Jets, Giants and State of NJ Agree to New Stadium

[Vet]

New Meadowlands stadium to be built. Press conference later today.

 

Jets and Giants Agree to Share New Stadium

 

 

Today's agreement, to be announced at a 5 p.m. news conference, makes the Jets a party to the deal the Giants struck with state officials in April and is irrevocable. But details about the design of the stadium have yet to be worked out.

 

The breakthrough in the tempestuous negotiations came late Tuesday night in a five-hour meeting at the Meadowlands racetrack between Acting Gov. Richard J. Codey; John Mara, co-owner of the Giants; Woody Johnson, owner of the Jets; their respective lawyers; and Carl Goldberg, chairman of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, which oversees the Meadowlands sports complex.

 

The owners of the two teams, which are rivals on the field but co-occupants of the existing stadium, agreed to submit many of the most contentious issues - including the size and shape of the new stadium and the location of practice fields - to binding arbitration, according to two executives involved in the discussions.

 

Under the deal, the Giants and the Jets will be able to develop a modern stadium complex on 75 acres, up from 29 acres today, with luxury boxes, premium seating, sports-oriented stores, a hall of fame and a new rail connection. The teams would split the cost of the project, which is expected to be more than $800 million, and would, presumably, develop their own advertising and marketing while sharing revenues from naming rights.

 

The stadium would also have a connection to Xanadu, the $2 billion retail and entertainment complex that will share the property.

 

"I am very encouraged by the progress in keeping both teams in New Jersey," George R. Zoffinger, president of the sports authority, said Wednesday. "Our next objective is to make sure there is a retractable roof, so we can attract the Super Bowl and other events, something that is supported by the commissioner of the N.F.L."

 

On Wednesday afternoon, the team owners and their lawyers gathered again at 2:30 in Mr. Goldberg's office at the Meadowlands in hopes of coming to terms. The meeting broke up at 7:15 p.m. without a final deal, but the teams resumed meeting this morning to settle the outstanding issues.

 

"We feel like we have made progress," a Giants spokesman, Pat Hanlon, said on Wednesday night, "and we are going to sit down again tomorrow in hopes of reaching an agreement."

 

Never before have two football teams agreed to build a stadium together. The Jets joined the Giants at Giant Stadium in 1984 because they had nowhere else to go after fleeing the confines of Shea Stadium in Queens. But the Jets have always resented playing in a stadium named after a rival team.

 

"This would be the first example of a stadium being developed from the outset for two N.F.L. teams," said Marc Ganis, president of Sportscorp, a sports business consulting firm based in Chicago. "The cost of these buildings has skyrocketed to such a degree that it makes far more economic sense to share the debt service and the revenues. The net revenues for the two teams are likely to be significantly better than if they each built their own stadium."

 

That does not mean that it was easy for the teams to get this far. At separate moments over the last month, each team has been cast as a villain by the other parties in the negotiations.

 

Then early this week, L. Jay Cross, the Jets' president, formally told Paul Tagliabue, commissioner of the National Football League, that the team was also considering building a $1.3 billion stadium on 15 acres in a park near Shea Stadium, infuriating New Jersey officials who said Mr. Cross had committed to New Jersey.

 

Mr. Cross then gave the sports authority a list of "preconditions" to a partnership with the Giants that included items sure to be unacceptable to the Giants, Xanadu or the sports authority. Talks seemed headed for a breakdown. But at least two issues continued to loom large in the teams' negotiating calculus, and prevented a total collapse. Both teams realized that if the Giants refused to relinquish their role as the marquee tenant at the Meadowlands and failed to accommodate the Jets, the tentative deal for a new stadium on 75 acres was unlikely to get sweeter.

 

Both the Democratic candidate for governor, Senator Jon S. Corzine, and his Republican opponent, Douglas R. Forrester, have been critical of what they view as the overly generous terms of the deal offered by Governor Codey.

 

And the sports authority refused to budge on its deadline - today - for the two teams to form a joint venture. This left the Jets with too little time to play out their strategy. The Jets had pursued stadium deals in both the Meadowlands and Queens ever since their five-year, $65 million effort to build a stadium in Manhattan died in June.

 

But while the team was able to line up support for a Queens stadium among local elected officials, it could not hope to gain the support of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg until after Election Day.

 

The sports authority and the Giants insisted that the Jets choose between New York and New Jersey. The Jets could have bailed out of the negotiations with New Jersey and, under the terms of its lease at the Meadowlands, sued to block the Giants from building their own stadium.

 

According to two people involved in the negotiations who insisted on anonymity because of the continuing talks, Mr. Tagliabue told the Jets that it would not be a good idea for the team to try to foil plans for a new Giants stadium if it was truly interested in moving to Queens. That meant the Jets would have been left as a tenant of the Giants in New Jersey with the hope of getting a New York stadium at some point in the future. Hours later, on Tuesday evening, the Jets and Giants neared an agreement to form a partnership and submit to binding arbitration.

 

Edited September 29, 2005 by Vet

[godtomsatan]

I thought the Jets were going to play at that stadium they were building in the city?

[Vet]

I thought the Jets were going to play at that stadium they were building in the city?

 

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That got shot down.

[Rovers]

There are still loopholes here that could kill the joint stadium. Only some of the issues that seperate the two clubs will go to binding arbitration. Those issues will be resolved by the binding arbitration, but neither club is willing to subject the future of their respective franchises to an outside arbitor. In other words, since there will still be other detaols that won't go to arbitration, both clubs have a sort of escape clause that would allow them to back out.

[Vet]

There are still loopholes here that could kill the joint stadium. Only some of the issues that seperate the two clubs will go to binding arbitration. Those issues will be resolved by the binding arbitration, but neither club is willing to subject the future of their respective franchises to an outside arbitor. In other words, since there will still be other detaols that won't go to arbitration, both clubs have a sort of escape clause that would allow them to back out.

 

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Sounds like the Jets agreed to get screwed again.

 

The Giants' practice facilities will be on site, while the Jets' will be "within a 20 mile radius" of the site.

 

At least it won't be called Giants Stadium anymore. Naming rights will go to the highest bidder. I think "TheHuddle.com Stadium" has a nice ring to it.

[Turf Smurf]

The Bayon Jets.....lmao...

[Robash]

Sounds like the Jets agreed to get screwed again.

 

The Giants' practice facilities will be on site, while the Jets' will be "within a 20 mile radius" of the site.

 

At least it won't be called Giants Stadium anymore.  Naming rights will go to the highest bidder.  I think "TheHuddle.com Stadium" has a nice ring to it. 

 

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yea mr mara isnt very happy about that, but he said its the only way to get it paid for...after that all they need is cheerleaders....the girls from scores would do nicely i think