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June 28, 2005
Big Apple can take a shine to this new threesome of sports facilities
Sports Business Journal
by Andrew Zimbalist
Zimbalist touts the Mets, Nets and Yankees stadium deals:
Compared with the typical deal in the sports industry and previous proposals in New York, the new facility plans for the Yanks, Mets and Nets are good news indeed.
Zimbalist never discloses in the column that he was paid by Forest City Ratner to author an economic analysis of Atlantic Yards. Then he reveals that he has no understanding of the financial structure of Ratner's proposal:
[T]he Ratner project includes not only $500 million of private funds for the arena but also an additional $3 billion in private funds for residential and commercial development.
CORRECTION: By Zimbalist's account the $3.5 billion project will be entirely privately funded. He is forgetting the $1.1 BILLION in public subsidies that Forest City Ratner Executive VP Jim Stuckey claimed the company would seek in hearings before the NYC Council.
Either Zimbalist is still shilling for the man or this leading analyst of sports venue deals doesn't know his facts.
Posted by lumi at June 28, 2005 8:37 PM