This week, the city of San Antonio, Texas, voted to move forward with the November election that will decide the fate of the $1.3 billion arena (and other projects), called Project Marvel. This week, the team contacted every media outlet that it could find to discuss how great this deal was for the city. So residents heard that this deal will create $10 billion in direct spending! Or that it will create $350 million in new taxes for the city! Sounds great. Except, it is all bull****. These numbers come from a CSL International report that the Spurs paid for.
Then last week, the mayor of San Antonio asked for a pause in the arena negotiations. One reason for the pause was the fact that the group who wrote the report, CSL, has a very long history of laughably wrong estimates. It isn’t difficult to see why so many sports teams run to CSL when the team needs a new venue. The Dallas Cowboys and New York Yankees have ownership stakes in CSL. A report for the Washington Commanders in July of this year was put together by CSL. One economist reviewed the report and found that it included “lots of glossy bullshit, but no details on how anything was computed or justification for any of the assumptions that they make.” In Minnesota, CSL decided to inflate the Vikings economic impact by several hundred million. The report was so poorly put together that even commenters picked out parts of the report that made no economic sense. Field of Schemes has taken apart CSL numerous times over its past reports and concludes that “friends don’t let friends read economic impact consulting reports.”
Going back to San Antonio. One independent source that looked at the CSL report and called it “useless”. A local TV station talked to three economics and public affairs professors about the report, and all of them stated that the city “should not rely on it for decision-making.” Others claimed that the report gave “incomplete information” thanks to it missing any market, cost, or risk analysis, nor any look into whether this money would be spent elsewhere. It appears that the most commonly found complaint about the CSL report was how it gave “few details” about how the report was put together, what assumptions were made, and the justifications for decisions made. My preferred response was how the CSL report was “inadequate and insulting to taxpayers.”
A normal person would see all of this and wonder how on earth anyone could move forward on this project. The project’s main source of data has been deemed to be worthless by every independent person. It makes sense that a mayor would see this and want everyone to stop so a reevaluation could be done. But not in today’s world. According to some media outlets, if you question the CSL report, you are deemed to be a “Project Marvel foe” rather than a normal human being who wants the economics to make sense. The San Antonio Current found that the mayor has “little support from council or city staff.” One councilman cried about the mayor “creat(ing) a rift” with local leaders by wanting this pause. Apparently, the mayor wanting an actual independent economic analysis is causing her to “butt heads” with paid-off city leaders. This same councilman admitted in a radio interview this week that the city council STILL doesn’t have an agreed term sheet with the team. The city doesn’t even have a signed document with the team that simply outlines the terms of the deal.
Whatever happened to the transparency that was promised by the Spurs? Even today, the public and most city leaders know very little about this deal. Over the last few years, the team promised transparency and gave none of it. As the San Antonio Report wrote, the public has only been given “years of speculation” about a new arena. Even recently, when city commissioners are asked about Project Marvel, the public gets “few answers about how much these projects could cost or how exactly the city would pay for them.” The San Antonio Express-News wrote a story just a few months ago calling out the Spurs for failing “to be honest about funding for a new…arena.” This lack of any honesty is why local residents feel “bristled” at the lack of any answers on the arena funding scheme. When one commissioner asked a dozen or so residents whether they would support taxpayer money for the new arena, “only one or two” agreed. The rest were against doing this primarily “because of the lack of detail and many unanswered questions about Project Marvel.”
Months later, an opinion piece asked why nobody, including city leaders, was telling the public details about Project Marvel, apart from that it is a good thing for the city. Well, as the article noted, it is hard to say much when nobody in the city administration has run a:
Independent Analysis? No.Actual benefit-cost study? Must have forgotten it.Third-party risk assessment? What assessment?Any fiscal impact report? Who?Any actual framework for public oversight? In reality, none.
So how can city leaders or the team talk in depth about Project Marvel when they have no understanding about the actual risks involved, true economic impact, or true long-term worth? Why on earth is there no data or evidence to prove how successful this project will be? Well, good news because if the city agrees to the Spurs deal, then the “Spurs would provide transparency to voters.” Thank goodness. It makes sense for the public to give the team everything before they are told about the specifics. One reader wrote to the Houston Chronicle and asked why taxpayer money should be spent on the Spurs when they are signing a player to a contract worth $223 million. Good question.
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