Drain Feared As Nationals Leave RFK
Agency Seeks City's Aid In Helping to Cover Rent Of Stadium's Main Tenant

By David Nakamura
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 29, 2007

The Washington Nationals' move from RFK Stadium to a state-of-the-art ballpark in the spring is being hailed as a potential economic boon to the team and the District. But one entity is not sharing in the projected wealth: the D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission, which operates RFK and is facing a deficit without its chief tenant.

Commission officials asked D.C. Council members yesterday for $2.5 million in public money. The shortfall, which amounts to 31 percent of the commission's $8 million operating budget, is largely the result of the Nationals' ending their annual $2 million rent payment at RFK, officials said.

The team's $5.5 million annual rent at the new $611 million ballpark complex in Southeast Washington will go toward paying off the city's construction bonds.

"We're trying to figure out how we are looking post-baseball at RFK Stadium," commission Chairman Matthew D. Cutts said. "The way our numbers come up show us with a bit of an imbalance between revenues and expenses."

The commission was created in the mid-1990s as a quasi-independent city agency responsible for raising its own money through events at RFK and the D.C. Amory. Although the agency has had a deficit in previous years, it had been bailed out by a reserve fund that once totaled more than $20 million, money apparently left over from when the Washington Redskins played at RFK, officials said. That fund has been depleted.

With the Nationals at their new home near the Navy Yard and South Capitol Street, the commission will need to keep the 46-year-old RFK open for at least a few more years for D.C. United, the soccer franchise that has yet to strike a deal with the city on a new stadium site.

The commission spends about $3 million on salaries for staff and the rest on operating RFK and the Armory, as well as a $200,000 grant program for youth sports, city officials said.

At the council briefing yesterday, members asked Cutts and commission Chief Executive Gregory O'Dell for a breakdown of revenues and expenses before the council is asked to vote on any funding. At least one council member suggested that the commission cut its spending.

Chairman Vincent C. Gray (D) wondered why the commission is coming to the council two months into the fiscal year.

"Didn't [the commission] see this coming before this?" Gray said in an interview.

But Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), chairman of the council's Committee on Finance and Revenue, said that the city gives money to other quasi-independent agencies, including the Walter E. Washington Convention Center.

"The question is, should we spend on this item at this time?" Evans said. "I say yes, because it's important."