About two years ago, I wrote about Milwaukee’s public funding obligations and whether the Brewers would demand a new stadium in the coming years.  That has not yet happened, but the news about the Rangers and Diamondbacks suggests that the danger has not abated.  Much of the information in my past article remains relevant for the general context of a potential new Milwaukee stadium, so this piece will discuss something else I find interesting about the news from Arizona: stadium location.

Miller Park is not in downtown Milwaukee, and one of the reasons I expected stadium news to be coming a couple years ago was that I thought the club would be interested in moving more centrally.  In 2000, the Giants provided a model for a profitable downtown stadium that connected with the culture of the city, and the following years saw many teams construct new stadiums in the heart of their respective cities.  The Padres built Petco Park in downtown San Diego, the Twins placed Target Field in central Minneapolis, and Marlins Park (for all its many apparent faults) is located in the actual city of Miami.

San Francisco, San Diego, and Minneapolis have gotten various forms of positive reviews for their stadiums, and they tend to score well on stadium rankings.  Nonetheless, the most recent trends in stadium building (Atlanta, Texas, and Arizona) are moving towards suburban stadiums.  If I presume these teams are making informed decisions, then this calls into question whether the Brewers would be inclined to leave Miller Park for a different location, which I had previously assumed they would wish to do.

(It is, of course, possible that each of these three teams made their decision—or will make it, in the case of the Diamondbacks—based on which local government would provide the most public funding and not because any particular location provided the best space for a profitable and engaged ballpark.  And in such a situation, the Brewers could act similarly by demanding public money for a new stadium, even if it is on the same lot as Miller Park.)

But this trend of MLB teams choosing to place themselves in suburbs runs contrary to what is occurring in most other American sports.  There have been (or will be, when the Bucks’ new arena is completed) five NBA arenas built in the last ten years, and all five of them are in urban/downtown spaces (Orlando, Brooklyn, Sacramento, Detroit, and Milwaukee).  And when the new Warriors arena in San Francisco is completed, the NBA will be six-for-six in placing new arenas in urban areas.  Both the Brooklyn and Detroit arenas also house NHL teams, but there have been three additional NHL arenas  built in that same period, and all are also downtown (Pittsburgh, Edmonton, and Las Vegas).  And while MLS does not have the same public profile as the other leagues, all five of the soccer-only stadiums built in the last six years  have been downtown, or close to it (Washington, Los Angeles, Houston, San Jose, and Orlando).

On the other hand, two of the four new NFL stadiums built since 2010 have been in suburban areas.  The Giants and Jets’ new stadium is still in New Jersey, and the 49ers’ new stadium is forty-five miles away from San Francisco.  The Jets, though, were on the verge of moving to Manhattan, and Levi’s Stadium has been an attendance disaster for the 49ers, so it isn’t as if the NFL has struck gold with its particular suburban choices.

One could argue that MLB stadiums are more like NFL stadiums than NBA arenas because so many of them are open-air, and even the smallest baseball stadium seats many thousands of people more than the largest NBA arena.  Therefore, because of the need for extra space and parking, MLB stadiums are more likely to be farther away from densely populated urban areas, and thus it is not particularly noteworthy that MLB teams are not congregating downtown the way NBA, NHL, and MLS teams are.

I think this misses a larger picture, though, which is more complicated than just the needs of each particular team that is building a new stadium.  America’s population trends are complex, but a FiveThirtyEight article from last year noted that the fastest-growing urban areas are suburbs.  Despite that, though, FiveThirtyEight had previously noted that college-educated millennials are increasingly gravitating towards large cities, and jobs and wage growth are doing the same.  There are more people in suburban areas than there used to be, but there is generally more money in the cities.  It is therefore at least interesting that smaller arenas (indoor arenas and soccer stadiums) are increasingly downtown, while the larger football stadiums have resisted this movement.  I don’t know whether there is a connection between these data points (population migration and stadium locations), but they at least bear considering in relation to each other as we move forward.

