Of note from The Athletic this morning:
- The Athletic’s Max Bultman takes part in a thought exercise today, considering what the Red Wings’ lineup might look like in 2022-2023:
There was a moment at the Red Wings’ development camp last month when Moritz Seider, Joe Veleno, Jonatan Berggren and Robert Mastrosimone were all introduced together before a scrimmage at Little Caesars Arena. All of them were first- and second-round picks from the two most recent NHL Drafts, and two more such picks — Filip Zadina and Jared McIsaac — probably would have been out there, too, if both hadn’t been withheld due to injury.
These types of scrimmages happen everywhere in the NHL. But in Detroit, a sight like that means just a little bit more right now. The Red Wings have missed the playoffs three years running. Draft day has become the most important date on the calendar. The future is everything.
So when fans get to see that collection of talent finally play together, it’s understandably exciting. It’s a reminder that all this waiting really should pay off someday.
This article is about that “someday.”
Continued (paywall)
2. And The Athletic’s Bill Shea, formerly of Crain’s, wrote a remarkably thorough article discussing the public funding of sports stadiums as it applies to the lessons learned from the construction of Joe Louis Arena, the Palace of Auburn Hills and Little Caesars Arena:
The owners of the Red Wings had quietly worked on getting a replacement arena for Joe Louis and by 2012 those efforts bore fruit when the state approved a bond deal on the city’s downtown development agency to finance a new building. Municipal bankruptcy, which likely would have killed a publicly financed arena deal in any other city, didn’t slow Detroit’s new facility. The financing happened outside the traditional city government by using an economic development property tax already on the books for downtown landowners. The team owners would pick up less than half the construction cost, which fell outside of the overall national financing trend.
“It looks extremely distasteful in most cities outside of Detroit to hand over billions of dollars to billionaire owners and millionaire players while laying off public workers,” said [Holy Cross’ Victor] Matheson, the sports economist.
Shea continues at extensive length (paywall)
I am far from an economist or a political science expert, so I don’t really know anything about the process of getting a new arena financed and by whom, but I just want the downtown area to come back to life. I was in town a couple of weeks ago, and I liked what I saw. Granted, you can still tell the areas that are sketchy, but hopefully, the rejuvenation will continue to spread from Woodward out.