The NBA’s Spurs ownership lease to use the San Antonio lease ends in 2032.
For a sports owner to gain leverage in either the stadium and/or the arena game, that owner needs someone else to make the if you don’t come up with public dollars to either upgrade an existing arena or build an entirely new arena, I will move the franchise argument. The National Basketball Association’s San Antonio Spurs ownership got that person or entity to make the point. It has the local newspaper, the San Antonio Express-News, making the point. On the editorial page there was this opinion. “A new arena is key to keeping the Spurs in San Antonio. Without it, other markets will come calling for the team.” In other words, you better do this or the Spurs ownership may go to Austin, Texas full-time. The Spurs ownership has been using an Austin arena for a handful of games over the past two years and there are people in San Antonio who are convinced that people in Austin will swoop in and take the franchise after the Spurs ownership and the local government’s arena deal ends in 2032.
The quest to build an arena for Spurs ownership group has begun. The name of the plan is Project Marvel, which sounds as if it was lifted from a comic book. Project Marvel includes the construction of a San Antonio arena along with renovations to the 31-year-old Alamodome. The price tag of Project Marvel is estimated to be around $4 billion. The public will provide a share of the tab by not getting any of the taxes collected within the arena-district zone. The developers of Project Marvel will keep the 6% hotel tax and 6% sales tax so they can pay down the costs of the project. But those tax dollars are certainly not enough to fund the $4 billion expenditure. The haggling has started in the San Antonio arena game.
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