What this has do to with the Brewers remains to be seen.  We don’t know where the Brewers themselves want to their stadium to be; the location of the new Bucks arena suggests that Milwaukee is as good a downtown target as any other city that has been a part of the NBA/NHL/MLS trend, but there have not been any substantial rumors that I am aware of that the Brewers are interested in leaving Miller Park.  This comes up now because teams with ballparks built in the 1990s are starting to move, and Miller Park opened in 2001, so the issue is at least relevant.

I don’t know exactly what to make of the difference between the locations of new smaller stadiums and larger ones.  The fact that the NBA, NHL, and MLS seem so confident in their downtown placements suggests that there is actual good information supporting those decisions, but we are not seeing MLB teams following their lead.  Whether this is because MLB teams are behind the times, have numbers indicating the opposite, or there is some material difference between the big and small stadiums is unclear at this time.

There isn’t some magic formula that tells teams when they should move, but as an outside observer, it seems as if teams should wait a few years before settling on new locations as they see where the most successful stadiums are.  Stadium location trends are diverging sharply, and one of the two approaches is likely to be proven more correct, so it would behoove a smart team to wait for more data to be available.  Of course, the calculus each team undergoes is not that simple; political realities in a team’s home state and city may dictate that a push for public funding needs to happen now or it will not be successful, so any individual team may not have the luxury of waiting.

The Brewers do appear to have time, though, because Miller Park seems to be popular and in good health.  We will see whether the NBA continues to place its arenas downtown and whether MLB (and NFL) teams continue to resist those moves, and time will tell us how successful each of those plans is.  I don’t pretend to know whether the Brewers are interested in moving at all.  But if they are, choosing whether they build a new stadium in the Miller Park parking lot or try to move downtown near the Bucks will be a complicated but interesting decision

To get the best ending, you’ll need to be daring, sharp, and avoid a certain County Sheriff who seems to be lurking behind every rock and bush on the grounds. You’ll need to be bold. You’ll need to lead and not follow. You will need to know how to score a game. But more than anything, you’ll need to have fun.

I love opening day and find the ceremony around it to be one of the best things about baseball. No one bats an eye at a kid missing school to attend, everyone is in a good mood, every team is still in the hunt, and once the game actually starts, it’s the closest thing to a playoff atmosphere short of actually making the playoffs. It’s a day where anything is still possible, and so it is in the game.

Let’s get things started with Miller Park Opening Day Challenge!

Click here to play!

For added atmosphere, the soundtrack can be accessed here in the form of a Spotify playlist.

Soundtrack

If you enjoyed this game, check out “Coach Mike McCarthy’s Three Minute Mania” at Acme Packing Company.

Left-handed hitters love hitting at Miller Park, at least when it comes to hitting home runs. Left-handed hitters have had a HR factor over 100 every year since 2011, and every year before that going all the way back to 2005. It is easy to jump to conclusions when discussing park factors and ignore year-to-year fluctuation, but it’s safe to conclude the Brewers home is friendly to left-handed power hitters. Just ask Prince Fielder. This may have something to do with the swapping of Chris Carter for Eric Thames at first base for the 2017 season. Thames is much more likely to put up gaudy, tradable numbers than the right-handed Chris Carter, even with similar skill sets. It can be dangerous to build a lineup around your ballpark but every now and then it can work to teams’ advantages. One example is the San Francisco Giants’ contact-heavy lineup in the home run suppressing AT&T Park. It will be interesting to see if David Stearns’s progressive front-office takes advantage of this statistically backed park factor.

Although it isn’t much of a surprise considering the amount of plate appearances, left-handed park factors overall had much more fluctuation than right-handed park factors. At the same time, it is astounding to realize that even an entire half seasons worth of plate appearances in a ball park can have that much fluctuation. It’s important to keep in mind not only when taking account for park factors, but when evaluating players and teams. It is widely known we jump to conclusions too quickly on each side of the spectrum, good and bad.

