he’s 75 years old. Dems might run him for President next

He’s going to lose the primary badly, so it doesn’t matter

He might be the least popular governor I’ve ever seen, so his chances weren’t great to begin with. Gina Raimondo was our last governor and while she wasn’t liked by everyone either, at least her own party tolerated her.

I don’t know a single person that likes McKee, and he’s lucky the RI Republican Party has less than a quarter of the competency the national Democratic Party does.

Didn’t Kurt shilling get Rhode Island to pay him 70m to try and make a video game?

Last year they had an average attendance of 8900, which I guess it’s not too bad considering the full capacity is 10500

Well it’s 8% per year for like a decade, so yeah the public taxpayer in RI will pay about that $120M long term, but the actual building cost of the stadium was much less. That’s how these stadium/arena deals using public money go.

Someone on the other side of the bonds is making good money, safely too bc it’s municipal bonds backed by a guarantor, and the owners of the team using the stadium see massive returns too in terms of franchise value, and typically little of all this revenue goes back in the local taxpayer’s pocket or the local community. It’s a fucking racket.

They can’t, that’s the point, and also why they won’t open their books. Idk what exactly, but something sketchy def going down there

The original plan was for that \(120m to go towards housing and development of the immediate area surrounding the stadium and the stadium was going to be privately funded. Covid came and kneecapped the private funding so RIFC pivoted and said they need to use the whole \)120m for the stadium.

They can’t, that’s why it’s so scandalous. The funds were supposed to be for housing and got redirected.

If you’ve ever been to Providence, it feels like a remote town that’s mobbed up, controlled by an unseen presence. It’s spooky.

This is not meant to defend investors in this project or the issue of buying stadiums for billionaires, but I don’t think every single project has to make its money back. It’s an amenity, it provides a public benefit of Rhode Island getting a pro soccer team and having a nice mid sized multipurpose stadium. In the long term it probably makes some or most of its money back and that’s fine enough.

Very different is say like Portland where a long established team is being hijacked and demanding the city pay a gargantuan sum as well as literally warp their laws around them.

Hey now, the only thing Kawhi cares about more than planting tree is affordable housing in Rhode Island.

Hey now, the only thing Kawhi cares about more than planting tree is affordable housing in Rhode Island.

While I do agree building affordable housing is important (new apartment complex in Pawtucket about a mile from the stadium has 2b2ba at $2700 🫠), Pawtucket was definitely due for some more industry, especially after the Red Sox AAA affiliate left town. I think some short term hurt for long term gain is probably worth it.

Now, the management of RIFC is a different story, but that’s for discussion in r/RIFC

It makes sense of you are trying to protect yourself from litigation or convince your other investors that you will protect their privacy.

Pablo reminding us what real journalism looks like.

We have allowed the billionaire class to muzzle journalistic truth and were are suffering as a society because of it

so the whole “we don’t disclose investors unless they want us to” doesn’t really make sense

Especially since they did tweet the fact that Daniel Theis is an investor.

https://youtu.be/k7yjAxUqmTg?t=3069

Yes but I think the request is to open the cap table to figure out who got what shares, at what price and who paid. Which is exactly what we’d need to figure out if this was another side deal.

It was really the timing of the question, tracking down Johnson, doing an ‘ambush’ style question which he was totally unprepared for while being professional amd non-confrontational. Getting Johnson to admit something that, if he had time to think about, would probably never admit (he would have given the “we don’t disclose investors line).

In short, really, really good reporting.

Board Member man gets paid

Robo Chef

Rumour in Toronto was he asked for a small percentage of mlse (owns the raptors and leafs, prints money) and they laughed at him. He never was going to stay unless we gave him double or triple what he got in la. Mlse was the wrong organization to barter with. 

Kawhi has a massive stockpile of stolen Star Wars Lego sets.

that he owns Bricks & Minifigs

It’s gotta be healthcare, right?

Well if the second thing they’ve investigated is something different, Pablo won’t rest until he finds out what that is too

it’s really not that hard. you just need to make a post like Kevin Durant did spinning a soccer ball on your finger or whatever. “Let’s get it @GothamFC” was all he said 

Part of me wonders if Silver is in no hurry to “solve” this problem because he knows other owners are doing something similar in circumventing the cap.

Ballmer cannot sue the NBA.
The entire review, appeal, & punishment process has been collectively bargained.

Any time a player or team has attempted to sue a sports league in open court about a punishment issued, it has quickly been dismissed.

This literally just came out. It might warrant an entirely new investigation of Kawhi, or just a long extension of the current one.

Perhaps even, something like a X% equity that became a Y% smaller when Kawhi’s team got Y% mysteriously?

There isn’t really anything here YET to investigate. It’s lame that Wachtell didn’t figure this out since there exists no possible world that Pablo did this episode without there being more links he can continue to report and learn about. People can give the benefit of the doubt to Ballmer and Kawhi, but I believe that Pablo has/is going to get more information.

More billable hours, so might as well investigate this too. They would also look incompetent if they didn’t.

B/c Balmer or Balmer affiliated entities are investors too is my best guess.

Kawhi Leonard asking teams for an ownership stake to sign without the them and then somehow secretly getting an unpublicized ownership stake in a team Rhode Island FC alongside his agent and Uncle Dennis seems at least somewhat relevant, when the RIFC owner and RI governor are going to watch Clippers games in seats owned by Visit Rwanda the Clippers replacement sponsor after Aspiration?

bingo