Sources stress that a deal between Angelos and MLB has not been concluded and that negotiations could still break down, but both sides have apparently agreed to many of the details.
One sticking point had been the length of the guarantees: Angelos wanted them to be permanent; baseball wanted them to last only as long as Angelos owned the team. The two sides have apparently agreed to keep the financial guarantees effective as long as Angelos or a member of his family owns the team, according to several sources familiar with the deal.
These D.C. United soccer fans at RFK have approximate view from home plate once stadium is upgraded for baseball.
(Preston Keres -- The Washington Post)
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The critical part of the agreement would ensure that Angelos would to be able to sell the Orioles for no less than $360 million, a guaranteed price that would escalate over time, depending on how much Angelos could increase revenue. The $360 million is about three times his current local revenue.
Angelos has not indicated any interest in selling the Orioles.
"It sounds like an extraordinary deal, one that many businesspeople would have been jumping at long before this," said Stan Kasten, former president of baseball's Atlanta Braves. "Peter's primary interest was about preserving the integrity and well-being of the franchise. But it sounds to me that he was able to get what he wanted."
Paul Taubman, a managing director at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter who has worked on the sale and purchase of several sports teams, said, "baseball has come up with a wonderful solution, which insulates Angelos from the effect of a second team in the area, while at the same time offering him an opportunity to create additional value through a far more attractive regional sports network than he could do on his own."
D.C. Baseball Club Chairman Fred Malek said a regional sports network with revenue weighted toward Angelos would not affect his desire to purchase the Expos.
"I am still highly interested," Malek said. "The executives at Major League Baseball know what they are doing. They have handled the situation well to date. And we think the whole concept of a regional sports network between the Washington team and the Orioles is a home run."
Reaction to the stadium financing plan was mixed yesterday in Washington. As they emerged from a meeting with Williams, City Administrator Robert C. Bobb and an array of sports and planning officials, and about a dozen activists who live near the proposed stadium site on the Southeast waterfront near South Capitol Street said they appreciated the briefing.
"So frequently, the community is the last to know," said Andy Litsky, a neighborhood advisory commissioner in Ward 6.
But others said they fear their streets will be overrun by stadium traffic, and that the city's plan to build a 1,100-space parking garage is woefully inadequate for a 41,000-seat stadium. And David C. Sobelsohn, secretary of the Southwest Neighborhood Assembly, said he's still not convinced that using tax dollars to pay for any stadium is a wise idea.
"There's a paucity of studies showing that stadium projects actually benefit the community," he said.
Sobelsohn's comments echoed a drumbeat of criticism rising from council members Adrian M. Fenty (D-Ward 4), David A. Catania (I-At Large), Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) and ordinary citizens across the city. Yesterday, Williams fired back with city estimates that the ballpark would generate up to $30 million a year in new taxes -- half of it dedicated to the city's general fund -- and create more than 4,500 jobs, most of them temporary construction jobs.
A separate study by the D.C. Convention and Tourism Corporation estimates that baseball fans would spend an extra $31.4 million a year on D.C. hotels, restaurants and other forms of entertainment. Many stadium experts argue that consumers simply would be shifting their entertainment dollars from one event to another.
