Riverfront Stadium might not see baseball in 2020. What’s the economic impact of that?
Tickets for the first Wind Surge game at Riverfront Stadium sold out in 44 minutes.
But the new, $75 million stadium is likely to sit empty for most of its inaugural season as the coronavirus pandemic shutters virtually all large gatherings in the country until further notice.
The longer the stadium sits empty, the more likely the city is to miss its projections on the ballpark.
The Wind Surge, the Miami Marlins’ Triple-A affiliate that relocated from New Orleans, was scheduled to start play at Riverfront Stadium on April 14 and start paying the city a management fee the next day.
Instead, the city has granted the Wind Surge an extension on a $350,000 management fee. The team won’t have to pay until the team can start making money at the stadium, according to a city spokesperson.
The extension comes as the city is attempting to sort through its losses this spring due to closures, declining sales tax revenues and other deferred or canceled fees.
The COVID-19 outbreak has thrown a curveball at city leaders whose plan to pay for the new ballpark relied on people attending games and spending money at surrounding businesses.
“The stadium and the extension, I’m sure, will be part of the conversation as we look at the budget,” Mayor Brandon Whipple said. “These are the kinds of things we’ll be looking at as we try to figure out how the coroavirus is affecting our city.”
It’s unclear how the city will adjust its budget to make up for the shortfall. City Manager Robert Layton has furloughed 290 city workers until late April. One of the additional cost-savings measures the city is considering contract changes and granting extensions on rent payments.
Riverfront Stadium and the surrounding development has been projected to generate $38.5 million over 22 years to help pay for the stadium. The projections included property tax incremental financing, state sales tax, an added 2% city sales tax, stadium naming rights and a management fee from the team.
It’s unknown how property taxes will change in the wake of the coronavirus or what effect it will have on development around the stadium. The city estimates it will collect an additional $782,782 in property taxes next year based on this year’s increases in the area around the stadium.
Surrounding development — propelled largely by city subsidies — is still in the planning stage. Sales tax collected at those businesses are expected to ramp up around 2024, according to city estimates tallied before the pandemic.
The city was banking on collecting $470,105 from an added city sales tax at the stadium and surrounding businesses this year to help pay for the stadium. The longer the stadium is vacant, the less likely the city is to hit that mark.
Naming rights for the stadium also are up in the air. The city and team haven’t been able to secure naming rights for the stadium, which was estimated to draw $5 million over 20 years.
The annual $350,000 management fee from the team to the city was the only sure-thing included in the city’s projections.
Bringing the Wind Surge to Wichita from New Orleans has been a contentious process that has led to complaints by some residents who believe taxpayers are getting the short end of the stick, especially following a development deal with the team’s owners.
After agreeing to build a new stadium to lure a minor-league baseball team to Wichita, the City Council approved selling land around the stadium for $1 an acre to the team’s principle owner Lou Schwechheimer.
The Eagle reported that the team’s move to Wichita hinged on the land deal, but city leaders kept it a secret until months after Lawrence-Dumont had been torn down and construction on a new stadium had started. The city had also agreed to pay independent baseball team the Wingnuts $2.2 million to stop playing at the stadium.
The settlement with the Wingnuts was to be funded by the first six years of management fee payments from the Wind Surge.
Wind Surge owner remains optimistic
With the virus continuing to spread across the U.S., Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred recently told ESPN that MLB “probably” won’t play its traditional 162-game season and postseason format this year.
In hopes of still playing the most baseball possible in a delayed and possibly truncated season, scenarios such as the implementation of more doubleheaders and shortened games have been discussed, Manfred said.
MLB hopes to start its season by early June, Manfred said, and that would apply to minor-league baseball, too. Manfred said baseball is more dependent on revenue from ticket sales than other sports, so finding a way to schedule as many games as possible once it’s safe to play again is important.
A year with no baseball would be an “economic hardship for our owners,” Manfred said.
In Wichita, not so much.
The Wind Surge’s first payment to the city has been deferred and the team has been selling merchandise for months. It’s expected to buy its own furniture, fixtures and equipment, but the stadium hasn’t officially been handed over to the team yet so they could move in.
Wind Surge owner Schwechheimer has dealt with suspended seasons before and remains optimistic. He was in New Orleans and Florida when hurricanes struck, for instance, and his teams experienced multi-day postponements because of snow or rain in Boston.
“I’ve always been optimistic by nature,” Schwechheimer said. “Every time there has been a dark period in American life, baseball has in some small way brought us back to normalcy.”
Construction continues at the stadium. Crews are wrapping up final details of the build, a hidden benefit to the delay of opening day.
Schwechheimer said fans who bought opening day tickets won’t be forgotten. Tickets purchased for the April 14 game will be honored for the new opening day. And he said that tickets purchased for any other game can be traded for a new date, too.
If too much time passes and the season is canceled altogether, both Layton and Schwechheimer said other events could still take place at Riverfront Stadium later in the year.
Beyond the left field wall, a removable bridge hangs over a wide driveway. That was designed to bring in 18-wheel trailers for concerts. High school football games and even ice hockey games could be held there, too, Schwechheimer said.
“No matter what happens in the near term, we signed an agreement to be here for 30 years,” Schwechheimer said. “Although the coronavirus was a tough time, these next three decades are going to be magical.”
In the meantime, the baseball team has turned its attention to recapturing the excitement the city and surrounding area had for the Wind Surge and the return of minor-league baseball.
“No one could have ever predicted something like the coronavirus,” Layton said. “But I think the fact that we were conservative in our budgeting is going to come back and help us.”
This story was originally published April 7, 2020 at 9:13 AM.