Who Will Land the PawSox - Could Worcester, Springfield, or Fall River?
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
SLIDES: See Where the Pawtucket Red Sox Could End Up BELOW
Officials in Worcester, Springfield, and Fall River have all expressed intereste in courting the Red Sox AAA affiliate — and another Providence location still could be on the table as an option.
“I think there's little reason they'll leave Pawtucket unless they get a sweet deal elsewhere. There's lots of good places — if someone else is paying,” said Holy Cross Professor of Economics Vic Matheson. ‘I suspect they’ll want to play [cities] off each other, but they asked too much to fast for Providence. I’m sure behind closed doors, once that deal was going nowhere, state officials said we'll make it work to build your own stadium, and the new owners said that's still too rich for for us — we just don't want to spend $100 million of our own money.”
Matheson spoke to the potential in Worcester for the Wyman-Gordon property, which City Counilor Gary Rosen touted last month to GoLocal.
"I suspect Worcester would be happy to hand over property at a fire sale price and negotiate some sort of a property tax relief if someone were to build a stadium with their own money -- I could see them helping with infrastructure, which isn't always the case in Worcester," said Matheson. " I can't imagine [Worcester] pouring $4 million a year for 20 years...I see no reason why [the city] wouldn't make it easy, but they wouldn't foot the bill."
"My guess is Springfield [for the Pawtucket Red Sox] if they go somwhere, just becauce of the money surrounding the new casino, but there's still issues with that," said Mateson of the MGM project. "You go see a stadium maybe being built next to the casino, but that doesn't make sense. Casinos don't want anything that will pull visitors from their site."
Pawtucket in Focus
Pawtucket Mayor Donald Grebien isn’t looking to lose the AAA team anytime soon, however.
In a recent letter to Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo, Grebien asked once again for a feasibility study to be done that was required per the lease extension at McCoy to 2021 — and demanded to see the PawSox ownership’s own feasibility study that purportedly has already been done.
“From the beginning, I have been respectful of the nature of this business venture. I have urged patience, due diligence and transparency throughout this process; confident that if all the information was made available to Rhode Islanders and the elected officials entrusted to represent them, they would see what we here in Pawtucket have known all along… the best value for everyone is for the team to remain here in Pawtucket,” wrote Grebien.
It is now time for the State to take action. By allowing this process to drag out further without the City of Pawtucket and McCoy Stadium, Rhode Island’s Fenway Park, being part of the conversation, the State runs the risk of forcing the team to consider other locations outside of Rhode Island and perhaps even the region.
And a grassroots activist in Pawtucket, David Norton, is continuing the fight to keep the Sox in Pawtucket.
Norton declared victory with the 195 announcement in September, but cautions what competition from other areas could mean for Rhode Islanders.
“I know for sure that this "bidding war" talking point, and this "we don't want to lose them to Mass." need to be removed from the conversation because, at best, a sliver of people will fall for it and at worst our state leaders will use it for cover after they try to ram something through the legislature,” said Norton.
Related Slideshow: The Paw Sox Contenders - October 2015
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