A couple years ago FC Cincinnati emerged fully formed onto the local sports scene. FC had a lot of things going for it. Soccer is fun to watch because there are no interminable commercial breaks. They play at Nippert Stadium, which is a beautiful venue to consume sports and beer. And they were immediately competitive in their league because they were willing to spend more on talent than a lot of their minor league counterparts. These things helped them cultivate a sizable and vocal local fan base that attend their matches in droves (average attendance at Nippert last year was a little over 21,000), which in turn attracted the attention of the MLS, the top soccer league in America. Attracting the MLS has been the plan for FC Cincy all along. Much like Minnesota United’s new team, part of their MLS plan has been getting a new stadium subsidized by public money (St. Paul and Minnesota are giving their team upwards of $90 million in public money!). Minnesota is not the only team to get public funding for a private enterprise. The MLS and all professional sports in America have a long history of shaking down cities and regions for extravagant amounts of money (Hello Bengals and Reds).
FC Cincinnati and their MLS designs are owned by a group of Cincinnati aristocrats, most notably, the Lindners, but also David Thompson, Jeff Berding, Scott Farmer, and others. The Lindners and their chums are only about one thing, accumulating wealth. FC Cincy might be partly a passion project for them, although I have my doubts, but it’s still first and foremost a money-making endeavor. When the ownership group gets what they want out of the team, i.e. a new stadium and MLS entry, they’ll have achieved their goal. Once they’ve achieved their goal, which is hoovering up as much money as possible from owning the team (mostly through possessing a shiny new stadium that inflates the franchise value if they ever choose to sell the team), they’ll stop spending on good players, the team will stop being competitive because of lack of talent, fans will lose interest and stop buying tickets, and then the ownership group will falsely claim that owning the team is untenable since they are losing money (because no one goes to the matches anymore because they stopped spending on talent), and will be forced to sell the team (conveniently glossing over that it’ll be worth a lot more in the sale after they have a shiny new stadium and MLS membership than when they started in the minors at Nippert). The city will have another stadium they don’t need. And the taxpayers will be left holding the bag, again. This passage is from an article on deadspin,
“In 1996, Jeff Berding, now the president and GM of FC Cincinnati, led a campaign for a half-percent sales tax increase to pay for two new stadiums: Great American Ballpark for the Reds and Paul Brown Stadium for the Bengals. Now, it’s largely considered the worst stadium deal in American history. In 2010, Paul Brown Stadium costs took up 16.4 percent of Hamilton County’s general budget. In 2015, the county, per lease terms, had to fork over $7.5 million for a $10 million scoreboard upgrade.” The Lindners already played this shit with the Reds. They think everyone forgot how dirty they did the city back then by getting a new stadium, not spending enough to make the Reds competitive, and then selling the team for a giant profit.
Back in March, I was heartened to see that the West End rejected the deal Jeff Berding and FC were trying to make to build their stadium in their neighborhood. That deal was then revived after career ladder climber PG Sittenfeld’s support flipped the City Council vote from a no to a yes. Last week the West Side Community Council got strong armed by their backroom dealmaking president, Keith Blake, to ratify a new CBA agreement, one that will "help" the community. Unfortunately the sort of “economic development” that would come along with a stadium is not the kind that will actually raise up the West End. It is the kind that pushes out generations of people that have lived there and should continue to be able to live there in favor of rich people playground bullshit. People in the West End won’t benefit from having a stadium. Stadiums don’t revitalize neighborhoods. They don’t create jobs for the existing community. They’re a boon for corporations and upscale housing developers. They pull the roots out and don’t plant anything to replace it. Jeff Berding is a blight on Cincinnati.
Here is what FC so magnanimously laid out for the West End in the finalized Community Benefits Agreement (in exchange for city funding and a stadium site, as well as not having to pay sales tax on building materials or other property taxes through another crooked deal they are pushing through the Greater Cincinnati Redevelopment Authority (formerly the Port Authority). The West End will receive:
- The team will pay $100,000 annually for 30 years to West End organizations.
- The team will transfer options it holds on West End land to the redevelopment authority to build "affordable mixed-income market-rate housing."
- Prevailing wages will be paid to stadium construction workers.
- For construction, the team will commit to hiring 25 percent minority-owned businesses, 7 percent women-owned businesses and 30 percent small businesses.
- West End businesses will be preferred for any contract.
- The team will work to give those in low-income areas, including the West End, the first chance at jobs, including those with criminal records.
- The team will consult with the community to provide protections in regards to parking, stadium design, security, beautification and the creation of a complaint process.
- A $20,000 entrepreneurship program at Mortar, a minority-owned business development service based in Over-the-Rhine, will be offered to West End residents.
- A scholarship program will be established for students at West End Schools.
- A West End Athletic Association will be formed to promote athletics in the neighborhood.
The Lindners push for a stadium and to be bumped up to the MLS is not about civic pride or soccer. It’s about raising the valuation of the team so that the people that own it can become richer. Building them a stadium would be a state and city funded handout to people who have more money than god. Let them fund and build their own goddamn stadium on a floating barge in the river if they want one so bad. And on that note, Cranley and the city constantly cry poor when needing to fund critical services for the working class of our city. But when it comes to helping out his big money donors he’s got a gazillion dollars squirreled away in a rainy day fund to shower upon them. Fuck Cranley, fuck FC, fuck Berding, and fuck a new publicly funded stadium in the West End.
