Indiana

$100 Million ?Contribution? My A$$

By Abdul Hakim-Shabazz

I finally had some time to work on the Indianapolis Colts’ $100,000,000 “contribution” to Lucas Oil Stadium.

The Indianapolis Colts say they contributed $100 million to building Lucas Oil Stadium.  It all depends on how you define “contribute”.

Let’s just say for sake of argument they did write a check for $100 million.  First of all the Stadium cost about $750,000,000.   Which meant the Colts only picked up 13 percent of the tab.

In order to break the lease on the old RCA Dome so the Colts would have a new place to play, the city paid the Colts $48 million, but the Colts don’t want to give up $5 million.

The Colts got $121 million in naming rights, but don’t want to pony up $5 million.

The Colts get about $41 million in stadium annual revenue, but don’t want to part with $5 million.

The Colts also get up to keep up to $3.5 million  for non-game events and the CIB picks up the operational costs of the Lucas Oil, but the Colts don’t want to pay $5 million to ease your tax burden.

They do pay $250,000 a year in rent and make reimbursements to the CIB to the tune of $800,000 to $1,000,000 a year.

So let’s do some math.  The Colts put in $100 million + ($250,000 x 30 years in annual rent payments) + (1,000,000 x 30 years of annual reimbursements) = $137,000,000 in total Colts contribution over the life of the lease.

Here’s what they got back.  $48,000,000 (lease payback) + $121,000,000 (naming rights) + ($41,000,000 x 30 years of annual revenue) + ($3.5 million X 30 years of non-game revenue) = $1.57 billion over the total life of the lease.

So the Colts put in $137,000,000, they get back nearly $1.6 billion and they don’t want to contribute $5 million a year ($150,000,000 over 30 years; less than 10 percent of their total revenue stream) and would rather see your taxes go up.

Oh and this does not even include a $74 million dollar loan the Colts took out a couple years ago to make that $100,000,000 contribution.  Which by the way, the Colts did not float the bonds on their own, they used the City of Indianapolis’ good credit to do it.  That means the $74 million loan is at the municipal interest rate of 5.9% as opposed to the market rate of 8-10%.  So they’ve saved millions in interest on your good name, but they don’t want to pay $5 million to help keep the lights on.

Way to go team.  I wonder if it’s too late to become a Patriots fan?

Full post as published by Indiana Barrister on April 04, 2009 (boomark / email).