After a very rough, crude valuation and round-up, the runs factor for each side of the batter’s box is 101 in Miller Park’s entire 16-year history. Just barely above average. This runs contrary to conventional wisdom when it comes to Milwaukee’s home stadium. It is by no means in the same league as Coors Field or Citizens Bank Ballpark, but it isn’t considered far behind. This data suggests otherwise. Another season like the 2016 season, in which Miller Park actually played like a pitcher’s park, and it falls to about average. It is pure speculation as to what created the delusion that the Brewers home field is a hitter’s paradise but my best guess is the home run numbers. Milwaukee has always been a place where home runs fly, but is it possible to be a neutral ballpark and still have strong home run numbers? Miller Park suggests so. The only category where it is significantly above average is home runs. In contrast, Coors Field is not only a home run haven, but it is simply easier to get hits because of the high altitude.

Contradicting everything I said above about overacting to single-year park factor numbers, it is important to look at how Miller Park played in 2016 and what that might’ve meant at the time and what it could mean for the future. Again, like I mentioned above, it played as a slightly pitcher’s park, even with the above average home run numbers. There is no way to predict which way it will lean in the future, but it’d be safe to bet on a more hitter friendly lean. This could mean stronger seasons from prospects who struggled in 2016, such as Orlando Arcia and Domingo Santana. It could mean regression from Junior Guerra and Zach Davies. Or maybe 2016 was year 1 of the movement from a hitter’s park to a pitcher’s park, there really is no way to tell.

Related Reading:
The New Professional Orthodoxy
Counterbuilding: Drafting & Trading
When Should the Brewers Be Competitive?
Jonathan Villar and Orlando Arcia Delay the Rebuild
The Continuing Costs of Miller Park

While you consider this fact, think about those $28 million taxpayer dollars weighed against the $40 million or more in private revenue that the Brewers are sitting on in 2016 (thus far). The Brewers are “building for the future,” which in blunt economic terms means that they are getting rid of expensive labor (i.e., MLB Players Association veterans) in favor of dirt cheap, unrepresented labor (i.e., minor league prospects). This is one of the shortcomings of the current MLB “analysis” movement entrenched in its second generation (the second generation being those who are now raised into “analysis” as orthodoxy, as compared to those who actually fought the battle in favor of “analysis”). One of the old drums of that movement is the “market inefficiency,” which on the surface argues in favor of cost-controlled players or acquiring cheap players with production that far outpaces their contract. Beneath the surface, market inefficiencies allow MLB clubs an opportunity to allocate revenue elsewhere: sometimes International markets, sometimes infrastructure, and sometimes pocketbooks.

The last option is quite acceptable in any business, let alone one that features extremely lucrative revenue streams that consistently bolster franchise value. The benefit of rebuilding is that an ownership group need not await a sale of their franchise to reap the benefits of that revenue: when the MLB club does not need to win or compete “now,” payroll can be sliced, and the cut revenue need not go anywhere. Rebuilding cashes in on a lesson well-known at least since Donald Sterling’s 1980s Los Angeles Clippers: sports franchises need not put a winner on the field to return handsome profits. In fact, losing can be even more profitable in the right circumstances.

For the Brewers, GM David Stearns’s much-praised offseason effectively started this great transfer of revenue, saving the club approximately $40 (to $60) million (compared to recent payroll levels, or costs that were sunk into labor instead of ownership) for this season. Common fan rebuttals note that Stearns and the Brewers could sink that revenue into a huge International bonus period, organizational infrastructure, or actual analysts or player development personnel (but really probably not). Hopefully, these “non-MLBPA” expenses include improving minor league pay, which would be a welcome and just correction of one of this game’s ugliest features (just pay them more! Just do it!). Unfortunately, these organizational costs need not be disclosed, so barring a huge $30 million spending spree that is hailed in the industry press on July 2, Brewers fans will be left guessing about how their beloved Milwaukee Nine are spending their revenue.

