Kick Out the Sports!
by Bob Cook

Bob Cook's weekly ruminations on sports appear Mondays in Flak.

In the 1980s and 1990s, major league sports franchises were the municipal equivalent of ex-Tyco chairman Dennis Kozlowski's infamous $15,000 umbrella stand. Cities and states shelled out big bucks for something that didn't have much of a function as an investment, but getting a team — or adding a team — was a conspicuous way for ambitious burgs to say, "I'm big-time, dammit!"

In this decade, giving up hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes to a pro sports franchise is still the equivalent of Kozlowski's umbrella stand, except the statement made is, "I'm a chump!" It's become obvious that pro sports is not the economic development tool it was once touted as being, and plunging tax collections have municipalities and states straining just to cover basic services. According to the Wall Street Journal, 14 pro sports team owners are trying to sell, and in Cleveland, the public authority that owns the basketball and baseball venues is trying to stave off bankruptcy.

In that environment, it's hard to figure out what's more amazing — that Major League Baseball is trying to extort public money from anyone that wants to adopt its bastard child, the Montreal Expos, or that there are three locations willing to take them up on it.

On March 20 and 21, representatives from Portland, Ore.; Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia are scheduled to grovel at the feet of baseball's owners to determine which has the most attractive package for luring the Expos. The suitors hope they'll know by the All-Star break in July where the team will play next year. (The team was supposed to have been "contracted," as baseball so delicately put dissolving the team, in 2002, when the owners bought the team, but lived to see another day once a new union contract stayed folding any teams before 2006.) Baseball's plan, inspired by how the NBA expanded into Charlotte earlier this year, is to have a stadium package in place, then find an owner for the team.

In deference to the lousy economy, baseball is no longer asking that a new stadium — and a new stadium has to be part of the plan — be 100 percent financed by the public. How giving. Still, all three locations are going to put forth plans for a stadium costing $400 million or so, at least two-thirds of which will be paid for by taxpayers.

The most interesting of the three is Portland, which has been allowed to bid only to create the illusion the D.C. area is bidding against somewhere else. Portland's mayor, Vera Katz, who fought against the institution of Oregon's lottery, is now talking with the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde about a deal that would let the tribes build a casino in downtown Portland so long as they picked up at least the state's $150 million share of the $350 million stadium. The deal also could include some of the city's $100 million share, as well as money to replace some of the humongous school budget cuts that have become the butt of jokes in "Doonesbury." Given baseball's antipathy to gambling, why doesn't Portland just say that it will hire Pete Rose as its manager, too? And if the Grand Ronde buys naming rights for the team or the stadium, what would the Oregonian call it, given it doesn't print Native American nicknames?

Baseball's obvious preference is the D.C. area, although the capital is not without its problems. Both the city of Washington and the Virginia suburbs have their own deficit issues to deal with, as well as an active class of NIMBYs ready to fight any stadium proposal anywhere. Also, on top of the stadium cost, either location would likely have to pay Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos about $100 million for the right to move to the D.C. area, to which Angelos claims he has territorial rights. Technically, he doesn't, but Angelos is an attorney who made his fortune in asbestos cases, so he'll get what he wants.

But why would any city bid on this team? It would seem that poor attendance, a depressed Canadian dollar and a home city that speaks the same language as the fourth nation in the Axis of Evil would make Montreal an obvious candidate to lose a team. Then again, Montreal at one point drew 2 million fans a year, until a combination of lousy ownership and a faulty economic model drove the team into the ground. Then again, you could say that about, oh, 16 or so other teams. And why haven't these cities learned that major-league sports and being a major-league city is not the same thing? How often do people say, "Oh, Washington is OK, being the center of the free world and all, but it's nothing until it has baseball"? Somehow, Los Angeles avoided being seen as a backwater after losing its NFL teams.

The point may end up being moot, anyway. Lousy economy aside, baseball's ability to screw up any situation will likely keep the Expos in Montreal for the foreseeable future, even if they end up barnstorming part-time — like this year, when they will play 22 games in San Juan, Puerto Rico — or full-time, making them the first homeless team since 1899's Cleveland (in name only) Spiders. "See you in Puerto Rico, play for half the gate in Poughkeepsie," Expos pitcher Dan Smith joked to reporters during spring training.

After all, what are you supposed to do with an overpriced umbrella stand once it's become passé?

E-mail Bob Cook at bobc@flakmag.com.