State of Wisconsin Approves Brewers Stadium Repair Bill

After nearly a year of political posturing (I first wrote about this last March), draft revisions, and lobbying, Governor Tony Evers signed into law a bill that provides the Brewers with half a billion dollars in government funding to perform much needed repairs on American Family Field.  Just about every major mechanical and electrical apparatus in AmFam Field is either obsolete or nearing the end of its functional life, so while this law is certainly not financing anything sexy that the public will notice, the maintenance is long overdue.  What started out as Evers just saying "hey, we have an enormous budget surplus, let's just give the Brewers a small portion of that," turned into a huge mess with people from every side walking in with their hands out and offering their own pork to throw into the bill.  The final details of the approved bill are as follows:

• $365.8M in state funds, which would primarily be financed by both visiting and Brewers player income taxes
• $135M combined from Milwaukee and Milwaukee County.  It's worth noting that both the city and the county were finally allowed to raise their own sales taxes on January 1st to save themselves from financial ruin, and now are required to immediately give some of that new money to the Brewers.
• $110M from the Brewers
• $2 ticket surcharge and $8 suite surcharge added to non-baseball events at American Family Field, which incrementally increase to $4 and $10 respectively, to help defray the cost of the state contribution.  This surcharge is estimated to provide about $20.7M over the course of their lease.  Once the state's funding has been completed, the surcharge would still continue in perpetuity, and its proceeds would transfer to the state's general fund rather than the ballpark district's fund.
• In exchange for the funding, the Brewers agreed to extend their lease to 2050, during which time the government funds would be made to the team in annual payments
• The Southeast Wisconsin Professional Baseball Park District - the independent body that oversees financing and management of the ballpark - would expand to 13 members - 4 appointed by governor, 3 by senate, 3 by assembly, 2 by Milwaukee city/county, and 1 by the Brewers.
• The Brewers current lease vaguely requires that the ballpark district pay for capital improvements to American Family Field that keep it within the top 25% of Major League Baseball parks.  That provision remains in the new lease.
• The bill includes $25M rolled into the state financing portion to perform a study on what it would take to winterize the ballpark for off-season events.  Anyone who has been to American Family Field in the winter knows that the ballpark is not currently insulated, nor is it tempered in any way when there is no game or event.
• Any cost overruns from initial estimates, and any sort of non-repair or non-maintenance related ballpark upgrade (like the new $6.5M scoreboard), would fall to the Brewers/district

The most interesting thing about this whole process to me is that both the ballpark district and the state allowed the 0.1% 5-county sales tax to sunset in 2020 because the mortgage was paid off on the original construction, knowing full well that the district was legally obligated to finance any future repairs to the stadium.  Now here we are 3 years later, and what a surprise the district is out of money because a tax that generated over $600M in 24 years is now gone.  It seems to me that keeping that miniscule tax in place - one that was contentious 30 years ago but now is mostly forgotten - would have not solved this problem necessarily, but made it gravely less complicated and burdensome to taxpayers.

I won't rehash what I've already written and spoken about ad nauseum regarding subsidizing professional sports facilities.  One person can argue that billionaires don't need handouts and the Brewers are just blackmailing the state, and another person could argue that keeping $2.5B in economic output, 3,000 jobs, and $630M in player income taxes in the state is a good thing no matter the cost, and both of those people would be right.  There's no great answer that pleases everyone and this is a topic that equally divides both Democrats and Republicans.  But I would be lying if I said I'm not glad that the thing I care most about in this world outside of my family and friends will have a wonderful place to call home until I am at least well into my 60s - in Milwaukee where they should be.