TBN: Stadium/Arena Thread

[EichHart]

One of the things that’s forgotten when talking about market size is Buffalo gets short changed by the border. Metro Rochester and to a lesser extent metro Syracuse can get counted as places to draw fans/corporate money. But not the Toronto/Hamilton corridor which is one of the largest and wealthiest areas in North America. A place were a lot of corporate money can be tapped into. We also draw a large chunk of our fan base from Ontario.

25% of Bills season ticket holders are from Canada.

 

[Husko]

One of the things that’s forgotten when talking about market size is Buffalo gets short changed by the border. Metro Rochester and to a lesser extent metro Syracuse can get counted as places to draw fans/corporate money. But not the Toronto/Hamilton corridor which is one of the largest and wealthiest areas in North America. A place were a lot of corporate money can be tapped into (and is by the Bills). We also draw a large chunk of our fan base from Ontario.

Yeah, forgive my GIS rant, but New York State's bizarre constitutional rules on city expansion create a whole host of issues for cities like Buffalo, whether it's TV market size, population, crime rate, poverty rate, median income, or whatever else. In most states in the country a city like Buffalo would have expanded its borders to include most of the suburbs in Erie county by now. Hell, maybe a city like Niagara would even be part of Buffalo. This of course would rise the tide on a host of statistics. Basically if you compare Buffalo city limits statistics to most mid-major cities around the country, but only look at their inner loops and not the suburban areas those cities have consumed... they all look pretty much the same on most major statistics. Austin is a really good comp for this. (obviously it doesn't work as well for massive cities like NYC, Chicago, LA)

And that, folks, is literally all I remember from my GIS class at Canisius...

 

[Chainshot]

Yeah, forgive my GIS rant, but New York State's bizarre constitutional rules on city expansion create a whole host of issues for cities like Buffalo, whether it's TV market size, population, crime rate, poverty rate, median income, or whatever else. In most states in the country a city like Buffalo would have expanded its borders to include most of the suburbs in Erie county by now. Hell, maybe a city like Niagara would even be part of Buffalo. This of course would rise the tide on a host of statistics. Basically if you compare Buffalo city limits statistics to most mid-major cities around the country, but only look at their inner loops and not the suburban areas those cities have consumed... they all look pretty much the same on most major statistics. Austin is a really good comp for this. (obviously it doesn't work as well for massive cities like NYC, Chicago, LA)

And that, folks, is literally all I remember from my GIS class at Canisius...

Think of Jacksonville - the city has annexed basically the entire county. It is “large” by surface area but due to municipal amalgamation.

 

[Husko]

Think of Jacksonville - the city has annexed basically the entire county. It is “large” by surface area but due to municipal amalgamation.

Yep! Phoenix is another great example. "Fastest growing city" but when I visited for a couple weeks back in law school I couldn't believe how this "massive city" was just a giant suburban conglomerate.

 

[Chainshot]

Yep! Phoenix is another great example. "Fastest growing city" but when I visited for a couple weeks back in law school I couldn't believe how this "massive city" was just a giant suburban conglomerate.

Similarly, there are several million people living 90 minutes from Buffalo who are not ever counted in these totals.

 

[TheGreenTBer]

Think of Jacksonville - the city has annexed basically the entire county. It is “large” by surface area but due to municipal amalgamation.

That basically applies to all of Florida. Florida is sprawl, beaches, alligators and meth.

EDIT: Mickey Mouse counts under the "meth" category.

 

[Chainshot]

That basically applies to all of Florida. Florida is sprawl, beaches, alligators and meth.

EDIT: Mickey Mouse counts under the "meth" category.

Oh I know. As soon someone who has lived in Florida for years, I know.

 

[Old Navy Goat]

Think of Jacksonville - the city has annexed basically the entire county. It is “large” by surface area but due to municipal amalgamation.

Same as San Antonio, every place the affluent built their McMansions to escape SA taxes the city eventually swooped in and now encompasses virtually the entire county

 

[JThorne]

I am one of the few who actually enjoyed living in Duval county. It was forever and a day ago(I saw the first ever Jaguars game in person), so I don't know what it is like now. Yes, it's full of backwater people, but if you look hard enough, there are those types almost every. Just not as obvious.