Brewers fans ought to seriously consider the implications of the economics of rebuilding. By the kindest interpretation, the club is transferring revenue away from MLB labor toward much cheaper minor league talent, in favor of a longview that hopefully sees the club contending by 2020. Even this reality has somewhat unsightly consequences (which is why BPMilwaukee will pair prospect coverage with consistent and ongoing coverage favoring increases in minor league pay). The most brutal interpretation of rebuilding economics sees Five County taxpayers sending at least $28 million to service debt on Miller Park during each season in which the Brewers will not spend money to contend. While a standard corporate governance argument would tell those disgruntled Brewers fans to go fly a kite — and courts of law would probably agree, Brewers fans ought to take seriously their position as financial stakeholders in the organization (especially if they reside in the Five Counties).

The most specific action fans can take is to gain awareness of revenue allocation within an MLB organization, and demand to know how excess revenue beyond a basic 50-50 labor split is spent. This is the first reasonable step to addressing the economic implications of rebuilding. If a club is not spending money on the field, or in easily verified signing bonuses, how is that revenue aimed to help a team compete or contend? A more audacious fan action would be to demand that revenue diverted from the playing field be applied directly to the debt service of Miller Park. This is a fantasy, but it pushes corporate governance arguments to the other logical extreme: After all, even if the Brewers are no longer using their publicly financed asset to try to contend, taxpayers must continue investing in the tricky business of sports real estate; in order to moderate the risk of investing in such a venture, diverting unused MLB revenue to Miller Park’s costs would compensate fans for the lack of a contending team.

The most straightforward tax payer argument is that the venue was built under some assumption that Milwaukee would remain competitive; in this regard, standard tax burdens are traded as a public investment for a good baseball team. As that baseball team fades on the MLB level and pushes competitive goals down the road, the team renegotiates one good faith assumption of the public debt without assuming any additional risk. (The risk of the MLB team, of course, was visible from roughly 2006-2015, where Milwaukee built out of a terrible series of performances and relatively large amounts of money into the big league team, only to see many contending efforts thwarted in heartbreaking fashion. The risk of the public is maintaining and improving an elite sports venue, right down to the front office furniture).

Fans and residents from the five counties are stakeholders in the Brewers’ financial performance. Since residents pay to service a significant portion of the Brewers’ operating costs (namely, Miller Park), they are personally vested in the success of the franchise to some degree. The Brewers franchise ultimately has responsibility to maintain its financial value and return the greatest possible revenue share to ownership; the operation of MLB owners across the board has proven this fact over recent seasons. The fans, on the other hand, get stuck with the warm and gooey “civic pride” claim, which shortchanges their actual investment in the club (especially as taxpayers). By analyzing the costs, depreciation, maintenance schedules, and improvement plans, residents and fans can reorient an aspect of the Brewers’ traditional profit-oriented responsibilities into behavior that more evenly balances the risks of fielding MLB labor and the risks of operating a ballpark. The public cannot be reasonably expected to burden one aspect of this equation without the club shouldering their burden to compete.

One might be tempted to return to the mid-1990s arguments for Miller Park in order to clearly define the role of the taxpayer in this matter. In 1995, Hank Aaron made the gushy civic pride argument that ironically serves as some recognition that taxpayers serve as stakeholders in the Brewers’ future. “When the Brewers go anywhere — no matter where it is — when they say … ‘Milwaukee Brewers,’ … that means that team is yours. It belongs to you.” In the case of previous owner Bud Selig, the lines between competing and creating revenue were blurred. Selig said, “There is no professional sports franchise that has made the commitment to work with a governmental entity the way we have. In most cases, it’s ‘Look, you either do this or we’re gone.’ We’re doing more to stay in our area than any other team by far. We wouldn’t be doing it if we didn’t think we could make it, but we need the new stadium to be competitive.”

Competitive sounds like a great word for the field, but a surprisingly honest comment by Selig suggests that the matter was financial competition, rather than fielding a competitive baseball team: “We need a new stadium to maximize revenue. There’s no other place to look [for revenue] in this market. We can be competitive if we get it, but not if we don’t.” While new dwellings for MLB teams were frequently adorned with the spirit of winning, or competing on the field, there is no way around the economic reality that clubs were simply looking to publicly subsidize their operating expenses. That economic reality could not be clearer in 2016, which is why it will be crucial for fans to track additional revenue spending by the Milwaukee front office.

