NYC Pols Play Ball for Luxury Boxes
If you’re wondering how big-time baseball franchises in the Big Apple scored sweetheart stadium deals with the fiscally conscientious suits in the Bloomberg administration, it was all about the luxury boxes.
While hapless fans pay their unfair share of the freight, the baseball business is all about the luxury boxes – and the Bloomberg boys apparently had seats in city government suites at the top of their agendas with the New York Yankees and Mets.
In what promises to be a great promotional boost for both the Bloombergers and the baseball teams, state Assemblyman Richard Brodsky (D-Westchester) has laid it on the foul lines in his interim report on the city’s decision to subsidize the Yankee Stadium construction, “The House That You Built” (http://assembly.state.ny.us/member_files/092/20081105/report.pdf).
It lends the Yankees’ replacement of their historic digs the pungent odor of a boondoggle.
Among other salient facts that already have been reported in the New York Daily News and elsewhere, the report charges that the city “manipulated” the assessed value of the stadium in order to secure an IRS tax exemption. The city told the IRS that the stadium land was worth $204 million, while appraising it at $21 million. The Yankees got a cool $336 million in city and state funding for their billion-dollar project, and an even cooler $500 million in interest savings on the tax-exempt bonds the IRS put its imprimatur on. Meanwhile, the Mets are getting $550 million in tax-exempt bonds and $66 million in taxable bonds for their $800 million replica of Ebbetts Field.
Brodsky also released copies of e-mails between city officials and the Yankees indicating that the Bloombergers were dickering over perks – particularly free eats at the ballpark. The Bronx Bombers didn’t want to give away hot dogs, but city lawyer Joseph Gunn got tough with them, declaring, “if others get food as part of a base price, then so does nyc.” Which raises the question, what base price?
The clear implication in all this is that the city viewed a luxury box at the new Yankee Stadium and the Mets’ Citi Field as the ball clubs’ cost of doing business with the city.
The Mets resisted giving in to city demands for suite seats through several months of acrimonious e-mails, ultimately giving in for regular season games, but insisting city officials pay their way into playoff games, All-Star games and concerts. That’s what passes for integrity in high-ticket graft games.
Without reading between the lines, it’s clear to see that the suits on both sides of the suite debate are serving up spitballs to the paying fans who won’t be getting any breaks on ticket prices – or free beer on the side.
