The future of Am Fam Field

[nate82]

13 minutes ago, wiguy94 said:

Charlotte already has a AAA team. There's also only one minor league baseball team in all of Canada, so doubtful the Brewers would move their AAA team to Montreal.

I don’t believe the Brewers will have a choice.  It will be MLB making that choice.

[Brock Beauchamp]

14 minutes ago, wiguy94 said:

Charlotte already has a AAA team. There's also only one minor league baseball team in all of Canada, so doubtful the Brewers would move their AAA team to Montreal.

Montreal should get the Expos back. Baseball is better with the Expos in it.

[wiguy94]

15 minutes ago, nate82 said:

I don’t believe the Brewers will have a choice.  It will be MLB making that choice.

Why would MLB decide where Brewers AAA team is located? Did the MLB decide when they moved back to Nashville?

[patrickgpe]

12 minutes ago, wiguy94 said:

Why would MLB decide where Brewers AAA team is located? Did the MLB decide when they moved back to Nashville?

YES MLB told the teams where their affiliates will be and made both parties sign 10 yr contracts. MLB teams did get to put in suggestions, but the MILB teams had NO say. 

[rondoman]

https://www.fieldofschemes.com/2023/02/15/19668/no-wisconsin-isnt-required-to-give-brewers-360m-for-repairs-to-22-year-old-stadium/

[PeaveyFury]

1 hour ago, rondoman said:

https://www.fieldofschemes.com/2023/02/15/19668/no-wisconsin-isnt-required-to-give-brewers-360m-for-repairs-to-22-year-old-stadium/

Odd piece that has some circular thought items- namely, if the Stadium District doesn’t live up to its keeping up with the Joneses clause that the article acknowledges exists, the Brewers won’t have to break their lease because the District already would have failed to live up to it. 
 

in addition, the lease doesn’t require the Joneses stuff after 2030, but part of the intent here is clearly to get the Brewers to exercise their option on the extra ten years. If the district won’t meet its obligations now or commit to doing so for that ten year period, why would the Brewers do so? Essentially, you entice them to accept a funding deal now rather than negotiating a far more desperate deal 5-6 years from now.

[MrTPlush]

4 hours ago, wiguy94 said:

Hoping if this happens they move to Madison. I think having your AAA team close to your MLB team is a huge plus when it comes to creating fan interest in prospects.

That is what Appleton is for. 

[Axman59]

I'd rather see the Brewers leave than one more penny of taxpayer money be spent on the stadium.

[Axman59]

On 2/14/2023 at 11:34 AM, wallus said:

And the reply we all knew was coming just arrived. 

And good for that! JosephC saved me a lot of writing.

[wiguy94]

2 hours ago, MrTPlush said:

That is what Appleton is for. 

I want Appleton and Madison. Madison is plenty big enough to support a AAA team as evidenced by how well the Mallards have done there.

[PeaveyFury]

1 hour ago, Axman59 said:

I'd rather see the Brewers leave than one more penny of taxpayer money be spent on the stadium.

Regardless of personal feelings, it’s worth a continued reminder that it’s not a question of whether funds should be provided, it’s a question of whether they come from the existing surplus or via a restarted 5 county tax. Though fair to ask for more clarification on exactly how short the District is expected to be.

And honestly, the stance of Brewers leaving vs. capturing additional tax revenue is the classic ‘penny wise, dollar foolish’-type question that’ll become the forefront of the debate on this. There was an independent study done that showed the stadium brought in roughly 2.5 billion in revenue in 19 years (study from 2020). If you simplify numbers, you’d be looking at 1.71 billion in the extra 13 years in this proposal, which seems like a decent return vs. the proposed spend.

[brettglaeser]

1 hour ago, PeaveyFury said:

Regardless of personal feelings, it’s worth a continued reminder that it’s not a question of whether funds should be provided, it’s a question of whether they come from the existing surplus or via a restarted 5 county tax. Though fair to ask for more clarification on exactly how short the District is expected to be.

And honestly, the stance of Brewers leaving vs. capturing additional tax revenue is the classic ‘penny wise, dollar foolish’-type question that’ll become the forefront of the debate on this. There was an independent study done that showed the stadium brought in roughly 2.5 billion in revenue in 19 years (study from 2020). If you simplify numbers, you’d be looking at 1.71 billion in the extra 13 years in this proposal, which seems like a decent return vs. the proposed spend.

