If Ernest Thayer Could See Us Now

I wish we had a Mighty Casey because between our City Manager and City Council, we're close to having a Mudville Nine. 

We have a baseball stadium from thirty+ years ago, Dodd Stadium, when we attracted (lured is a better word, and bribed even better) a minor league team, an affiliate of the New York Yankees, based in Albany, New York. After four years, they left and were replaced by an affiliate of the San Francisco Giants. 

Then they left, the minor leagues reorganized, and we hosted a Single-A affiliate of the Detroit Tigers. And then, stop me if you've read this before, they left because the minor leagues were radically reinvented. There was no room at the table for anyone in Norwich until the Norwich Sea Unicorns of the Futures Collegiate Baseball League (a college summer league) took up residence. 

Meanwhile, the meter on costs and expenses kept ticking, and the current operating deficit for the stadium is over three hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Monday night, the City Council (unanimously) and City Manager signed a one-year extension with an 'increased lease payment', from 22K to 35K, that will do close to nothing to fill the deficit in a city where children are shortchanged at budget time, public safety needs more funding than the city can offer, and the roads and sidewalks need repair everywhere

I'd be curious to know how large the operating deficit of Dodd Stadium was when the Norwich Baseball Stadium (NBSA) was still functioning (and why, at the Council meeting on October 6th, when 'inactive boards and commissions were dissolved,' the NBSA wasn't among them) and how much additionally has been thrown into the hole created by all the lease agreements negotiated by Mayor Nystrom and City Manager Salomone.

Dodd Stadium long ago devolved from a Field of Dreams to a Field of Schemes. Nothing in a one-year lease agreement with a summer collegiate baseball who averaged (in 2024) 1,648 attendees will do anything other than exacerbate the current fiscal situation for the city of Norwich.

The mantra being voiced by City Council members and the City Manager is that somehow, in some way, Dodd Stadium (with a tenant) can help spark the continuing economic development of Norwich. This is well beyond wishful thinking and borders on abject bullshit.

The stadium, for a variety of reasons, was built as far from downtown as possible, snuffing out the hopes to use it as a fulcrum for downtown development as Hartford has tried to do with Dunkin Donuts Field (It results in an annual loss for Hartford. In fiscal year 2023, the stadium generated about $915,000 in income while the city's debt payments for the stadium were about $4.6 million, leaving a deficit of nearly $3.7 million that year. )

"Minor league baseball team owners maintain ex ante that ballparks increase employment, tax revenues, and other private economic development in the host municipality. The presence of a team or a stadium leads to neutral or negative changes primarily due to leakages and substitution. 

"Crowding out can take the form of locals not venturing near a stadium when a game is taking place, normal business or leisure travelers avoiding a local economy when a large event is occurring, or local area residents purposefully leaving the local economy to avoid a mega-event.

"In all of these cases, normal local economic activity is reduced below its regular level, meaning any gains from an event must offset the loss for the community to simply break even. Cities compete for teams and contribute millions of dollars for facilities without any evidence as to whether minor league teams and stadiums are wise investments or not." -The Economic Impact of Stadia and Teams: The Case of Minor League Baseball

When Dodd Stadium had minor league affiliations of Major League baseball teams, the NBSA broke even (I would know, I was on it), but those days are long past, and while the City Council and City Manager can hope all they want for a change of fortune, hope is not a plan, and there is no plan.

Have a commercial realtor sell the grounds and the stadium and let the purchaser do with it what they wish. Even if all the city gets is a dollar for the sale, the flow of red ink, to the current tune of 350K, will be stanched.
-bill kenny