Under the basic tenets of corporate governance, or the legal-moral theory that considers a business’s obligations, one would not expect the Brewers to have any responsibility to disclose organizational spending. First and foremost, from a competitive standpoint, MLB clubs would be placed at a considerable disadvantage if they had to release their spending habits to the public. One would expect MLB clubs to embellish or mislabel such figures, leading any public disclosure to be vague (in order to protect proprietary information). Second, the most vulgar interpretation of ownership’s responsibility would find no issue whatsoever with an MLB club failing to invest their revenue in labor. While it is fun to think about sports teams as civic enterprises, any MLB club is simply a private entertainment enterprise that receives allocations of media revenue thanks to their lucrative monopoly over baseball. In this sense, the actual sport of baseball is about as far removed from the purposes of an MLB organization as one can imagine; as the Braves ownership group recently summarized in surprisingly frank moment, the Braves are now “a fairly major real estate business.” Milwaukee has not yet reached that point, but one should understand that the longer an industry basks in the language of market inefficiencies, the more likely they will be to shift their focus to investing in as many inefficiencies as possible (if one such market inefficiency is publicly funded sports venues, so be it, taxpayers be damned).

The Brewers may not be a fairly major real estate business yet, but they are a fairly major television entertainment enterprise (even as a small marketMLB team), and that outlook defines their profit structure moreso than baseball. So, on some level, why would they ever contend? The Brewers are in the business of selling cable television subscriptions and collecting revenue; that will always be more profitable than winning. Rebuilding simply reifies that logic.

As an analytically inclined baseball fan, it is almost impossible to dislike the implications of finding a “valuable” player. A valuable player, in most instances, will be one that returns production at a greater rate than their cost. Given the scarcity of resources in baseball (i.e., consistently good performances), finding value from players is important on some level. However, as those ideals become further entrenched in the game, sunk into organizational infrastructure, hiring practices, and even training practices (such as hiring economists, businesspeople, and mathematicians with elite backgrounds to run baseball operations), they can become distorted as they become orthodoxy. Finding the greatest possible value in amateur talent, for instance, can result in some anti-competitive behavior to gain draft picks.

In general, the ideal of “stockpiling controllable talent for the future” becomes synonymous with periods of time in which it is acceptable for an MLB team to field a less-than-stellar ballclub. “Rebuilding” and analytical approaches in baseball employ sound statistical arguments and mechanical methodology to shave revenue toward ownership, and away from labor. From an ownership standpoint, both the stunning availability of rebuilding cycles and the recalibration of salaries and production through analysis are arguably the most effective anti-labor tools since collusion. This industry standpoint is problematic where it is anti-competitive, and it is doubly problematic where rebuilding plotlines are played on publicly-funded stages.

Brewers fans will rightfully support rebuilding for several reasons, not the least of which is the most valid reason of hoping to see a Championship banner at Miller Park. But fans should take the unspent $40 million seriously, especially when they are within the geographical area that still faces the annual $28 million tax bill. Residents should also not shy away from their own stake in the organization’s financial and baseball success: if it sounds ridiculous to demand greater financial transparency from the club now, just remember how ridiculous it sounded to most ears to cite VORP or Pitcher Abuse Points a decade ago. The institutional obsession with rebuilding, and all of its logical points, must be redesigned in a manner that squares residents’ investment risks in team infrastructure with the performance goals of the ballclub. Rebuilding as a substitute for just economic arrangements is neither desirable in terms of MLB labor, nor feasible for the public’s interest in maintaining Miller Park as a ground for competitive baseball.

A team shouldn’t try to shape its roster specifically around its home park. While the Brewers do play more games in Milwaukee than in any other single city, they still have to be a competent road team if they wish to succeed, so—obviously—the best way to win is just to build a talented overall team. But ballpark and environmental factors are important, and they can be helpful in building a successful team if utilized correctly.

San Diego is a great (and probably the best) example of this. The Padres have a decent track record of turning mediocre relievers into effective members of their bullpen simply because it is so hard to give up runs in their ballpark. While the Brewers do not enjoy this big of an advantage, Miller Park is a relatively easy place to hit home runs, which does should hypothetically be exploitable with the correct roster construction.

