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Steelers boss tosses yellow flag on Plan B
Thursday, June 04, 1998 By Ed Bouchette, Post-Gazette Sports Writer
Steelers President Dan Rooney charged yesterday that city and county officials are trying to force his franchise to assume too much of the financial burden for Plan B. He said if talks aimed at a new North Shore football stadium aren't settled by June 30, other options will be explored.
County Commissioner Bob Cranmer reacted by restating his position that the Steelers must increase their investment in the proposed football stadium.
In an interview, Rooney contended that if the club agrees to the conditions pushed by government negotiators, it will be difficult to improve its financial situation relative to other teams in the National Football League. Ultimately, he said, the Steelers would be unable to field a competitive team. He said his team's revenues rank in the bottom fourth among NFL teams and "we're dropping like a rock," largely because of 28-year-old Three Rivers Stadium.
NFL teams share revenues such as the sale of television rights equally, but do not share locally generated income, such as the sale of luxury seating. Newer stadiums in the league generally produce more revenues.
"I can tell you this, we will not be pressured into making a deal that will leave us in a worse position of any of the NFL leases," Rooney said. "We cannot survive with this lease that we're existing under now, or the one that's proposed."
Rooney complained that the Steelers were being asked to fill in the holes in the $803 million Plan B financing package, which would generate money for construction of separate football and baseball stadiums, a convention center and other projects.
"We will help, but we're not going to carry water for everybody," Rooney said.
He complained that while the Steelers have pledged at least $15 million more to the Plan B package than the Pirates, officials want still more from them. The Steelers have said they will invest $50 million, the Pirates $35 million.
Cranmer noted that Plan B evolved from an original effort to build a new baseball field for the Pirates, who have lost money playing in what Cranmer characterized as a football stadium. After the Pirates left, he said, Three Rivers was to have been improved for the Steelers, but "somewhere along the line there, the Steelers realized that wasn't going to work as well as it would if they had a new stadium, and all of a sudden we're building a new football stadium."
Cranmer blamed the Steelers' problems on the business structure of the NFL and said it was not the county's responsibility to solve them. If the Steelers want a new stadium, they will have to invest more, he said.
Rooney called Cranmer "naive."
"If he's going to join the present time, he's got to realize this is the nature of sports in America," Rooney said.
Cranmer said he had productive talks with Art Rooney, Dan's son and a Steelers vice president, on Tuesday and he was surprised that Dan had made such a strong statement a day later.
"If he's taking a hard line and saying he's going to have to take measures at some point next month, by all means do what he has to do," Cranmer said.
Rooney said he is upset because he feels government negotiators have made the franchise a public whipping boy in the Plan B process.
"We have tried to keep this confidential, and all I know is it keeps getting out that the Steelers are the ones holding it up and the Steelers are the ones not giving their share. This is the reason why we've had to go public, because they put out the stories continuously during negotiations. So if there was an agreement (to keep quiet), they surely didn't keep it."
Rooney said it is unfair that under the proposal, the Pirates will receive more RAD tax revenue than the Steelers to build a $228 million baseball park, while the Steelers' new stadium will cost an estimated $233 million.
"I'm all for the Pirates," Rooney said. "(Pirates owner) Kevin (McClatchy) is a good guy and he's done a good job. But, hey, I have to worry about the Steelers. I can't be taking care of the convention center, the Science Center, Kaufmann's, the Pirates and then worry about the Steelers and the community and all these kinds of things. We just can't do that. And that's what we're really being asked to do."
As an example, Rooney said he was originally told the Steelers and Pirates would split the cost of demolishing Three Rivers equally. Now, he said, negotiators have told the Steelers they will be charged more.
"I think they're portraying it with the idea that we're the only ones who have the money. It's like someone wrote: The Pirates said they'd give $35 million and everyone says isn't that wonderful; the Steelers are giving $50 million and they say it's peanuts."
McClatchy declined comment.
Rooney emphasized that he does not want to shift more burden to his season ticket-holders, even though he said negotiators have suggested raising the price of tickets to help pay for the stadium.
"We want to make it affordable for this community. I feel we have an obligation to our season ticket-holders. We just can't go and gouge them and say they're going to pay for this whole thing."
Cranmer has set an unofficial June 30 deadline to complete the negotiations, and Rooney said he agrees.
"I'll say that's a very critical date, because if we go past that, you will have delayed the completion of the stadium a year. And so, if this doesn't fly by the 30th, then we have to look at what we're going to do. We have to say that this thing isn't going to go. If it doesn't fly by then, then it makes it too easy to just drift."
Once the private commitments from the Steelers and the Pirates are set, the county's Regional Asset District board will vote on the public share for the $803 million Plan B. That share is estimated at $13.4 million a year, for up to 30 years, to build the stadiums and pay for a $267 million expansion of the David L. Lawrence Convention Center and other development projects.
If the Plan B deadline is missed, the Steelers may look at nearby counties that might be interested in building a football stadium, Rooney said. Washington County Commissioner Diana Irey wrote a letter to the Steelers on Dec. 4, 1996 inviting them to relocate there and offered the assistance of county economic development agencies. She suggested possible sites near Star Lake Amphitheatre or at Southpointe. She re-issued the invitation last fall after the defeat of the Regional Renaissance Initiative. The Steelers can give notice at any time to escape their lease at Three Rivers Stadium and leave two years later.
Rooney said he is not threatening to move the team out of the region or sell it, but said if the franchise can't compete with other teams in the league, it would become mediocre on the field and would not survive.
"This town wants a winner," Rooney said.
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