creative. You know, maybe in the outfield upper deck will be a little—a little—a little bit lower. Um, you—you don’t see anything as bad as, uh, the White Sox stadium, right? Which was infamous for—my—my favorite stat in all the years of—of, uh, um, reporting on this stuff was something that, um, John [68:06] who was a ballpark expert, told me, which was that the front row of the new Comiskey Park upper deck is further from the field than the back row of the old Comiskey Park upper deck was. Um, and you—you go there and sit in that upper deck, and you will not be surprised at that, because it feels like you’re a mile from the action. So, again, they’re—they’re trying a little bit harder. Um, I certainly think it’s better than stadiums are—you know, again, all the redevelopment stuff aside, I think it’s better for stadiums to be in—in, uh, in urban areas and, you know, be accessible to everyone and reachable for everyone. And, you know, I mean, part of the reason they’re putting them there is just because baseball—you know, football you can have in the suburbs, because everyone’s driving there on a Sunday. Baseball, people have to only go to Tuesday night games after work.
ALEX: Right.
NEIL: But if you build your stadium—
ALEX: Yeah.
NEIL: —in the eastern suburbs and they live in the western suburbs, they are not going to go to the game because they’re going in the wrong direction. So—so a lot of these things have sort of—you know, there’s this small little bits and pieces. I’m—I’m huge—a huge fan of the seats that are angled toward the home plate, which I did not see for—I think Pittsburgh was the first place I saw. There may have been other places that did it first, but that, like, sort of brought a little joy to my heart, you know, just for a moment to be, like, at least someone is thinking about, “We want you to be able to see the game,” as opposed to just, “We want you to be able to see the ads.”
ALEX: Yeah.
NEIL: So, you know, little—little bits and pieces here and there. And I’m—and I’m encouraged by the fact that, you know, again, no matter how many decades that we are into this, when you do put it to a vote of the public, the public is pretty critical, you know? I mean, the public does not want to spend a whole lot of money—public money on these things, you know? Which is understandable when you think about the fact that these are the same people who, you know— there are two types of public, right? They’re the people don’t care about sports and they’re the people who care about sports and who have already paid for their tickets, and, you know, been charged so much for these things, and are already mad enough at the owners about like, “I, um, you know, I paid this much for season tickets and this—what kind of crap TV you give me?” That—it’s understandable that the—you know, people are going to be—going to be critical. So—so I think all of that is encouraging. I think the fact that, um, you know, we’re—however many decades down the road, and it doesn’t seem like the trends have changed, does not make me hopeful for the near term future, but—
ALEX: Right.
NEIL: —you know, hopefully, the—the, uh, the arc of justice bends faintly towards better stadium policies, so I’ll—I’ll hold on to that faint glimmer of hope for future generations at least.
BOBBY: So—
NEIL: If there are any.
BOBBY: —Neil, what I’m hearing from you is that the only way to build the urbanist dream ballpark is to nationalize baseball, and put it to a vote of the public.
NEIL: That would work very well. Um, I think, uh—uh, probably—
BOBBY: Change the incentive structure.
NEIL: Probably—you know, if there—do you have any listeners who are—who are crazed libertarians? I think the—you know, let’s create an actual free marketing teams and, you know, make it so that, uh—uh, you can have as many leagues as you want, and there’s promotion and relegation, and, you know, that—that actually, you know, probably would pretty—
BOBBY: Yeah, that’s compelling.
NEIL: That would—but it would work pretty well, too. You know, it would work better than what we have now, right? The—uh—uh, um, sort of, uh, state capitalism is the worst of all worlds, and that’s the one we’re in right now.
BOBBY: I think that we concur on that front, right, Alex?
ALEX: Yes, absolutely. Uh, is there—is there anything else you want to add, um, before we let you go, um, uh, to—to kind of put, um, a bow on this sort of really wide-ranging conversation?
NEIL: Um, I think it’s encouraging and I think people should be encouraged to try to dig deep into these deals, right? You know, it’s hard journalism as I think, hopefully everyone listening knows, is not in its best state in its history, right? So there are a fewer and fewer number of outlets, um, that are, you know, putting less and less time into actually covering these issues, um, which is why I’m glad that there are, you know, things like podcasts that are trying to, uh, take up some of the slack. Um, but I think it’s important that, you know, not just to say, “Oh, you know, the government is gonna go and waste my money anyway, I guess at least if I get a new stadium out of it, you know, that—it could be worse.” You know, this is your money. These are your teams what—no matter what the—you know, who owns them, they are the teams that you have built with your fandom. Um, and, uh, you know, it’s—it’s important to you. It’s an, uh, it’s an important policy decision and you should absolutely demand the right to have a say in these things, whether it’s going and testifying, whether it’s angrily subtweeting people. Um, you know, it is, uh, it is absolutely something that everybody should have a stake in. So I hope that, uh, you know, people will continue to get angry about this stuff and make themselves heard, even if eight times out of 10, they just get ignored. Fighting the good fight is still worth it.
