Public Venue? City Gives Stadium Revenues, Naming Rights to MLS Soccer Team

Public Venue? Buddy Dyer and City of Orlando give soccer stadium revenues and naming rights to privately owned MLS team.

As an update to the corporate welfare giveaway in Orlando: The City of Orlando finalized a deal that gives 100% of the naming rights revenue of the new soccer stadium being built to the Orlando Major League Soccer team. In the agreement brokered by Mayor Buddy Dyer, the City gave up revenue from advertising, naming rights and stadium concessions along with the intellectual property rights of the “public” stadium.

The agreement with the soccer team also permits “exploiting such Stadium Intellectual Property for the purpose of generating revenue, including, but not limited to creating and offering products and sponsorships that incorporate the Stadium Intellectual Property (‘Commercial Purposes’).”

So this “public venue” sure is generating a lot of private profit. One would think the City could have used revenue from a “public” stadium to re-invest in Parramore where the stadium is being built, perhaps. Or that these “public” stadium revenues could have helped close the City’s budget deficit.

But no, the “public” stadium revenues and naming rights will go into the pockets of the millionaire team owners instead. And now it is official.

Chris says:

February 25, 2014 at 2:05 pm

Why would the city not attempt to recover at least a portion of the construction costs before giving away these revenues to a team that just got a free stadium?

Darren Crampton says:

March 3, 2014 at 4:19 pm

Mike Cantone, first you should look into how much money the City is paying for the Stadium as opposed to the tenant. Orlando City Soccer is putting more money in than the City for a venue that the team won’t own. The city makes money from “renting” the stadium. If a business rents any other property they don’t make money on what the tenant does with the property. Imagine asking a restaurant to give you 10% of their food sales. The City also makes money off of taxes. Money generated from people attending the game or working the games (ticket sales, hotel rooms etc.) This also generates more income and jobs for our town which in turn generates taxes for the city. If you want to focus on a poor financial decision for the community you should look at the Citrus Bowl. The city dumped 201 million out of the 207 million to build it for a handful of events a year. The tenant rents the facility for $800,000 a year. If you look into the venues you will find the Soccer stadium was a sweetheart deal for the city. Tell me if you can find another sports venue that gave the city a better deal than this soccer stadium. I think it would be an interesting article to see a comparison of all the venues in Florida, the estimated financial impact they will generate and what the team versus the government invested into the venues. Last, lets not forget the owners are dumping $40-50 million just to get the franchise for Orlando.

Mike Cantone says:

March 3, 2014 at 4:24 pm

Darren, nice try but the team owners are paying the large franchise fee because they are the only ones who will benefit from that franchise for as long as the MLS exists. The City gets nothing from the franchise. Read the deal the City of Orlando signed, they are giving the revenues from sales back to the team, and the Soccer Team is currently lobbying Tallahassee for sales tax rebates, meaning they are trying to get to keep all the tax from the stadium.

Also, for real economic and academic reports on these stadium gambits, check here: http://ilikemike.me/every-academic-report-orlandos-latest-stadium-gambit-makes-no-economic-sense/

The reality is clear. This is the sweetheart deal the soccer team could not get in Austin, but could get out of Dyer and Jacobs with a huge corporate giveaway.

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