Do you have this study?  Would be very interested in giving it a look.

[areacodes]

8 hours ago, brettglaeser said:

Do you have this study?  Would be very interested in giving it a look.

Here you go:

https://www.homecrewadvantage.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/The-Economic-Impact-of-the-Milwaukee-Brewers-and-Miller-Park.pdf

[MrTPlush]

10 hours ago, wiguy94 said:

I want Appleton and Madison. Madison is plenty big enough to support a AAA team as evidenced by how well the Mallards have done there.

Their attendance seems nice at face value, but the Mallards benefit by only playing during summer and not having to sell tickets to April/May games or to games after school is back in session. Going to a AAA game and going to a Mallards game are very different things. Ticket prices alone are 2x as expensive in many seating areas/cases. Instead of convincing someone season tickets are $375 for a nice seat behind homeplate, they are $1,300 a seat. I am sure prices are vastly different in many other cases too. I would also venture to guess the facilities are way under MiLB AAA standards. 

A lot of teams have 3,500 AAA attendance, but it is simply because someone invested the money to have a properly sized stadium and good enough facilities. From an attendance standpoint there are plenty of great locations, many probably way better than Madison, if they were willing to invest the money to keep up with MLBs ridiculous standards. Trying to keep up with MLBs demands and have an organization profitable enough for all those costs is pretty hard to do. 

But it is kind of a moot point due to the contracts for MiLB teams. A team would have to move to Madison and it wouldn't be our current affiliate as the current affiliate has some of the better attendance in MiLB. The Brewers would likely have to buy the AAA team and then basically build an entirely new stadium...all to just poach off of the MLB team for fans/attendance. 

[Jopal78]

16 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Montreal should get the Expos back. Baseball is better with the Expos in it.

Except nobody in Quebec cared when the Expos were there which is why they left in the first place.
 

[Brock Beauchamp]

Just now, Jopal78 said:

Except nobody in Quebec cared when the Expos were there which is why they left in the first place.

Montreal got a raw deal and I'm unconvinced it's a "bad baseball town". The two times they were competitive and really good, baseball shut down. Then the commissioner tried to contract the team. There was a lot of deserved bad blood.

Montreal is a large metro. I suspect they can and will support a team under the right circumstances.

[owbc]

2 hours ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Montreal got a raw deal and I'm unconvinced it's a "bad baseball town". The two times they were competitive and really good, baseball shut down. Then the commissioner tried to contract the team. There was a lot of deserved bad blood.

Montreal is a large metro. I suspect they can and will support a team under the right circumstances.

Yep, it's going to be a rinse and repeat if Oakland moves. "Blah blah blah they only averaged 7,000 fans/game, nobody in Oakland cares about baseball..."

Which we all know is BS. Everyone in Montreal switched to following the Blue Jays. They didn't stop being baseball fans. 

I think Americans fail to appreciate how popular baseball is in Canada. Here's a fun stat -- the Blue Jays averaged 896,000 viewers/game on Sportsnet in 2022. The Yankees averaged 368,000 on YES, but they have generally been in the 200,000s most years. The Blue Jays have been known to draw more viewers than that for their spring training games.

It helps that they are broadcast in all of Canada -- but that's the exact same reason why Nashville and Charlotte are good baseball towns that generally support the Atlanta Braves. 

I have no doubt that both Montreal and Vancouver BC could support successful MLB franchises for the same reason that Nashville and Charlotte are good options. 

[patrickgpe]

I haven't seen a breakdown prior (source jsonline, its behind their paywall so I will just summarize)

Architecture/interiors is the costliest category: $105.7 million

Retractable roof is a major cost driver at $37.1 million

Technology is another big cost category--totaling $99.8 million

Structure category at $62.5 million includes parking lots, walkways

Other categories include elevators, concessions totaling $123.3 million

Other broad expense categories include "vertical transportation," i.e., elevators and escalators, at $16 million;

concessions infrastructure, $17 million,

mechanical, electrical, plumbing and fire protection systems, $55.8 million.

Finally, items categorized as miscellaneous add up to $34.5 million.

[rondoman]

Lololol.

[MrTPlush]

1 hour ago, rondoman said:

Lololol.

What is lol?