BOBBY: That’s a hearty vote in favor of bullying Dave Kaval whenever possible.
NEIL: Oh, absolutely.
BOBBY: Uh—
NEIL: Shout at him on the street. I—you have my permission.
BOBBY: Uh, Neil deMause, thank you very much. Thank you. We really appreciate it. You can find Neil’s work, um, at Field of Schemes. Um, he’s Neil deMause on Twitter. Anything else? Any—any other things that you’re working on that you want to highlight specifically for people? NEIL: Uh, no. And like I said, I write occasionally for Defector. There’s a great site in New York called Hell Gate, hellgatenyc.com if anyone wants to check it out.
BOBBY: Right on.
NEIL: And I’m working on a story on right now that, uh, is at least tangentially about sports stadium, so, uh, keep an eye on that. But, uh, no, thank you. And the—the 53 minutes flew by.
SPEAKER 4: But I’m a little bit more traveled. If you got the strength I do, then sign me up. If I’m not too much for you, then sign me up.
BOBBY: Okay. Thank you, Neil. A fun one.
NEIL: That was—that was a fun one. That’s one that’s gonna stick with me for a while. The—the—the interaction that he cited between the—the economist and, like, the—the marketing person where he says, “You are—you are what we—what’s known as a traditional fan and there aren’t many of you.” That one hit a little too deep.
BOBBY: Do you consider yourself traditional? You’re kind of on the cutting edge of a lot of these things, you know? You’re signing up for various activities. You’re having your hands scanned.
ALEX: Yup.
BOBBY: Uh, you are—well, you own multiple baseball NFTS.
ALEX: That’s true. Yeah.
BOBBY: You have a whole portfolio, a cadre of baseball NFTS. You—
ALEX: Yeah. I actually—I actually own Liberty Media, uh, Stock because I just want support.
BOBBY: True. You’re super leveraged in the crypto space.
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: And that’s always been true of you. You’re like first wave.
ALEX: Yeah. Yeah.
BOBBY: Um, what else? Oh, you’re the president of the MLB Fans Union.
ALEX: Right.
BOBBY: You’re kind of approaching the game from many different aspects. You’re a—
ALEX: I try.
BOBBY: —Fantasy Baseball legend, you know?
ALEX: Uh-huh.
BOBBY: I’m just kidding. You’re so—you’re a traditional fan. You’re here for the love of the game, baby.
ALEX: I am. I—I try to be, despite what obstacles the league might throw in my way.
BOBBY: Really quickly before we get out of here. Like, five or six people have tagged us in this news from CBS News, uh, that Alex Rodriguez, patron saint of the podcast, uh, was recently diagnosed with early-stage Gum Disease. I would just like to say here in the outro of the show, we’re wishing A-Rod the best. It seems as though, uh, it’s relatively under control. 65 million Americans have this Gum Disease according to Alex Rodriguez. Alex, can I read you a quote from this, uh, news article?
ALEX: Uh-hmm.
BOBBY: Rodriguez or A-Rod as he is known, has partnered with the health products company Orapharma to help raise awareness. He urged people to take care of their teeth and see their dentist. Is there a single sphere of life that A-Rod would not find a company to partner within in any life event? He truly is one of a kind. He truly is true to himself.
ALEX: He is. Yeah. The—the man’s commitment to commodification is truly unmatched.
BOBBY: Unmatched, unmatched. Um, health and happiness to our good friend Alex Rodriguez.
ALEX: Of course.
BOBBY: Health and happiness to all of our listeners. Thank you to everybody for listening this week. We’ll be back in one week where we will do our, uh, CBA Deep Dive, which I’m excited to do with you and for all of our listeners to get—to participate in. Uh, we’ll see you then.
SPEAKER 5: Looking in at buried human fears. The tables are turning. I’m unable to stop the yearning for a better life filled with memories of a better time. I’m in reverie.
ALEX RODRIGUEZ: Hello, everybody. uh, I’m Alex Rodriguez. Tipping Pitches. Tipping Pitches. This is the one that I love the most. Tipping Pitches. So we’ll see you next week. See ya!
[1:16:33]
Tipping Pitches 
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