It’s sad to think. In a Post op-ed, Bowser (D) outlined the investment that the city has made since 1997 in the Capital One Arena, where the teams play. Millions of dollars in tax abatements, and $50 million for building upgrades in 2007. Also, $65 million to build and fund most of a practice facility and home court for the WNBA’s Washington Mystics. The District even put $500 million in public financing on the table to keep the teams in town.
But Leonsis walked out the door anyway. He wanted something that is beyond the District’s capacity to give — a sports and entertainment juggernaut. Achieving that vision requires land. The kind of space found across the river in Potomac Yards in Alexandria that will yield not only an enlarged, glitzy new arena with practice facilities, but also hotels, entertainment and office spaces. D.C. couldn’t touch that.
If the Virginia legislature blesses the handshake agreement between Leonsis and Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R), Leonsis and Monumental’s 5 percent investor — the Qatari sovereign wealth fund, controlled by the Hamas-backing Qatari royal family — will become the envy of the sports and entertainment world.
All is not lost. Leonsis’s departure allows the city to keep that $500 million and turn its attention to exploring new ideas for building downtown D.C. into a great urban destination. Should Monumental be successful in ending its Capital One lease — the city says it requires the Wizards and Capitals to play through 2047, Monumental says it has an option to end by 2027 — the District will nonetheless own the land. Can it come up with something more enduring and better?
Chalk up the Leonsis experience to lessons learned. The city should have known better, it’s fair to say. Leonsis is not the first Washington sports owner to cut and run to greener pastures.
In 1961, Washington’s Major League Baseball team moved to fan-hungry Minneapolis-St. Paul. The Washington Senators expansion team showed up in 1961 but split town for deeper-pocketed Dallas in 1972.
The Washington football team, whose former name must go unspoken, played at RFK Stadium for 36 years before moving to a more promising Landover, Md., location in 1997.
Which gets us to the matter of that National Football League team.
Around this time last year, the NFL acknowledged that a move from the Commanders’ FedEx site was under consideration, although then-owner Daniel Snyder had not agreed to sell the team. An NFL spokesman said then, “The league and Mayor Bowser agree that Washington, D.C., should be at the table when a new site is considered. We will continue to work with the mayor’s office, the Commanders and Congress to that end — just like we are in contact with local officials in Maryland and Virginia as they review site and stadium options.”
Since then, Snyder, who bought the team for $800 million in 1999, sold to a group led by Josh Harris for $6.05 billion, reportedly a record sum for U.S. sports franchise.
Harris says he is moving forward with plans for a new Commanders stadium and has identified possible sites in Maryland, Virginia and the District.
An equally important question, considering the Leonsis experience: Has D.C. decided whether it even wants the Commanders?
Bowser has made clear that she wants the team to return to D.C. She’s hardly alone. But does she speak for all?
The Washington professional football team has been gone from the city for nearly 30 years. Our books are balanced. By all measures, Washington has gotten along rather well without an NFL franchise.
What will a returned team bring? Certainly not pride or memories of past glories. A TV screen and sports pages deliver that.
Snyder wanted a new D.C.-financed RFK complex infrastructure on which he would build a moat-surrounded stadium and a sprawling commercial and entertainment district, fulfilling his dream of a cash cow on the banks of the Anacostia.
That’s fair. Bidness is bidness.
But besides the Commanders owners providing sky boxes, free tickets and parking privileges for city lawmakers and VIPs, and benevolent, tax-deductible projects and activities for youth and selected community groups, what’s in it for the hard-pressed D.C. taxpayer?
What does the District get in return — in terms of substantial public revenue — for having the Commanders play on D.C. turf?
That is the only pertinent question whose burden of which it is Harris’s to answer.
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