FrankFallonCalling said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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CammoTX said:

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Redbrickbear said:

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T-REX said:

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Robert Wilson said:

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cowboycwr said:

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FirmBear24 said:

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I can't imagine there is any demand for minor league/semi pro baseball downtown. Seems like a colossal waste of real estate and resources. If the locals want baseball, hop on down to see Baylor and get a grandstand seat for $10. Children under 12 get in free.

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So true. A new minor league team won't do well when you already have a college team close, a pro team just an hour and a half away, a minor league team close and have failed multiple times at sports in the city- hockey, arena football Bellmead's plans for a minor league team, etc.

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I don't know. It would be interesting and I think turn a lot on marketing. Blue Cats tanked b/c the entire league tanked.

Tons of baseball fans around Waco - many driving to Arlington several times a year. For whatever reason, most of those local baseball fans won't show up for Baylor baseball. Recently, it's easy to understand. If Mitch gets things rolling, Baylor oughta come out with a loud and proud Baylor-is-Waco-Waco-is-Baylor marketing campaign for Baylor baseball. Helps that Mitch stayed in Waco and did so well at MCC. Problem is ... I'm afraid Baylor doesn't really want to do that. Briles is the only one I can remember really making that kind of noise. A little from the Mulk.

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Baylor is already currently starting to market as wacos team. Lot of "This is bear country" billboards went up recently. Mayor Meek & President Livingstone popped the Baylor bubble the second Foster broke ground.

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I hope so...but we will see.

Its hard to get areas to buy into a local private school.

USC when its winning...Miami when its football team is winning...Notre Dame....these are a few I can think of.

Even Duke (with a long time successful basketball program) does not get much buy in from local Durham residents.

Its very hard for a private school.

No one in Nashville for instance cares about Vanderbilt athletics.

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Syracuse, Creighton and Gonzaga would disagree.

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Does Creighton really have that kind of local support?

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Yes. Omaha is a Nebraska football town, but sells out for the Jays in the winter.

I would add Marquette to that list.

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Providence and Xavier too

Baylor has just never been *that* interested in identifying with Waco, and Waco gets it. Tough hill to climb at this point, IMO. Briles and Mulkey had the colorful redneck personalities and the winning % to do it.

Baylor could've gotten P3 funding for the new basketball arena downtown. In essence, developers would've paid for it (bonds issued by public entity, paid off by developers) in exchange for the right to have concerts and such there. That's what UT did with their new arena. As rich as UT is, and as big as its alumni base is, UT got a free basketball arena. And Austin got a new concert venue downtown.

Baylor chose to instead have its alumni base / fan base / donors pay for a stadium so that Baylor would have 100% use and not have to allow others to hold concerts and events. Just building the thing is still a nice benefit for Waco, but not nearly as big a benefit as had we gone the UT/Austin route with it. Worse for Waco, worse for the alums who foot the bill (myself included), but there you have it..

Robert Wilson said:

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Baylor has just never been *that* interested in identifying with Waco, and Waco gets it. Tough hill to climb at this point, IMO. Briles and Mulkey had the colorful redneck personalities and the winning % to do it.

Baylor could've gotten P3 funding for the new basketball arena downtown. In essence, developers would've paid for it (bonds issued by public entity, paid off by developers) in exchange for the right to have concerts and such there. That's what UT did with their new arena. As rich as UT is, and as big as its alumni base is, UT got a free basketball arena. And Austin got a new concert venue downtown.

Baylor chose to instead have its alumni base / fan base / donors pay for a stadium so that Baylor would have 100% use and not have to allow others to hold concerts and events. Just building the thing is still a nice benefit for Waco, but not nearly as big a benefit as had we gone the UT/Austin route with it. Worse for Waco, worse for the alums who foot the bill (myself included), but there you have it..

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The original announcement said that Waco was contributing $65m and would receive 90 calendar dates for scheduling concerts and events. Did that change significantly?

Edmond Bear said:

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Robert Wilson said:

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Baylor has just never been *that* interested in identifying with Waco, and Waco gets it. Tough hill to climb at this point, IMO. Briles and Mulkey had the colorful redneck personalities and the winning % to do it.

Baylor could've gotten P3 funding for the new basketball arena downtown. In essence, developers would've paid for it (bonds issued by public entity, paid off by developers) in exchange for the right to have concerts and such there. That's what UT did with their new arena. As rich as UT is, and as big as its alumni base is, UT got a free basketball arena. And Austin got a new concert venue downtown.

Baylor chose to instead have its alumni base / fan base / donors pay for a stadium so that Baylor would have 100% use and not have to allow others to hold concerts and events. Just building the thing is still a nice benefit for Waco, but not nearly as big a benefit as had we gone the UT/Austin route with it. Worse for Waco, worse for the alums who foot the bill (myself included), but there you have it..

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The original announcement said that Waco was contributing $65m and would receive 90 calendar dates for scheduling concerts and events. Did that change significantly?

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If that's where it ended up, I stand corrected. There were early P3 discussions, then a "no, let's not do that - we'll raise the money." They may have ended up somewhere in between with Waco somehow paying some portion but not all actual P3 funding.