 

[Kublakhan]

If Cuomo gets impeached Kathy Hochul will be in charge of NY and she is really against the Bills going anywhere..

 

[MayDay]

Similarly, there are several million people living 90 minutes from Buffalo who are not ever counted in these totals.

Metro areas and city sizes get mis-represented (either deliberately or innocently) in media reports for these reasons.

But the market analysts who actually make decisions about these things know full well how many people are living in each area (as well as their demographic breakdown, median income, education level, etc. etc.)

Who cares when news reports paint Buffalo as a small town of only ~250K people? The sports leagues know that Buffalo-Niagara is a metro area of >1 million, and that doesn’t even count the millions more that are drawn from Rochester, Syracuse, and southern Ontario.

Still not a large market in the grand scheme of things, but not as tiny as it is often portrayed. And geographically important, given its location and proximity to a bunch of other markets.

 

[SackTastic]

Tom Precious is the one who originally reported the number that was false. Not sure why he gets another kick at the can to say "I'm right this time, really!"

EDIT:

It's exactly as I suspected. Essentially Tom Precious interviewed multiple state lawmakers, asking their opinion on the numbers that he reported which have been directly contradicted.

What a hack.

 

[SackTastic]

Yeah, forgive my GIS rant, but New York State's bizarre constitutional rules on city expansion create a whole host of issues for cities like Buffalo, whether it's TV market size, population, crime rate, poverty rate, median income, or whatever else. In most states in the country a city like Buffalo would have expanded its borders to include most of the suburbs in Erie county by now. Hell, maybe a city like Niagara would even be part of Buffalo. This of course would rise the tide on a host of statistics. Basically if you compare Buffalo city limits statistics to most mid-major cities around the country, but only look at their inner loops and not the suburban areas those cities have consumed... they all look pretty much the same on most major statistics. Austin is a really good comp for this. (obviously it doesn't work as well for massive cities like NYC, Chicago, LA)

And that, folks, is literally all I remember from my GIS class at Canisius...

The 'city limits' definition is relatively pointless. The Metropolitan Statistical Area or Combined Statistical Area are almost always more relevant and actually used.

 

[joshjull]

The 'city limits' definition is relatively pointless. The Metropolitan Statistical Area or Combined Statistical Area are almost always more relevant and actually used.

What that include another country? Just curious if a stat like that would ignore borders.

 

[SackTastic]

What that include another country? Just curious if a stat like that would ignore borders.

MSA / CSA are constructs of the US Office of Management and Budget, so domestic US only.

If you added up the populations of the Buffalo, Rochester MSAs, and included the Census Metropolitan Area (Canadian equivalent) of Hamilton and St. Catherines / Niagara , you're looking at somewhere around 3.3M people inside a 60 minute drive from Buffalo.

Obviously many other markets can do the same '60 minute' math and be bigger, but it's just the overall context that's good to think about. Green Bay for example is about 2 hours away from Milwaukee, where most of it's fan base comes from.

 

[Jim Bob]

 

[Kublakhan]

State watchdogs are saying States are flush with covod billions just earning interest ..Kathy Hochel being a local girl should put that money to good in building us a stadium.. I mean Cuomo got a friggen bridge

 

[sabremike]

The irony of all this is that the arena is more dilapidated than the stadium but appears to be a very minor concern.

 

[jc17]

The irony of all this is that the arena is more dilapidated than the stadium but appears to be a very minor concern.

When was the last time you were at the stadium?

I don't mind it, but it's far from nice.

 

[littletonhockeycoach]

When was the last time you were at the stadium?

I don't mind it, but it's far from nice.

It was spartan back when it first opened. Definitely an economy grade finish level.

Honestly, I haven't been in the edifice since 1975 Summerfest. (I've just driven past it on my hometown visits.)

But just that figure alone (47 years) is enough to say, it's way, way old. Older than the Rockpile was when the Bills finally vacated it.

