A recent firestorm over the leaking of several Major League Baseball team audited financial statements prompted South Florida elected officials to say they were misled in negotiations with the Florida Marlins for a $642 million bond-financed stadium, which is under construction and due to open in 2012.
The website Deadspin.com posted two years of financials for the Marlins and the Tampa Bay Rays, Pittsburgh Pirates, Seattle Mariners, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, and Texas Rangers. The documents showed that the Marlins made nearly $49 million in 2008 and 2009 as they negotiated with the city of Miami and Miami-Dade County Commission for a new ballpark.
The Marlins said in a statement that the financials had been “widely misunderstood and inappropriately analyzed” and they “clearly show that of the $31 million of cash generated by the operation of the team, $24 million was spent on the new ballpark and the rest was used to reduce our team’s debt.”
On Friday, several county commissioners asked if there were grounds to reopen contract negotiations on Friday. But the county attorney said that could only happen if the team agreed to it.
County manager George Burgess told commissioners that work on the state-of-the art, retractable-roof ballpark “couldn’t be going better.” He also backed the team’s contention that the leaked financials have been “misunderstood and misread.”
“There’s nothing there that indicates the Marlins have a windfall,” Burgess said. “The bottom line is they are moving in such a way that they are solvent and have positive cash. What they need to do, and they are doing, is make sure they have the financial information — the ability to meet the obligations under the agreement.”
The Marlins are contributing $155 million toward the project while the city and county are paying the rest.
Some Miami commissioners have also questioned the financials and suggested that the team should give the city naming rights over the parking facilities that were recently financed in a bond offering. The current agreement calls for the city and the team to split naming rights revenue.