Edmond Bear said:

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Robert Wilson said:

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Baylor has just never been *that* interested in identifying with Waco, and Waco gets it. Tough hill to climb at this point, IMO. Briles and Mulkey had the colorful redneck personalities and the winning % to do it.

Baylor could've gotten P3 funding for the new basketball arena downtown. In essence, developers would've paid for it (bonds issued by public entity, paid off by developers) in exchange for the right to have concerts and such there. That's what UT did with their new arena. As rich as UT is, and as big as its alumni base is, UT got a free basketball arena. And Austin got a new concert venue downtown.

Baylor chose to instead have its alumni base / fan base / donors pay for a stadium so that Baylor would have 100% use and not have to allow others to hold concerts and events. Just building the thing is still a nice benefit for Waco, but not nearly as big a benefit as had we gone the UT/Austin route with it. Worse for Waco, worse for the alums who foot the bill (myself included), but there you have it..

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The original announcement said that Waco was contributing $65m and would receive 90 calendar dates for scheduling concerts and events. Did that change significantly?

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No, this is correct

Robert Wilson said:

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Edmond Bear said:

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Robert Wilson said:

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Baylor has just never been *that* interested in identifying with Waco, and Waco gets it. Tough hill to climb at this point, IMO. Briles and Mulkey had the colorful redneck personalities and the winning % to do it.

Baylor could've gotten P3 funding for the new basketball arena downtown. In essence, developers would've paid for it (bonds issued by public entity, paid off by developers) in exchange for the right to have concerts and such there. That's what UT did with their new arena. As rich as UT is, and as big as its alumni base is, UT got a free basketball arena. And Austin got a new concert venue downtown.

Baylor chose to instead have its alumni base / fan base / donors pay for a stadium so that Baylor would have 100% use and not have to allow others to hold concerts and events. Just building the thing is still a nice benefit for Waco, but not nearly as big a benefit as had we gone the UT/Austin route with it. Worse for Waco, worse for the alums who foot the bill (myself included), but there you have it..

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The original announcement said that Waco was contributing $65m and would receive 90 calendar dates for scheduling concerts and events. Did that change significantly?

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If that's where it ended up, I stand corrected. There were early P3 discussions, then a "no, let's not do that - we'll raise the money." They may have ended up somewhere in between with Waco somehow paying some portion but not all actual P3 funding.

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waco is helping fund the project. That never changed. The only thing about it that had changed was they agreed to reduce the overall amount of funding from the original amount to a lower number and thus reduced the amount of access days per year as a result. Waco is still helping fund the arena. Between that, the Foster Family & the Hurd Family, a very large chunk of the funding is covered.

Waco pledged $65 million in exchange for 100 dates a year and then had consultants say they couldn't see Waco using anywhere near that many dates and so Waco backed way off their pledge and didn't get more than a handful of dates.

hill02 said:

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Waco pledged $65 million in exchange for 100 dates a year and then had consultants say they couldn't see Waco using anywhere near that many dates and so Waco backed way off their pledge and didn't get more than a handful of dates.

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What a waste. They'd sell out 90 Chris Stapleton dates every year.

hill02 said:

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Waco pledged $65 million in exchange for 100 dates a year and then had consultants say they couldn't see Waco using anywhere near that many dates and so Waco backed way off their pledge and didn't get more than a handful of dates.

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the change was not drastic. They are giving less but it is still in the tens of millions and still getting a decent amount of dates.

Went down from 65 million contribution to 34 million. Decrease from 90 dates (crazy imo) to 10 ticketed events and what looks like 25 community events?:

"Instead of designating 90 days per year for the city to book events in the basketball pavilion, as officials had discussed when they announced the project in December, Baylor would bring 10 of its own events to the downtown-area venue, and the city could book 10 ticketed performances there, for the first two years of its operation. The city would also get 25 days annually to hold community events in the venue."

https://wacotrib.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/tif-contribution-for-baylor-basketball-arena-down-along-with-days-for-city-of-waco-events/article_852f2604-99cb-11ec-bdac-c36ceb302ece.html

UrsinusInfction said:

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Went down from 65 million contribution to 34 million. Decrease from 90 dates (crazy imo) to 10 ticketed events and what looks like 25 community events?:

"Instead of designating 90 days per year for the city to book events in the basketball pavilion, as officials had discussed when they announced the project in December, Baylor would bring 10 of its own events to the downtown-area venue, and the city could book 10 ticketed performances there, for the first two years of its operation. The city would also get 25 days annually to hold community events in the venue."

https://wacotrib.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/tif-contribution-for-baylor-basketball-arena-down-along-with-days-for-city-of-waco-events/article_852f2604-99cb-11ec-bdac-c36ceb302ece.html

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yea 90 on top of at lime 40 or so mbb & wbb dates would mean there is something in the arena almost 50% of time which was just crazy lol.

Thanks for finding the article. I tried but I'm not subscribing to the trib to see if it's the right article or not.

Regardless, 34mil is still 34mil we don't have to come up with. Nothing to scoff at. Foster & Hurd families have picked up a lot of the remaining cost on it

A bunch of mid rise office buildings in the development plans? What is this the 90s?

For real though if they want to do some redevelopment then great but make it make sense. Financially and planning for the future.