 

[littletonhockeycoach]

Yeah, forgive my GIS rant, but New York State's bizarre constitutional rules on city expansion create a whole host of issues for cities like Buffalo, whether it's TV market size, population, crime rate, poverty rate, median income, or whatever else. In most states in the country a city like Buffalo would have expanded its borders to include most of the suburbs in Erie county by now. Hell, maybe a city like Niagara would even be part of Buffalo. This of course would rise the tide on a host of statistics. Basically if you compare Buffalo city limits statistics to most mid-major cities around the country, but only look at their inner loops and not the suburban areas those cities have consumed... they all look pretty much the same on most major statistics. Austin is a really good comp for this. (obviously it doesn't work as well for massive cities like NYC, Chicago, LA)

And that, folks, is literally all I remember from my GIS class at Canisius...

Fun trivia fact....... I am a graduate of UB's Geography Department. Back then GIS was a single course in the curriculum and we accessed UB's Ridge Lea mainframe (370) by telex in a small room off of Dr. Duane Marble's office.

No ESRI, No Intergraph, No Arc-Info. Ha, ha, ha. The stuff you are talking about (consolidation of duplicative small local governments into one Metropolitan District a la Toronto), was taught in Hugh Calkins Land Use class. 50 years later.... still talking, eh??

Did you know that one of the inventors of GIS (Duane Marble - co conceptualized with Roger Tomlinson) actually taught at UB for years?
Probably one of the smartest guys I ever met. Had the personality of a wet dish rag however..... LOL.

 

[SackTastic]

State watchdogs are saying States are flush with covod billions just earning interest ..Kathy Hochel being a local girl should put that money to good in building us a stadium.. I mean Cuomo got a friggen bridge

1. It's COVID, not covod.
2. It's Hochul, not Hochel.
3. State governments don't make nearly as much money off interest as you would think. In NYS, excess cash goes into the Short Term Investment Pool. That is only invested in very liquid, short term instruments, because all state agencies can draw from it against their budgets as required. Last fiscal year, it yielded 0.181%, or $58M. Average balance for the STIP over the year was $30.5B. NYS also has agreements with certain banks that if NYS holds STIP funds there, the bank will provide better loan terms than normal, in exchange for a reduced rate of interest earned on deposits.
4. State governments would much rather pay off bonds previously issued (paying probably 4-5%) than leave cash sitting in the bank earning < 1%. (They are not allowed to do that with these recovery funds.)
5. They would not be allowed to give a single dollar of these funds towards the stadium. There are very specific allowable uses.

Any public funding here will be done the same way almost all public funding for stadiums is done.

- State or County will own the building and land, making it exempt from the usual property taxes.
- Bills will lease the property from State / County; Property lease payments are a tax deduction for the team.
- State and County will sell muni bonds secured by future tax revenues generated by the stadium. ( Ticket and Parking taxes are some examples.) These will be a cheaper rate of interest than the team could get if they went to secure financing from banks directly.
- The State and County will strive to secure as many guarantees as they can in case tax receipts tied to the bonds come in below expectations.

There is no magical $1B check that will just materialize as many seem to suggest.

 

[brian_griffin]

Long post incoming...

Imagine expecting taxpayers to cover the entire expense of building an entire new stadium and renovating an old one coming off of a global pandemic and economic recession.

I don't know if Terry's stupid, if he thinks the city won't call his bluff or both.

Imagine the US Federal government printing trillions of new money out of thin air (which has always been inflationary in every economy in the history of fiat currencies) and also delaying fractions of the appropriation spending for years, coming off of a global pandemic and economic recession. I fail to see the distinction.

So glad I left NY and never looked back. Nuclear dumpster fire.

The population of NYS essentially stopped growing in 1970, and has been essentially flat for 50 years at 19-19.5M, whereas the US population has grown 65% from 200 to 330M. Moreover, the population of WNY has aged. Those demographics, in a nutshell, are both a symptom and a cause of all the ills of NYS. The state I now live in, has nearly doubled population from ~6M to ~10.5M in 30 years since I moved here, and has doubled from ~5M over the same 50year time frame NYS / BUF have stagnated.

The rising tide of population growth lifts all economic boats, and without it, the increased tax burden (in both absolute and proportionate terms) nearly ensure significant growth will never return again.

What does NY state have to do with greedy billionaire owners asking for a 100% publicly financed stadium ?

If the population of NYS / WNY / BUF had similarly increased 65%, like the USA as a whole, both the total cost and the public/private split would be far less an issue.

