Knoxville Baseball Stadium Is a Done Deal
[This is yet another letter not published by the Knoxville News Sentinel. It was sent to them on 11 May 2021. As I note below, the News Sentinel and other local media outlets seem to be heavily flacking the stadium project and so of course they are presenting little or nothing in the way of opposition opinion.]
Of course the baseball stadium is a done deal. In 2016, Mr. Boyd denied that he was planning to move the Smokies, but developments since then show that the publicly funded building of a stadium for him was in the works all along.
Jason Zachary implied this recently, saying that Boyd had worked with community leaders for years to “relocate the team to Knoxville as a tenant of a new sports and entertainment complex” at a Boyd-owned site. Zachary said that Knox County and Knoxville city officials were in favor. Now we hear that the support of community activist groups is being solicited, with promises of favorable considerations in the associated privately funded development.
Zachary asserted that the stadium would not lead to higher taxes for taxpayers. Well, due to (1) the realization that the tax base of the stadium complex district would not generate enough taxes to pay for the stadium and (2) the reluctance of state officials to create an even bigger tax district, the state decided to goose the project along by giving the new sports authority upfront “the same amount of money the expanded tax district was projected to generate over 30 years”, some $13.5 million dollars. Either that money was drawn from other, possibly worthier programs or Tennessee taxpayers are in fact paying more tax. Also, since that is state rather than local money, the state is disfavoring Sevier County taxpayers and favoring Knox County taxpayers.
State, county, and local officials, local TV stations, and the News Sentinel are flacking the stadium, claiming that it will be a community events center where, e.g., soccer games, concerts, and “sleepovers” could be held. But there seem to be plenty of existing venues for these activities. So the stadium is really a solution in search of a problem.
