how US sports teams became real-estate speculators

Photograph: Allen J Schaben/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

Pitching his vision of shifting the St Louis Rams to an ultra-modern stadium anchoring a massive land redevelopment near Los Angeles international airport, Stan Kroenke told his fellow NFL owners: “This is what we do”.

Nearly eight years later, with the Rams successfully relocated and playing in the $5bn, 70,240-capacity SoFi Stadium complex, Kroenke is delivering on his declaration with the help of retailers, homebuilders, Taylor Swift and Bad Bunny.

His 298-acre Hollywood Park site also boasts an artificial lake, a 6,000-seat theatre and space for millions of square feet of offices, hotels, shops, restaurants and apartments. The NFL Network has moved next to the stadium in fast-gentrifying Inglewood and luxury apartments are ready to rent.

These days, this is what everyone does. More than ever, sports franchises are a real-estate play as owners seek to stimulate revenues amid escalating costs in a period of high inflation.

Mixed-use developments where people can live, work, shop, dine, drink and play have become ubiquitous as teams seek to squeeze as much profit as possible from their land. The old paradigm was to build a new stadium with high-end facilities inside to cater to the corporate set, boosting matchday income and attracting showpiece events such as Super Bowls, World Cup games and blockbuster concerts by stars like Swift.

Now teams also want to dictate how dollars are spent each day in the streets around their venues, a trend turning billionaire sports owners into influential city planners.

A pioneer is based in the city that Kroenke was desperate to escape: the St Louis Cardinals opened Ballpark Village, a dining and entertainment district around Busch Stadium, about a decade ago. The Atlanta Braves and Texas Rangers followed suit with their new ballparks; the Houston Astros, Tampa Bay Rays, Arizona Diamondbacks, Kansas City Royals and New York Mets are among other MLB teams with similar…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/stadium-secondary-us-sports-teams-110009979.html

Author : The Guardian

Publish date : 2023-12-06 11:00:09

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