Playing-The-Punches: BIG BUSINESS or BIG DEBT

Now that the 2019 Chicago Cubbies Cactus League Spring Training is over with, let's take a little time-out to go back and cover some bases in what's now a seven-year run around at the City of Mesa's Sloan Park, built with taxpayer-funded debt service for the Billionaire-Ricketts Family in Chicago who own the sports franchise conglomerate.
Once city officials get that Play-Book down pat, they keep playing it. follow along if you can and see how this gaming of Mesa taxpayers works out now with the deals made with ASU

Blogger Note:
Both the Billionaire-Ricketts Family in Chicago and ASU in Tempe have one thing in common: both are rich enough to have financed these big deals if they wanted to.
Instead, "Sales Pitches" were thrown at the public here in Mesa to fund their fields-of-schemes to load up debt on the backs of taxpayers. 
What's the public benefit for a seasonal ball park? _______
Private real estate speculators and developers can reap the whirlwind of sizeable profits.
At least in some of the factoids and details extracted from an article in The Chicago Tribune two years ago, there are some dots that can get connected in the new power plays.

THIS IS NO LONGER TRUE: 

"A politician doesn't want to be known as the guy who put into place a funding mechanism that funneled public dollars to billionaire owners,"
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Let's go back to that Championship year 2017
Cubs mean big business, and big debt, for spring training home Mesa

Cubs spring training is a tradition and a major tourist attraction in Mesa, Arizona, which built the team a $100 million stadium to keep them from leaving for Florida

by Robert Channick

Source: Chicago Tribune 20 March 2017 06:30 a.m.

"When the Chicago Cubs opened spring training play last month in Mesa, nearly 15,000 far-flung fans packed the city's 3-year-old stadium, celebrating the defending world champions after more than a century of shared futility.
For Mesa, a city of 475,000 which bankrolled the $100 million ballpark to keep the Cubs from bolting to Florida, ownership in the team's success is a source of civic pride, an economic opportunity and a major league debt.
In Mesa, voters agreed to pay for the Wrigley-themed showplace in the Arizona desert more than six years ago. Full hotels, busy restaurants and sellout crowds have become the norm in March since Sloan Park opened in 2014, and on the heels of the Cubs championship last fall, the city expects sales tax revenue, tourism and its own marketability to reach new heights.
But beyond a new upscale hotel, adjacent development has come slower than some had hoped, and while the stadium's tax burden falls on Mesa, the economic benefit flows across the border to neighboring Scottsdale, Tempe and other Phoenix-area towns.
Whether the one-month exhibition season provides enough of a boost to justify building the stadium remains the $100 million question. . .
"The Cubs were in position to negotiate a very lucrative deal, and we're not begrudging       that at all," said Mesa Mayor John Giles. "There still is a significant amount of economic activity that occurs outside of the ballpark, in the restaurants and hotels and everything. It's very significant for us."                                                                                                                 
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FACTOIDS extracted from the report
*The Tribune Media Group owns a number of publications here in The East Valley, including the East Valley Tribune
> In 2009, the Ricketts family bought the Cubs and Wrigley Field from Tribune Co. (now Tribune Media) in an $845-million deal, launching a long-term plan to renovate the club and the century-old ballpark.
> Mesa first looked to fund the project through state legislation that called for a surcharge on Cactus League tickets. The so-called Cubs tax met with opposition from other club owners — notably White Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf — and died on the vine.
> Under the gun, Mesa agreed to finance the $84 million stadium and $15 million in infrastructure improvements itself, a plan approved by voters in November 2010.

"The political appetite outside of Mesa for stepping up to build the stadium was not there," said Giles, a lawyer and former city councilman who was elected mayor in August 2014. "So the city of Mesa just took the whole thing on its shoulders."
> In 2013, Mesa sold $94 million in excise tax bonds to cover the cost of the Cubs stadium and an $18 million renovation of Hohokam for its new tenants, the Oakland Athletics.
The bonds mature in 2027 and 2032, but the city can pay off the bonds earlier, in 2017 and 2022.

> Mesa is planning to pay off the debtholders by selling nearly 11,400 acres of distant Pinal County farmland it acquired during the 1980s for water rights it no longer needs. In December 2013, Pinal Land Holdings, a Scottsdale-based developer, agreed to buy the entire property for about $135 million, closing on 1,613 acres for $24 million.
The deal included an annual option fee of about $4.9 million to buy the balance of the land in two phases — by June 30, 2017, and June 30, 2019 — with the remaining 9,734 acres priced at $89 million.
> The city expects the stadium bonds to be paid in full by 2022, according to Michael Kennington, Mesa's chief financial officer.
> In Chicago, the Ricketts family is spending $800 million of its own money for the ongoing renovation of 103-year-old Wrigley Field and the surrounding neighborhood.
> In 2015, the Cubs struck a 10-year naming rights deal with Sloan Valve of Franklin Park, plumbing supplier to Wrigley Field and the Mesa ballpark which now bears its logo, providing another revenue stream for the team.

> The Cubs keep the entire gate at Sloan — the team's primary source of spring training revenue — with average season ticket prices up 14.7 percent over last year, according to the team
> The Cubs have a 30-year lease on Sloan Park that pays the city $180,713 this year, with a 3 percent annual increase, according to Kennington. The team also assumed maintenance for the stadium, saving the city about $800,000 per year.
> Bob Leib, a Wisconsin-based financial consultant to professional sports teams and owners, said taxpayer fatigue and shifting economic priorities have made publicly funded stadiums a harder sell.
"A politician doesn't want to be known as the guy who put into place a funding mechanism that funneled public dollars to billionaire owners," Leib said.