That’s the fun part: they don’t.

i wonder what exactly would influence a city council member to vote yes to such a thing. surely there are no undisclosed benefits to fucking over your constituents

That sweet sweet debt service cash flow baby

Hell yeah, flock to the arena so they can arena to the Flock

Be thankful you’re not in states like Oklahoma or Mississippi.

That’s only the county’s portion. The city’s portion would be covered by bonds. 

you can’t use those funds for upgrades to Electricity or Public Schools

That’s just plain stupid and exactly what I expected

A state law that allows local governments to collect a tourism tax but not use any of that money on core services sounds like it’s a corrupt incentive to let sports team owners steal public money from taxpayers.

The grid can only be upgraded so much while still being independent from the 2 main connections in the country. Texas will still be susceptible to state wide blackouts

I’m assuming Austin. They’ve been playing a few games there for the past 4-5 years.

austin

Yes they did. In fact 73% of the people that showed up were “city” voters so yes they did.

Man, the mayor would be absolutely thrilled to see her misinformation campaign work on people who read one article.

The mayor’s argument doesn’t even make sense.

She’s basically saying, “The city has a \(158M deficit, therefore we need another referendum on the Spurs’ \)489M.” But those are two completely separate issues. The city’s own council members have pointed out that the proposed arena contribution has no impact on the current FY2027 budget deficit.

And again, nobody is claiming Prop B literally said “San Antonio voters hereby approve \(489M.” Prop B was the **\)311M county contribution**. But the $489M city contribution was already publicly part of the overall financing package when voters went to the polls, and the city had already approved the term sheet laying out that structure. Let me repeat CITY COUNCIL had already voted for that in August 2025 to be the contribution. That was months before the vote last November. The mayor, who dislikes this deal and was super annoyed when that term sheet was passed by city council over her objection, has now tried to stop that deal by pushing it to voters when again council has already voted for it. She was upset about the term sheet passing and later was upset about Prop B passing, calling for referendum was her last big chance to get this deal and rip it up.

So you can absolutely argue that the city should have held a separate referendum. That’s a perfectly reasonable position. But saying “they approved \(311M and then secretly found another \)489M” is just not what happened.

And the deficit doesn’t somehow turn the \(489M into \)489M of unrestricted cash that can be thrown at the budget. The financing is tied to the arena/development project and specific revenue streams. In fact, a big chunk is expected to be financed through that Project Finance Zone where the spurs will be paying the city back in lease payments and property taxes. They’re the only company to be paying into that PFZ tax.

So we’re really arguing about whether you like the deal, not whether the city secretly pulled $489M out of the couch cushions after the election.
And yeah, San Antonio negotiates economic-development packages with companies all the time without putting each one on a citywide ballot. That’s literally what City Council does. The Spurs deal being much bigger doesn’t magically change the process.

You read one article. Read the term sheet next lol.

It’s just Bexar County.

The county funding of \(311 million is coming from an increase in taxes on hotel occupancy and rental cars.  The city funding of \)489 million is still going to happen it just won’t face a public referendum because of the city council vote.

In essence, the city council is treating the county referendum as a mandate from the city.

Covid wildly fucked up supply chains and made everything much more expensive.

Then the dipshit president enacted illegal tariffs which wildly fucked up supply chains and made everything more expensive.

Then the dipshit president president started a war with Iran which also wildly fucked up supply chains and acted as a multiplier that made everything more expensive.

Add in kickbacks, greed, and inflation and that’s how 100mil costs turned into 1bil costs

Unfortunately, I think that’s just the natural inflation of costs for buildings of this scale and scope now.

When high-tech venues like SoFi, Intuit, Chase Center, etc… become the standard everyone wants to match, that adds up too in terms of scale and infrastructure. These aren’t basic updates on 90’s-era venues anymore.

I swear a few years ago you could build a soccer stadium for 100 mill and even that’d be like “oh wow you went the extra mile in quality”

Wtf are these 1.3 billion arenas exactly? Is each seat made of gold?

Guys, google is free. It takes 5 seconds to research this. Project Marvel is NOT just a new stadium, it is a full revitalization of the very outdated downtown San Antonio with renovations and updates to previously existing buildings as well as new shit- as well as methods of making it more walkable and accessible.

Citizens already voted and passed the agreement for this & it is being paid for half by the Spurs and the other half with money taken from tourism taxing that literally cannot be spent for other projects. That money is solely raised and used for public development purposes.

I get that we all want to bash billionaires in here and normally I agree, but this project has been pretty damn transparent and people are trying very hard to misrepresent it as robbing taxpayers when it blatantly isn’t. I am not sure why there is such a dedicated amount of misinformation about this.

For perspective, the Cowboys Massive Deathstar of a stadium was 1.2ish billion in 2008,1.8 now adjusted for inlfation, and the city of Arlington only contributed 300 million.

I can’t fathom how a basketball arena costs 1.3 billion.

Well how else does the billionaires friend become a billionaire?

Because America can’t build for shit. Every aspect of building something is about shifting liability and risk, not execution. 

Inflation

Cost of labor went up also most arenas are filled with tech 

materials have skyrocketed in price.

3 is often forgotten. Sports are a huge amenity. A city contributing a reasonable, well financed amount of money to a stadium with good urban planning isn’t a sin. There are some good stadium projects, I know Minnesota had US Bank pay for itself ahead of schedule for example.

And this is like… not that crazy? Covering a little over the third of the cost?

every study on stadiums proves that they do not create “economic activity”

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4022547

1. Sounds good.
2. Decades of research shows that publicly funded sports stadiums fail to recoup their costs or generate significant net economic growth for local communities
3. Does SA not already have the Spurs? Have they not had them for like 40 years? Whatever ‘desirability’ this new stadium will give will just be a tick at best.