They’ll get the money or at least most of it. New York State has already handed out billions in funds, tax breaks, etc. to metro NYC sports teams at the major league and minor league levels. They’ve got even more projects in the pipeline down there adding to that total. It’s not just for stadiums but for supporting infrastructure as well.

Agreed. NYS government loves to spend money they don't have, and they have a history of doing so. There was the "Buffalo Billion" for the schools. Even with the fraction / amounts pocketed due to corruption, the spend was large. Same with the $750M Solar City building / complex by the old Republic Steel which Musk used as a playground for a while.

Fort Bragg’s ice rink is technically listed as a morgue. It received Army funding for upkeep.

Sabres lose Eichel for a bag of pucks, and the Key Bank Arena will likely qualify as a morgue.

Yeah, forgive my GIS rant, but New York State's bizarre constitutional rules on city expansion create a whole host of issues for cities like Buffalo, whether it's TV market size, population, crime rate, poverty rate, median income, or whatever else. In most states in the country a city like Buffalo would have expanded its borders to include most of the suburbs in Erie county by now. Hell, maybe a city like Niagara would even be part of Buffalo. This of course would rise the tide on a host of statistics. Basically if you compare Buffalo city limits statistics to most mid-major cities around the country, but only look at their inner loops and not the suburban areas those cities have consumed... they all look pretty much the same on most major statistics. Austin is a really good comp for this. (obviously it doesn't work as well for massive cities like NYC, Chicago, LA)

And that, folks, is literally all I remember from my GIS class at Canisius...

Economic analyses use MSAs, not strict geopolitical boundaries. Demographics for where to place supermarkets, what stores to consolidate, when and where to open new branches, etc., are all derived from very detailed demographic data.

Think of Jacksonville - the city has annexed basically the entire county. It is “large” by surface area but due to municipal amalgamation.

A few years ago, the NHL admitted they were ~20 years too early in JAX, but I do credit the NFL for having a long game plan.

Yep! Phoenix is another great example. "Fastest growing city" but when I visited for a couple weeks back in law school I couldn't believe how this "massive city" was just a giant suburban conglomerate.

Given the geography there, it doesn't make sense to build tall and dense.

Similarly, there are several million people living 90 minutes from Buffalo who are not ever counted in these totals.

BUF and ROC are different MSAs, but I'm sure Bills demographic analysis includes both.

That basically applies to all of Florida. Florida is sprawl, beaches, alligators and meth.

EDIT: Mickey Mouse counts under the "meth" category.

Come for the sunshine and beaches, stay for the alligators and meth.

Same as San Antonio, every place the affluent built their McMansions to escape SA taxes the city eventually swooped in and now encompasses virtually the entire county

Having grown up in NYS, Imagine my shock to learn where I live that process is legal. A coalition of retired residents (lawyers and the like) in proposed annexation areas (including where I lived) fought it successfully for several years, saving tens of thousands of tax dollars for the average homeowners during that timeframe. One of the successful arguments for delaying the process was residential neighborhoods annexed decades ago still had not received one or more of the municipal water supply, stormwater sewers, and/or sidewalks the prior annexation actions required they be provided under State statute. I've lived both inside city limits and in unincorporated areas in the 5 homes I've owned my decades here.

Edit: the factory I work in was also annexed by the local city in that same action, even though we would receive no incremental services from the city as a result. The plant manager at that time (now retired, I'm a friend of both him and his wife who also worked with us), said the mayor at the time told him to his face, "What's the big deal? It (the additional city property taxes vs. county-only taxes) is just an extra line item in your budget." The plant manager, who was from Boston, replied, "Over 200 years ago, where I come from, we had a little tea party over that kind of thing."

Metro areas and city sizes get mis-represented (either deliberately or innocently) in media reports for these reasons.

But the market analysts who actually make decisions about these things know full well how many people are living in each area (as well as their demographic breakdown, median income, education level, etc. etc.)

Who cares when news reports paint Buffalo as a small town of only ~250K people? The sports leagues know that Buffalo-Niagara is a metro area of >1 million, and that doesn’t even count the millions more that are drawn from Rochester, Syracuse, and southern Ontario.

Still not a large market in the grand scheme of things, but not as tiny as it is often portrayed. And geographically important, given its location and proximity to a bunch of other markets.