Park factors can take years to stabilize (which is why Baseball Prospectus uses five-year averages in its calculations), but multiple systems agree that Miller Park was the easiest (or among the easiest) ballpark to hit the long ball in 2015. BP, which splits its park factors up by handedness, notes that Milwaukee ranks first (lefties) and seventh (righties) in home-run factor. ESPN ranks Miller Park first in home-run factor as well, and FanGraphs ranks the Brewers fifth. While decoding exactly how (relatively) easy it is to hit a home run in Milwaukee is difficult, the agreement among those methodologies clearly suggests that there is a significant boom in home runs at Miller Park, and the Brewers have to live with that.

The problem with devising a strategy to deal with it, though, is that there are two logically-viable approaches. A front office could decide to either try to counteract the ballpark’s tendencies, or it could steer into the trend. Either method makes some amount of sense; the Brewers can try to acquire marginal players whose talents will be either enhanced or hidden by their ballpark.

Targeting average players is important in this type of strategy because great players will be great regardless of where they play. Taking Jose Bautista out of the hitter-friendly Rogers Centre would only do so much to dampen his numbers. However, as San Diego has proven, veteran relievers at the league minimum can succeed in Petco more than they historically have elsewhere simply because of the park’s dimensions, which makes such players more valuable to the Padres than they are to anyone else.

In Milwaukee’s situation, targeting the specific type of player that Miller Park would benefit is definitely more difficult—relief pitchers are essentially a dime a dozen—although, again, there are two approaches the club could take. They could choose to acquire hitters with marginal power and hope that the ballpark will allow their power to play up a grade, or they could target sluggers who are undervalued for various reasons and hope that their power numbers jump enough to make them more valuable in Milwaukee than they would be anywhere else. It is worth noting, of course, that Chris Carter is probably the ideal candidate for this type of bet.

On the pitching side, the club would have to choose between two similar decisions. They can try to target sinker-slider pitchers who keep the ball on the ground, or they could chase mediocre pitchers with fly-ball problems under the assumption that everyone gives up home runs in Miller Park anyway. Toronto’s acquisition of Marco Estrada is an excellent example of the latter.

I would guess that the path most likely to produce positive outcomes is to target average players whose faults will be hidden by the park—that is, low-power hitters and fly-ball pitchers. First, both will be significantly cheaper than their counterparts, as the Brewers would be moving one direction while everyone else in baseball hunts home runs and strikeouts. Second, positions players without power will have more diverse skill sets (or they wouldn’t have made it to the big leagues in the first place), and adding a few extra home runs to a defensive specialist is more valuable than adding those same home runs to a four-corners type who can’t figure out which fingers to use to close his glove. That player will still be giving back a ton of runs on defense.

Unfortunately for both cheapskates and game theory enthusiasts, this strategy has limited upside. It could be an interesting experiment for David Stearns to try while the Brewers are not a very good team, just to see if there is in fact a way to target an undervalued subset of players that will benefit from being in Miller Park. However, the Brewers won’t be able to compete just by utilizing strategies such as this. Instead, they will have to build a winning team. If all goes well, though, they may be able to augment a talented roster with castoffs that are particularly well-suited to Milwaukee.

When the public funding for Miller Park passed in 1995, projected costs were $250 million for the stadium and $72 million for additional infrastructure, minus $90 million to be provided by the Brewers themselves. I bring this up because these figures are similar to the projected public expenditure for a potential new stadium for the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks: taxpayers are slated to pick up half of the expected $500 million tab on the proposed downtown arena. But “expected” and “projected” are critically important words. Miller Park, in reality, has cost taxpayers far more than the roughly $250 million they were expected to pay, and those costs are continuing to accumulate even today. Throughout the process, the burden has been placed on the backs of Milwaukee taxpayers, even as the Brewers franchise value has climbed to unprecedented heights.

