tk13
10-27-2004, 01:19 AM
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/sports/10022706.htm
Penalty for Chiefs or Royals leaving? Megabucks
JEFFREY FLANAGAN
The one falsehood we hear the most about the Royals and the Chiefs and their lease with the Jackson County Sports Authority is this: that David Glass or Lamar Hunt can just one day pick up their team and trot it off to another city without a penalty.
Not going to happen.
The leases run through 2015 for both teams. If one of the teams decided today that it would leave, it would have to pay a sizeable penalty based on the estimated annual economic losses to the greater Kansas City area for the remainder of the years in the lease.
Translation: Megabucks.
“There have been numerous studies on the economic value of these teams to the community,” said Jack Holland, legal adviser to the Sports Authority, “and it's safe to say that the losses would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. That would be the penalty for either team breaking the lease: Hundreds of millions of dollars.”
That's a pretty strong deterrent, friends. And don't assume that either Los Angeles or Charlotte is all that interested in picking up a tab of, say, half a billion dollars just to get the Chiefs or Royals.
Now, there is one way out for either team when it comes to the lease: the state-of-the-art clause. If the Royals or Chiefs challenged the lease on the basis that the stadiums were no longer state of the art, and a court of law agreed (a possibility), the Royals or Chiefs would not have to pay the economic damage penalty if they wanted to leave.
That's where the bistate proposal on the ballot next week comes in. Not that Glass or Hunt has ever openly threatened to move their team, but approval of bistate tax would rework the state-of-the-art clause and extend the lease to 2029.
“It would basically eliminate the state-of-the-art clause,” Holland said. “It would eliminate that risk.”
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Penalty for Chiefs or Royals leaving? Megabucks
JEFFREY FLANAGAN
The one falsehood we hear the most about the Royals and the Chiefs and their lease with the Jackson County Sports Authority is this: that David Glass or Lamar Hunt can just one day pick up their team and trot it off to another city without a penalty.
Not going to happen.
The leases run through 2015 for both teams. If one of the teams decided today that it would leave, it would have to pay a sizeable penalty based on the estimated annual economic losses to the greater Kansas City area for the remainder of the years in the lease.
Translation: Megabucks.
“There have been numerous studies on the economic value of these teams to the community,” said Jack Holland, legal adviser to the Sports Authority, “and it's safe to say that the losses would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. That would be the penalty for either team breaking the lease: Hundreds of millions of dollars.”
That's a pretty strong deterrent, friends. And don't assume that either Los Angeles or Charlotte is all that interested in picking up a tab of, say, half a billion dollars just to get the Chiefs or Royals.
Now, there is one way out for either team when it comes to the lease: the state-of-the-art clause. If the Royals or Chiefs challenged the lease on the basis that the stadiums were no longer state of the art, and a court of law agreed (a possibility), the Royals or Chiefs would not have to pay the economic damage penalty if they wanted to leave.
That's where the bistate proposal on the ballot next week comes in. Not that Glass or Hunt has ever openly threatened to move their team, but approval of bistate tax would rework the state-of-the-art clause and extend the lease to 2029.
“It would basically eliminate the state-of-the-art clause,” Holland said. “It would eliminate that risk.”
***