100% agree with each of these comments.

The 'city limits' definition is relatively pointless. The Metropolitan Statistical Area or Combined Statistical Area are almost always more relevant and actually used.

Yes. But can also be misleading. The (large) county west of me borders South Carolina and (unless things have changed in the past couple years) is included in the Myrtle Beach (Horry county, SC) MSA, yet the majority of the population is in the Eastern end of the county yet is excluded from the MSA my county is in.

MSA / CSA are constructs of the US Office of Management and Budget, so domestic US only.

If you added up the populations of the Buffalo, Rochester MSAs, and included the Census Metropolitan Area (Canadian equivalent) of Hamilton and St. Catherines / Niagara , you're looking at somewhere around 3.3M people inside a 60 minute drive from Buffalo.

Obviously many other markets can do the same '60 minute' math and be bigger, but it's just the overall context that's good to think about. Green Bay for example is about 2 hours away from Milwaukee, where most of it's fan base comes from.

Yes. Last time I looked, the 7 counties of WNY (Niagara, Orleans, Genesee, Erie, Chatauqua, Cattaraugus, Allegany) contained about 1.1M residents. BUF city limit population was ~600k at its peak, but half or more of that moved to the first-ring suburbs, then further out as the decades passed.

1. It's COVID, not covod.
2. It's Hochul, not Hochel.
3. State governments don't make nearly as much money off interest as you would think. In NYS, excess cash goes into the Short Term Investment Pool. That is only invested in very liquid, short term instruments, because all state agencies can draw from it against their budgets as required. Last fiscal year, it yielded 0.181%, or $58M. Average balance for the STIP over the year was $30.5B. NYS also has agreements with certain banks that if NYS holds STIP funds there, the bank will provide better loan terms than normal, in exchange for a reduced rate of interest earned on deposits.
4. State governments would much rather pay off bonds previously issued (paying probably 4-5%) than leave cash sitting in the bank earning < 1%. (They are not allowed to do that with these recovery funds.)
5. They would not be allowed to give a single dollar of these funds towards the stadium. There are very specific allowable uses.

Any public funding here will be done the same way almost all public funding for stadiums is done.

- State or County will own the building and land, making it exempt from the usual property taxes.
- Bills will lease the property from State / County; Property lease payments are a tax deduction for the team.
- State and County will sell muni bonds secured by future tax revenues generated by the stadium. ( Ticket and Parking taxes are some examples.) These will be a cheaper rate of interest than the team could get if they went to secure financing from banks directly.
- The State and County will strive to secure as many guarantees as they can in case tax receipts tied to the bonds come in below expectations.

There is no magical $1B check that will just materialize as many seem to suggest.

As you note, any money spent won't have come from previously collected tax revenues. After running ~$1-2B actual annual operating deficits from 2014-2017, the actual annual deficit has grown steadily, and is expected to exceed $6B this year.

 

[joshjull]

Long post incoming...
Imagine the US Federal government printing trillions of new money out of thin air (which has always been inflationary in every economy in the history of fiat currencies) and also delaying fractions of the appropriation spending for years, coming off of a global pandemic and economic recession. I fail to see the distinction.

The population of NYS essentially stopped growing in 1970, and has been essentially flat for 50 years at 19-19.5M, whereas the US population has grown 65% from 200 to 330M. Moreover, the population of WNY has aged. Those demographics, in a nutshell, are both a symptom and a cause of all the ills of NYS. The state I now live in, has nearly doubled population from ~6M to ~10.5M in 30 years since I moved here, and has doubled from ~5M over the same 50year time frame NYS / BUF have stagnated.

The rising tide of population growth lifts all economic boats, and without it, the increased tax burden (in both absolute and proportionate terms) nearly ensure significant growth will never return again.


If the population of NYS / WNY / BUF had similarly increased 65%, like the USA as a whole, both the total cost and the public/private split would be far less an issue.
Agreed. NYS government loves to spend money they don't have, and they have a history of doing so. There was the "Buffalo Billion" for the schools. Even with the fraction / amounts pocketed due to corruption, the spend was large. Same with the $750M Solar City building / complex by the old Republic Steel which Musk used as a playground for a while.

