Atlanta Braves Rejected in Naples for Spring; Wither Sarasota?

Southwest Florida will not be getting any Spring team anywhere in the foreseeable future after voting to drive a spike through the idea of working with the Braves.

Yesterday, we noted that Collier County Florida would be taking up the subject of whether to consider going further with a proposal to construct a new Spring Training facility to host the Atlanta Braves.

Today we have the answer.

The Braves swung and missed:

"Commissioners voted unanimously Tuesday to end negotiations with the team, which has been looking for a new facility and threatening to leave its site in Orlando for more than a year."

To continue the sports metaphor for a moment, this game was over after the first inning, it seems.

Despite a personal plea from Braves Vice Chairman John Schuerholz – who is a resident of the area – local commissioners flatly rejected the idea of bringing the Braves into the area, with arguments that literally ran the gamut of the political discourse surrounding such ventures.

Widespread Skepticism

"“This is not against sports tourism,” Collier County Commissioner Andy Solis said, adding he would keep an “open mind.”"

I would have to disagree with this comment. The vote by commissioners today was, in fact, entirely about sports tourism. In fact, I believe it is safe to say that no other sports enterprise will make any attempt to involve Collier County in their plans in the near future.

Why is that? Several definitive reasons came out today:

First and foremost: a unanimous vote to end all discussions with Atlanta. The Braves needed 3 votes out of 5 today to continue. They would have needed a fourth vote at some point in the future, had this gone further down the road. That’s clearly not going to happen.
Despite economic impact studies, the commissioners made statements rejecting the idea that a Braves’ presence could lead to a positive growth opportunity in the area.
What’s odd here is that they already have experience from other localities effectively proving that Collier’s investment could be paid back in full after 4-5 years and then be a net positive gain for the community thereafter. Yet this study – commissioned by Collier County – fell on deaf ears.
Instead, Commissioners spoke of beach replenishment needs and road/infrastructure projects as better projects for the tourism tax increases that would fund the bonds necessary for facility construction… though no actions have been taken to do these projects (never mind that they do not generate revenue).

Two commissioners seemed overly focused on the thought that the Braves might actually make money on the project themselves:

"“There are a lot of publications out there that show this could be nothing more than taxpayers subsidizing a professional team that would make a tremendous amount of money from this,” said Commissioner Penny Taylor.“It says right here the team almost always retains all revenue streams from facility operations,” Commission Chairwoman Donna Fiala said. “So that means we get to pay for the facility, and they get to keep the revenue generated from it. That doesn’t hit me right.”"

More from Tomahawk Take

Those views ignore the money-making part that the county would have enjoyed.

The Braves would earn a profit for selling tickets, parking, and concessions – true.

However, there are a lot of expenses for running a Spring operation… or instructional leagues… or a GCL team and there’s a huge difference between ‘revenue’ and ‘profit’.

There’s a cost to doing business, and I expect that Atlanta would be doing well to make even a modest profit from such a venture. But even that’s not robbing from Collier to do so… far from it.

Again, Collier’s own study concluded that there are multiple examples of annual revenue streams in the $20-25 million range that would result from such an endeavor… which would then generate enough money for any ancillary project that the County would wish to fund.

But that won’t happen in Southwest Florida.

Now What?

At this point, the only locales still entertaining the idea of hosting Atlanta are Sarasota and Palm Beach counties… the former being the definite front-runner since Sarasota County has indeed already passed the hurdle of a similar ‘go/no-go’ vote earlier in the year.

Thus, newly minted Hall of Famer John Schuerholz will take his presentation and negotiation skills a bit further up I-75 to see if he can convince Sarasota to move forward with the North Point development proposal already on the table.

Next: Looking Good or Looking Dank?

Unfortunately, it won’t be the short commute from home that he was hoping for.

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