San Antonio Symphony News and Archive

Mixed-up way to save Spurs and symphony




By Rick Casey

from the San Antonio Express News 9/30/98



I've got an idea for a permanent solution to the financial problems of the San Antonio Symphony.

The taxpayers build them a first- rate concert hall.

It will be a state-of-the-art facility with income producing amenities, such as luxury boxes in which corporate patrons can be served refreshments while entertaining clients in style.

The symphony will choose the architects and supervise construction.

The symphony will use the hall about 50 nights or days a year, but will control the leasing of it for the rest of the year, and will get a generous share of the revenues generated by visiting Broadway shows, rock concerts, convention events and other uses.

The symphony will operate the concessions for all events at the hall, and will split its profits with the city.

In return for these revenues, the symphony will set aside a few days for civic events such as high school graduations or the incomparable citywide talent show.

The hall will be financed by a selling bonds to be repaid from revenues from a tax increment financing district encompassing an area that spreads out about four-square miles from the hall. Any increase in property values in that area over the next 20 years will go to paying for the hall, instead of paying for the operations of the city, county and school district.

If that doesn't work, we can pay for it with a sales tax.

Wait a minute! I got mixed up.

This isn't my idea. It's the idea of the Spurs and Bitterblue Inc.!

Sorry, I got confused.

Now I remember. My idea had to do with building a new arena for the Spurs, not a new symphony hall.

Here's the idea.

We begin by organizing a team of business leaders and foundation executives. They go to the Spurs with a proposal.

They will increase the amount of contributions they will make - in the form of luxury boxes they will buy - in exchange for a number of concessions from the Spurs.

The most significant concession will come from the players. They will agree to cut their payroll by 25 percent.

The cut will come in two ways.

The team's roster will be cut from 12 to 10.

I don't think this will make much of a difference. There are always a couple of players who sit on the end of the bench for the whole season anyway. Oh, they get in when the Spurs are 30 points ahead or 30 points behind, but that's expensive garbage time.

The other cuts will come from the salaries of the remaining players.

I have done the calculations. Last year the Spurs' player payroll was about $30 million. A quarter of that would be $7.5 million.

Based on 20-year bonds at an interest rate of 8 percent, that much in annual payments would buy about $74 million in bonds.

That's roughly half the cost of the arena the Spurs are proposing.

If the players agreed to make that sort of commitment - out of love of the game and loyalty to the city - it's hard to imagine that the city's corporate leaders and taxpayers wouldn't come through to pay their shares.

I know it would be a sacrifice for the players, but they could make some of it up by coaching kids in summer basketball camps.

Wait a minute!

This isn't my idea!

It's the idea that foundation and corporate leaders put forward for solving the symphony's financial problems.

Their starting point was a 25 percent cut in payroll, with a few musician positions eliminated and a cut in pay for survivors.

One of these leaders suggested that the musicians could make up the difference by teaching.

So what do we make of the juxtaposition of these proposals, one for the Spurs and the other for the symphony?

How do we judge proposals that have us giving a $150 million arena to millionaire players while asking for major wage cuts from $30,000 players?

Make of it what you will. It is, after all, just voices from the asylum.

And the mad can't be expected to make sense of their musings.



Back to the Symphony Archives.