Watched it happen in Dallas. When Jerry was leaving Texas stadium, Dallas’s mayor was crucified for not bending over backwards to make her citizens foot the bill. Same shit is happening with the Stars and Mavs right now. I say fuck em. Let their fans drive to the suburbs and pay $500 for nose bleeds. I’m done subsidizing these fucking vampires.

Passing the bill to tourists and sin taxes is the way to go. Pull tabs paid for US Bank.

SF’s loss is Sac’s gain. I feel like barely any music act stops at SF now. They do Oakland, maybe San Jose, and Sacramento to cover all of Norcal.

San Antonio’s mayor has to be thrilled that her misinformation campaign worked on people not in San Antonio. The city contribution is coming from lease payments and property tax revenue from drumroll please the spurs.

It’s an economic development package the city offered the spurs. That 489 million is literally coming from the property tax revenue taken by the area. If there is no arena developed, there’s no revenue. The city has longed offered economic packages to private companies. Earlier this summer, the city council voted for a much much larger amount of money to Toyota to build another plant.

The mayor, who is unpopular, has tried to tie the city contribution to a vote when it’s never been a thing. She points to the budget deficit but the funds that city contribution is coming from legally can’t go into the general fund to fix the deficit.

Absolutely no citizen is paying, from the city contribution, anything to the project.

The election last year dealt with prop an and B which did establish a new tax rate. However, it’s not a sales tax rate like Oklahoma is doing where all of the residents are paying that tax, the measure was to enact a tourist tax or HOT. Unless you’re having a staycation in the city or need to rent a car at the airport, most citizens don’t pay anything towards that. Tourists do.

It would be ridiculous for there to be a vote every time a the city wants to offer an economic package to a private company to invest in the city. Believe it or not, San Antonio is located in Bexar county. In the vote last year, the San antonio vote was for the proposition.

I can understand that public money for arenas is not great. But more to a most deals, the spurs are investing so much. They are already paying at least $500 million plus cost overruns. They have to develop the area around the arena to eventually get that 1.5 billion property appraisal. And they offered the city 75 million dollars over the a set amount of time for whatever the city wants to do with that money.

The spurs also just spent over $500 million on the Rock at La Cabrera, their new mixed use practice facility where fans would go to watch the away games this postseason.

This isn’t Oklahoma City where their citizens are paying 90% of the costs for the $900 million continental coliseum. The thunder are paying only 50 million towards that.

Yea this is extremely misleading. The 489 million city contribution was announced way before last years vote took place. It was even in the ballot language even if the vote was for Prop A and B. It was never supposed to go to the citizens to vote o because it’s an economic package. Why would citizens vote for that. The city has made larger contributions to other companies (I.e. Toyota)and there wasn’t a city vote. It’s a job for the city council.

Before last year’s vote, the council voted 7-4 to approve a non binding term sheet with those details. The Mayor came into office a month before that vote. She tried to delay the city council term sheet vote because she didn’t like the deal that was negotiated. City council said no. She was a sore loser and has consistently tried to get that vote overturned. She has written letters to Michael Dell saying that he should pay for the entire arena because he’s a billionaire owner. Of course, he only has a minority stake (10%) and famously lives in Austin. It makes zero sense to pay for an arena Ina the city where he doesn’t live.

She’s also tried to make revenue sharing a thing in that the spurs should share revenue with the city, something that’s never been done.

So on the last day of the month in July on a Friday at 5pm, she sent a memo to city council that they should make the city contribution an election in the city. She pointed to the 151 million defect the city is in. Of course, she knows the city contribution to the arena comes from a state PFZ in which will be paid back by lease payments by the spurs. If that vote was shut down, there wouldn’t that 489 million to the general fund. It doesn’t exist unless the spurs build that arena and pay those leases

In an era, where the thunder are only paying 50 million towards their 900 million arena with okc citizens paying 90% for it from a sales tax, the spurs have continually acted in good faith. Not only are they paying for the most, including over $500 million plus overruns in addition to both the property tax revenue and lease payments for their part.

It’s not just the spurs who are frustrated with the mayor, the county is as well. And there’s already been threats by county leaders to bring action against the mayor and city for not upholding to their part of the deal as indicated in that August 2025 vote in which city council agreed to that term sheet. So not only did citizens vote for this already, city council has too through approving the term sheet then.

Jesus fuck you really did the bare minimum here and thought it would pass. The 489 comes from hotel and travel industry related taxes, taxes in an around hemisfair park, and other mechanisms for getting money from the spurs

San Antonio residents make up the vast majority of the Bexar county population

Maybe I’m wrong, but most city councils don’t put any economic incentive packages they offer to companies to public votes. They didn’t a public vote for Toyota which has gotten a lot more than 500 million in incentives from the city.

Why would the city put a vote to that contribution that would only be there if there’s an arena? If there’s not that arena, there isn’t a taxable area where that revenue comes from. You mentioned it was only a county vote yet there was ballot languages that talked about the city contribution. Ultimately, the mayor was upset that the city agreed to a term sheet not only with the spurs but with Bexar county. Not only did the majority of Bexar county (and San Antonio) vote for prop an and b, the city council had already agreed to that term sheet. By calling for a vote and if it didn’t pass, it gives the mayor a chance to rip up the term sheet that she didn’t like and start again.

People were (rightfully) mad that Dundon is refusing to chip in any of his own money. On top of being a complete asshole.

That’s great. Good for San Antonio