Sports news...

1. Sally Jenkins writes a sports column today about the likely NFL lockout, and how the public should be considered investors in the sport, because public monies make up a significant source of the funding of sports stadiums. See "Owners to fans: Your money’s no good" in the Post.

From the article:

Here’s a good question: What right do owners have to padlock stadiums that taxpayers helped pay for?

The NFL owes fans a season. Why? Because the fans paid for it, that’s why, and this isn’t 13th-century France, and a season ticket package is not a wheat levy. They paid for it with outrageously priced seat licenses, as well as bond issues for stadiums, tax abatements, and sweetheart leases, not to mention all kinds of gratis services from cities and counties, right down to free snow removal.

If the fans don’t get a fair return on the public funds and favor lavished on owners, here’s what they should do: sue. That’s right. Attorneys general in every state that houses an NFL team should draw up suits to force the league to play, or repay what they owe us.

It's always pissed me off that Congresspeople grandstand about various aspects of the sports business, especially fan access to televised games, but they never hold hearings on how local communities get played by sports leagues and spend hundreds of millions of dollars on stadiums and arenas for "local" teams.

2. Yesterday's Baltimore edition of the Bisnow real estate newsletter reports that there is a strong proposal for a DC United stadium to be located in the redeveloping Westport district in South Baltimore. (There is a light rail stop there.)

Image from CBRE Richard Ellis.