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ESTON--"Northern Virginia Is Major League!" That's the slogan of Virginians for Baseball, a volunteer fan club numbering over 12,000 members that's working to bring America's national pastime to the commonwealth.
Later this month, Virginia will get its chance to demonstrate to Major League Baseball's relocation committee that it is ready to join the ranks of big-league states. Yes, after three decades of hoping that MLB would locate a team in the capital area to replace the old Washington Senators, Virginia is a finalist in baseball's World Series of franchise relocation.
MLB is expected to announce by mid-July where the Montreal Expos' new permanent home will be: Northern Virginia, the District of Columbia, or Portland, Ore. No other localities are under consideration. Frankly, we do not believe that Portland is ready to support a major-league team. This time, it's going to be either Virginia or D.C. (Both Virginia and D.C. would use Washington's RFK Stadium on a temporary basis, while the new ballpark is under consideration.)
Thanks to the foresight of Govs. George Allen and Jim Gilmore, and Del. Vince Callahan, Sen. Dick Saslaw, and other strong supporters in the General Assembly, Virginia has prepared carefully for this day since a group led by then Fairfax County Board Chairman (now Congressman) Tom Davis and telecommunications executives Bill Collins and Mark Warner made an unsuccessful Northern Virginia bid for a baseball expansion franchise back in 1994.
A succession of legislation enacted since then established a framework for a responsible public-private partnership to build a new major-league ballpark in Northern Virginia once a franchise award is guaranteed. Under the Virginia model, the team's owners would pay for at least one-third of the cost of building the ballpark--estimated at $300 million in 1997 and now likely to be somewhat higher, depending upon site acquisition and preparation costs.
The remaining two-thirds of ballpark construction would be covered by revenue bonds issued by the Virginia Baseball Stadium Authority. Those bonds will be repaid in part by an admissions tax and from taxes on team salaries and sales generated at the ballpark. Gov. Warner has expressed confidence that additional incremental revenue sources can be identified to complete Virginia's ballpark-financing package--but that baseball will not compete for general-fund revenue needed to pay for education, transportation, health care, or the other essential needs of the commonwealth.
This financing model is, we think, a fiscally responsible way to ensure that the families and businesses of Virginia will enjoy the benefits of major-league baseball for generations to come.
A new round of baseball-park, football-stadium and indoor-arena construction started sweeping the country in the early 1990s. Today, most Major League Baseball, National Football League, National Basketball Association, and National Hockey League teams play in new facilities. Some were built to ensure that treasured local institutions would stay put in their historical locations. Others were constructed, like Virginia's baseball proposal, as a result of an effort to attract a new team through expansion or relocation. Most of these stadiums have been paid for, at least in part, with tax dollars.
Public investment in sports infrastructure in America dates back generations. Storied venues such as Soldier Field in Chicago, the Coliseum in Los Angeles, and the veterans memorial stadiums in Philadelphia and Baltimore (to name only two of many so dedicated) were all built with public funding--most to a greater extent than what we plan for the new Virginia ballpark.
Despite the fact that major-league professional sports teams contribute enormously to cities' and regions' senses of identity and common purpose--and pump many millions of dollars through regional economies and into state and local treasuries--it has become popular in some academic circles to criticize public support for professional stadiums. Whenever a new proposal is made to replace an aging facility or build a new venue to attract a team, a dedicated band of "sports economists" springs into action to demonize public investment.
These academics breathlessly quote each other's arcane economic models and invariably reach the conclusion that the public money involved could be better spent for other purposes.
So as we enter the "ninth inning" of Virginia's decade-long quest for a major-league team, it's to be expected that some Virginia officials and taxpayers would ask why the commonwealth ought to support building a ballpark for the Expos in Northern Virginia.
The answer, perhaps surprisingly, is easy. If Virginia won't make a responsible deal with baseball, the District of Columbia will. And if that happens, hundreds of thousands of Virginians will cross the Potomac every baseball season from now to eternity to spend their Virginia dollars in D.C., instead of Virginia. A recent study by noted George Mason University economist Stephen Fuller estimates that if Virginia loses this competition, Virginia residents will spend over $71 million annually on baseball in D.C that they otherwise would have spent in Virginia.
This "export" of Virginia dollars will, of course, also have revenue consequences for the state. Fuller estimates that over baseball's first 30 years in D.C., Virginia governments will lose over $266 million in revenue to the District.
Del. Callahan, the venerable chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, recently put it this way: "Thousands of Virginians now cross the Potomac to spend millions of Virginia dollars on the Redskins, the Wizards, Capitals, Mystics, and professional soccer. That spending produces tax revenue for the District and Maryland, not Virginia. When it comes to baseball, I think Virginia should do what it can to keep Virginia spending at home and to attract additional spending into Virginia from our neighbors in Washington and Maryland."
I suppose there are people out there who don't care about whether Virginia ever becomes a major-league state (although I haven't met too many since I moved here from Milwaukee six years ago.) There's not much I can say to them. But I know there are others who would love to see the Expos come to Virginia, but sincerely believe on principle that the team should build its own ballpark, without public support.
And to them I say this: If we lived in an ideal world, I would agree with you. But for better or worse, we don't live in that world just now. In our very real world, we have to deal with the real facts of life. And the fact is that if Virginia is not willing to do its part to build a new ballpark, the Expos will play in a new publicly funded stadium in the District of Columbia.
Virginia is now America's 12th-largest state, and the largest state by far that is not home to a major-league team in any professional sport. Come on, Virginia. It's time to "play ball!"
GABE PAUL JR. is executive director of the Virginia Baseball Stadium Authority.