[AdvantageSchneider]

On 2/15/2023 at 12:55 PM, Patrick425 said:

Whenever discussion like this come up, I feel like the intangibles of having various forms of entertainment in a thriving community is ignored. I want to live in, and am willing to pay, to live in a community that has lots of entertainment options, from parks, the arts, sports, festivals, etc., even if I am not a rabid fan or regular patron of some of these venues. I don't want to live in another version of Omaha, or Des Moines, or Columbus. The Milwaukee Metro area population rank is 40th in the country. We should be grateful to have a MLB team! Tax breaks are given all the time to various corporations (see Foxcon). Yes, many of these companies hire more people in the community than a MLB team does. But I would think the people they hire also want several entertainment options where they can spend their money.  

Also, just want to confirm, this is a Brewer fan board, right?  Or did someone hijack the URL?

You can be a brewers fan and also believe that the best use of taxpayer dollars is not to give a hundreds of millions of dollars handout to some of the richest people in the world.  I was in favor of the original deal but would it have passed had the true cost to WI taxpayers been known at the time of the vote?  I doubt it.  I also doubt the people that voted for it thought the taxpayer was going to have to pony up another $300M 30 years later.

I'm not blind to the realities of professional sports but I also don't think that it the way it should be, but that goes for a lot of things in this country.

[AdvantageSchneider]

With games getting shorter due to the rules changes how much bang for the teams buck will the Brewers really get out of any additional improvements to AM FAM?  The stadium has already changed a great deal in its existence.  I don't think they are going to be able to get a whole lot more out of it even with additional tweaks.  

Money to keep the roof working and all that is fine, but constant turnover in concession stands just seems like a total and complete waste to me.  I think they would be better off converting some of their parking space into bars and restaurants.  Make the stadium more of an attraction in the offseason, non-game days.  But that's just me. 

Is someone going to buy a suite or club seats because of new branding or whatever?  I would think quality of the team would drive that more than a new layer of paint.

[MrTPlush]

1 hour ago, AdvantageSchneider said:

You can be a brewers fan and also believe that the best use of taxpayer dollars is not to give a hundreds of millions of dollars handout to some of the richest people in the world.  I was in favor of the original deal but would it have passed had the true cost to WI taxpayers been known at the time of the vote?  I doubt it.  I also doubt the people that voted for it thought the taxpayer was going to have to pony up another $300M 30 years later.

I'm not blind to the realities of professional sports but I also don't think that it the way it should be, but that goes for a lot of things in this country.

You bring value, you get value in return. Look, rich people getting tax breaks and these pro teams garnering hundreds of millions in support looks terrible…but it is what it is. If the Brewers bring in say $250mil in income tax revenue and they demand $200mil in taxpayer money or they will leave…are you really saying no? $50mil in gain sounds better than zero.

You just trust your elected officials have the common sense to actually research the money they are giving up is actually causing the gain that is projected. This one time cost is likely easily worth the cost of keeping the Brewers around another 13 years. Even after costing way more in the end, building Miller Park is arguably still a huge economic win.

The reality is if we don’t pony up money some other city will. The demand for a pro sports team is still much higher the the supply. Negotiate the best you can to keep the team and still come out ahead economically. Which this deal definitely seems to do that.

 

[AdvantageSchneider]

16 hours ago, areacodes said:

Here you go:

https://www.homecrewadvantage.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/The-Economic-Impact-of-the-Milwaukee-Brewers-and-Miller-Park.pdf

https://www.fieldofschemes.com/2020/02/18/15793/the-wile-e-coyote-of-stadium-consulting-takes-on-brewers-stadium-gets-crushed-by-anvil/

“I refer to [CSL’s] approach as a ‘benefits-only analysis’ because it’s fundamentally one-sided; it never counts the negative economic impact of the taxes needed to fund the subsidy in the first place. And, unsurprisingly, it’s pretty easy to make arguments in favor of an idea if you ignore the cost,” said Dr. Michael Farren, a Research Fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. “At the end of the day, peer-reviewed academic research consistently finds that subsidies, especially stadium subsidies, don’t work very well to create economic development, and may even reduce it in the long-run.”

[nate82]

4 hours ago, rondoman said:

That looks to be accurate it is a really big parking lot and I believe they are counting the access road as part of the parking lot which I believe the Brewers have to pay for.  That might be an under estimation it may come in closer to $10.5m than $9.3m.