Fresno council inks deal to keep MLB baseball connection with Grizzlies, despite concerns
The move from Triple-A Grizzlies baseball in Fresno to Single-A led to soul searching Thursday as the City Council debated the value of putting more money into the team and its stadium.
The council unanimously approved a new deal that requires at least a $700,000 hit to the city’s general fund, which includes new contributions for utility fees and a reduction in rent coming in from the team.
Major League Baseball informed Fresno and Fresno Grizzlies owners Fresno Sports and Events LLC just before Thanksgiving that they must accept a demotion in baseball teams or lose an MLB connection altogether.
After an extension to the deadline, city officials announced a deal on Wednesday. The approval Thursday codified the deal, which accepted the demotion to Single-A and agreed to new terms.
The city and the team owners signed a 10-year contract. MLB agreed to do its best to stick around through 2036.
Councilmember Nelson Esparza said the most important part of the deal was keeping a team in town, saying the economic implications are important in downtown.
“The economics of a Single-A team are obviously very different from Triple-A and that’s reflected in this deal,” Esparza said. “But this was the hand dealt to us by MLB. At the end of the day, these are still our Fresno Grizzlies and I think the Valley will continue to support them.”
The latest agreement is just the latest change that ended with more taxpayer money going to the team. There’s still about $30 million left on the bond to build the stadium, which the city covers with a refinanced $3.1 million-per-year on the 30-year debt.
While announcing the terms of the deal during a news conference on Wednesday, Councilmember Miguel Arias said when it’s all said and done, the stadium will have cost taxpayers more than $50 million between the costs to build it and the subsidization to run it.
“Simply put, the baseball stadium was oversold, over-hyped and overbuilt,” he said on Wednesday.
The council that approved the stadium in 2000 and the investors behind it sold the park as a “golden ticket” that would bring investment to downtown while ignoring the need for the infrastructure, Arias said.
Councilmember Garry Bredefeld said the arguments against the stadium were shortsighted in 2000 when he supported it and they are still shortsighted.
He said the stadium was behind other investment in downtown, pointing to private and public investments from Bitwise, UCSF, Haron Jaguar, Fresno Fire Department Headquarters, Fulton Street and several other examples.
“The stadium has been a complete success. Everything we thought it would be,” he said. “We should have built it and Fresno citizens are better off for it.”
Bredefeld also pointed to 459 housing units that have gone up in downtown since the stadium went up in 2003, including the Van Ness Cottages, Iron Bird Lofts and Fulton Village, to name a few.
Arias said Thursday the stadium was part of what brought interest to downtown, but the real draw is sidewalks, streets, parks and other infrastructure that creates a neighborhood.
Though he ultimately supported the new deal, Arias said he was hesitant to give it his vote because the stadium doesn’t get the same treatment as the city’s lack of parks and infrastructure.
“Just the way we are champions for baseball in downtown Fresno, we got to be a champion for parks in west Fresno or a community center in central Fresno,” he said.
Assemblymember Jim Patterson, R-Fresno, was mayor back in 2000 and vetoed the plan for the stadium. It got the five votes it needed from the council to override his veto.
Arias said Patterson “was right and he tried to warn us.”
Patterson had supported a stadium that was half the price, but could be expanded if necessary. He said Thursday he’s past pointing fingers, saying the council had no choice but to ink a deal to keep baseball in town rather than have an empty stadium.
“My message to people of Fresno is support it,” he said. “Go out of our way to have some civic pride. It has to have a ball team. It has to have some success.”
Action plan and details
The new deal requires 60 days to design an action plan. After that the city will be allowed to use the stadium on any day that is not already scheduled for baseball.
Councilmember Luis Chavez said he thinks the city should do a better job of quantifying the interest the stadium drives and explaining the value to the public.
The city’s new contract with the Grizzlies calls for a reduction in annual stadium rent from $500,000 to $100,000. The city will cover the first $300,000 worth of utilities, with the Grizzlies responsible for any amount above that. The team covered all of that before.
Councilmember Esmeralda Soria said the stadium brings a value that isn’t quantified strictly by ticket sales.
“It’s just a reminder that parks and entertainment venues we want in our community require subsidies,” she said. “Places like the stadium, like parks, aren’t moneymakers, directly.”
This story was originally published December 10, 2020 at 4:00 PM.