Sabres lose Eichel for a bag of pucks, and the Key Bank Arena will likely qualify as a morgue.

Economic analyses use MSAs, not strict geopolitical boundaries. Demographics for where to place supermarkets, what stores to consolidate, when and where to open new branches, etc., are all derived from very detailed demographic data.

A few years ago, the NHL admitted they were ~20 years too early in JAX, but I do credit the NFL for having a long game plan.

Given the geography there, it doesn't make sense to build tall and dense.

BUF and ROC are different MSAs, but I'm sure Bills demographic analysis includes both.

Come for the sunshine and beaches, stay for the alligators and meth.


Having grown up in NYS, Imagine my shock to learn where I live that process is legal. A coalition of retired residents (lawyers and the like) in proposed annexation areas fought it successfully for several years, saving tens of thousands of tax dollars for the average homeowners during that timeframe. One of the successful arguments for delaying the process was residential neighborhoods annexed decades ago still had not received one or more of the municipal water supply, stormwater sewers, and/or sidewalks the prior annexation actions required they be provided under State statute.
100% agree with each of these comments.

Yes. But can also be misleading. The (large) county west of me borders South Carolina and (unless things have changed in the past couple years) is included in the Myrtle Beach (Horry county, SC) MSA, yet the majority of the population is in the Eastern end of the county yet is excluded from the MSA my county is in.

Yes. Last time I looked, the 7 counties of WNY (Niagara, Orleans, Genesee, Erie, Chatauqua, Cattaraugus, Allegany) contained about 1.1M residents. BUF city limit population was ~600k at its peak, but half or more of that moved to the first-ring suburbs, then further out as the decades passed.

As you note, any money spent won't have come from previously collected tax revenues. After running ~$1-2B actual annual operating deficits from 2014-2017, the actual annual deficit has grown steadily, and is expected to exceed $6B this year.

An interesting add on to this. Per the recent Census, The City of Buffalo had its first population increase since 1950. Up 17K to about 280k total. Only took 70 years to stop the bleeding!

Erie County population went up 35k to 954k total. The population of those counties you listed for WNY is roughly 1.5mil.


You mentioned the Buffalo and Rochester MSAs but forgot our friends in Ontario. The Hamilton and St.Catherine’s metro areas have about 1.3mil combined and of course Toronto’s 6.5million metro area. I think thats who @Chainshot was referring to.



Within 2hrs we have a population and corporate money base that rivals most American cities. It can be and is tapped into by the Bills for corporate suite sales, luxury boxes, general tickets sales, etc. Since its another country it obviously can’t be counted on for public dollars to build the new stadium. But it is relied on for the bottom line of the Bills. Its a unique situation.

 

[Kublakhan]

1. It's COVID, not covod.
2. It's Hochul, not Hochel.
3. State governments don't make nearly as much money off interest as you would think. In NYS, excess cash goes into the Short Term Investment Pool. That is only invested in very liquid, short term instruments, because all state agencies can draw from it against their budgets as required. Last fiscal year, it yielded 0.181%, or $58M. Average balance for the STIP over the year was $30.5B. NYS also has agreements with certain banks that if NYS holds STIP funds there, the bank will provide better loan terms than normal, in exchange for a reduced rate of interest earned on deposits.
4. State governments would much rather pay off bonds previously issued (paying probably 4-5%) than leave cash sitting in the bank earning < 1%. (They are not allowed to do that with these recovery funds.)
5. They would not be allowed to give a single dollar of these funds towards the stadium. There are very specific allowable uses.

Any public funding here will be done the same way almost all public funding for stadiums is done.

- State or County will own the building and land, making it exempt from the usual property taxes.
- Bills will lease the property from State / County; Property lease payments are a tax deduction for the team.
- State and County will sell muni bonds secured by future tax revenues generated by the stadium. ( Ticket and Parking taxes are some examples.) These will be a cheaper rate of interest than the team could get if they went to secure financing from banks directly.
- The State and County will strive to secure as many guarantees as they can in case tax receipts tied to the bonds come in below expectations.

There is no magical $1B check that will just materialize as many seem to suggest.

ehh it was 4:30 am , but that money is sitting in a giant slush fund, It can be used for what ever they want..