The Legislative Audit Board, the governing body responsible for checking on these sorts of things, hasn’t issued a report on the Miller Park spending since 2002. But by then, it was already apparent the costs were going to be far higher. The LAB’s report found that $413.9 million had been spent on the project through December 2001. And there’s that little thing called interest. Take it away, LAB:

Public investment in building the stadium and operating and maintaining it for a 30-year period is substantial. When the lease expires in 2030, we estimate that all costs, including construction, debt service, administration, and maintenance, will total $1.0 billion.

Of the additional costs, over $300,000,000 is attributable to interest payments on debt — more than what the public was initially supposed to pay in the first place. Here’s the full damage, via the report:

(click to embiggen)

The LAB hasn’t issued a report since, but Milwaukee reporter Bruce Murphy has followed up on this story multiple times, including for Milwaukee Magazine, where he tabulated the costs for the ballpark at $820 million (not including interest, which would take the cost to $1.1 billion). In 2012, for UrbanMilwaukee.com, Murphy calculated the cost of the stadium at $1,585 per household in the five-county area where a 0.1 percent sales tax was levied to pay for the stadium.

About that tax: it kicked in on January 1, 1996 and was slated to run through 2010. The LAB’s first report on Miller Park expenditures in 1999 already predicted the tax sunset wouldn’t come until at least 2014; by March 2002, the Southeast Wisconsin Professional Baseball Park District finally came to the same conclusion. By the time of Murphy’s 2012 UrbanMilwaukee report, the tax sunset had been pushed back to “sometime between 2018 and 2020;” a Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel report from this March came to the same conclusion.

This tax, like all sales taxes, is regressive. It targets the poorest members of the community disproportionately. They are the ones spending the largest percentage of their income on groceries, clothes, and other basics in local stores. The 2002 LAB report stated the park district was collecting $1.7 million per month off the sales tax. By the time of the Journal-Sentinel’s 2014 report, that number was up to $2.4 million. The tax has already been extended by over four years and $100 million more than initially expected. Should the tax last through 2020, we can add another $142 million to that total.

So, at least these taxpayers own the stadium, but it’s hard to tell exactly what that entails. It’s not like they get to hang out there. It’s not like they get free tickets. Basically, they own a gigantic mountain of debt. And by the time its paid off, Miller Park will either be obsolete and we’ll need to start raising cash for a new park before another round of contraction rumors begins. Or maybe the clause which obligates the park district to “keep the stadium’s complex’s quality the same as that of at least 75 percent of all Major League Baseball stadiums” (p. 30 of the LAB report) will kick in and push the tax sunset back another decade.

Bud Selig made $223 million when he sold the Brewers to Mark Attanasio in 2005. He didn’t even buy the Brewers. He spearheaded a group that acquired the Seattle Pilots out of bankruptcy court. There isn’t even a return on investment analysis to be done here. There was no investment. The value of Selig’s franchise rested entirely on the fact that they had homes to play — first County Stadium, the nation’s first publicly funded stadium, and then Miller Park. Meanwhile, the Brewers franchise value has skyrocketed to $875 million by Forbes’s calculations — and again, that value isn’t there without Miller Park and the millions of taxpayer dollars Milwaukee’s citizens, including its poorest, including those who can’t afford Miller Park ticket prices, footing the bill. And they won’t see a cent of it when Attanasio eventually sells the team, nor ever.

We build it. They make the money. And we don’t even get a say. Miller Park funding passed in the state legislature without a vote from the public. It’s unclear if Wisconsin voters will get a voice at all in the new Bucks stadium, but as things stand, it’s up to the state legislature, again.

I don’t know what to do. There isn’t anything to do about Miller Park, and other than supporting organizations like Common Ground, which is the loudest grassroots organization on the issue in the area, I’m not sure what we can do about the Bucks stadium either. But I do know we need to talk about this, because sports media and sports fans are all too happy to be distracted by shiny new buildings and fancy retractable roofs rather than depressing talk about finances and taxes.

We need to talk about this, because as things stand, sports owners don’t just own their teams, they own their cities and their states and the citizens who reside within. All we get is the debt. And that is as un-American as it gets.