The spring training drain continues for Florida

The old wire-service photographs, beamed back to the North's snow-driven outposts, had an unmistakable image. Beaches, palm trees and baseball. If you dreamed about spring training, you thought about Florida.

Plenty has changed. For the first time in history, sparked by an aggressive tourist tax-based plan that built sparkling stadiums and poached a half-dozen organizations in 12 seasons, Arizona's Cactus League features 15 teams, just as many as Florida's Grapefruit League.

Now there's a new question:

Is attracting - or keeping - spring-training teams worth the cost?

Arizona says yes.

Thirteen of the Cactus League teams train in the Phoenix metropolitan area. When the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies begin playing next spring in a new $100 million facility on the outskirts of Scottsdale and Mesa, all 15 teams will be within a 40-minute drive.

"Quite frankly, it's a much more friendly league," Seattle Mariners assistant general manager Jeff Kingston told The Seattle Times. "The travel is vastly better than Florida, and the weather is better. People who have experienced both tend to enjoy the experience in Arizona more."

Meanwhile, Florida officials have tired of the defections.

Larry Pendleton, president of the Florida Sports Foundation, a private, nonprofit group that serves as the state's official sports promotion and development organization, said it's essential to become proactive and retain existing Grapefruit League teams - while perhaps coaxing a few others to Florida. In the past decade, the foundation has revived a spring-training retention fund to help build or renovate stadiums. (It offers matching funding, up to $15 million over 30 years.)

Last year, the Bonn Marketing Research Group determined that Florida's spring-training teams had an economic impact of $752.3 million - and direct spending of about $442 million - for the 2009 season. The study was commissioned by the state tourism office.

"When you put it in those terms, it gets everyone's attention, including people in the Legislature," said Nick Gandy, the Florida Sports Foundation's director of communications. "Those are big numbers."

But those numbers - along with the true value of spring-training baseball - are disputed.

Dollars and sense?

Philip Porter, professor of economics at the University of South Florida, gives a quick answer when asked about the financial impact of spring-training baseball.

"Sports is a consumption activity, not an investment activity," Porter said. "These so-called economic-impact studies never include the cost to a community. It's simply an estimate of people who come to see the team and an estimate of what they spend.

"It probably should be called a 'benefit' study because if you don't include the costs, it can't possibly show anything wrong. You can't just show the benefits without including the costs. The evidence (of major economic impact) just isn't there."

Porter's premise is an appropriate backdrop for Sarasota, where voters have rebelled against the use of public money to subsidize spring training.

For the first time since World War II, the Cincinnati Reds aren't training in the Bay area. The Reds departed Sarasota last season for Goodyear, Ariz., and a $108 million facility they share with the Cleveland Indians.

The Reds say they never wanted to leave Sarasota. They reached an agreement on a 30-year lease at Ed Smith Stadium and were kicking in $9 million of the $54 million for renovations, but Sarasota voters did not support the tax referendum.

As a new agreement was assembled, the Reds looked to Arizona and found a new facility waiting - at zero cost. They bolted. With the Reds gone, Sarasota moved to attract the Baltimore Orioles, who left Fort Lauderdale after 14 seasons. In July, the Sarasota County commissioners voted 4-1 for $31.2 million in stadium improvements that clinched a deal with the Orioles.

On Dec. 29, two citizens groups filed a lawsuit, alleging that approval for the stadium-improvement money, ultimately covered by tourist taxes, was illegal and the matter should go to another referendum.

"Politicians should be thinking about the school system, the roads, dredging the port, getting more police on the beat, not baseball, where there's doubt whether it brings in anything" economically, Porter said. "Any politician that spends our public money on spring-training baseball in the face of that kind of evidence is irresponsible."

But in Arizona, the approach has been different.

Cubs on the clock

In 1993, the Grapefruit League had 20 teams. The Cactus League, seemingly nearing extinction, had just eight.

The turning point occurred in 2000, when voters approved a proposition that formed the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority. Seeking a new football stadium for the Arizona Cardinals and Cactus League improvements, it levied a 1 percent bed tax and a 17.75 percent car-rental tax.

Now the Cactus League has four state-of-the-art shared facilities and Arizona is "saturated with teams," said Robert Brinton, the league's president and executive director of the Mesa Convention & Visitors Bureau.

With the sports authority's initial money tapped out, Arizona is working to keep the Chicago Cubs. The Cactus League's most popular team, which could leave for a new home by 2012, wants a baseball mega-complex projected at $119 million.

Suddenly, fires were stoked by competition from a group in the southwest Florida community of Naples. After meeting with Gov. Charlie Crist, who pledged support for attracting the Cubs, team owner Tom Ricketts asked Naples to step aside and granted exclusive negotiating rights to Mesa, the team's spring home since 1979.

Last week, in an effort to keep the Cubs, the Arizona Legislature introduced a bill that would provide money with a $1 car-rental surcharge and an 8 percent surcharge on tickets for all teams playing Cactus League games. That plan drew immediate opposition from Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig and the 14 other Cactus League teams.

The Cubs' agreement with Mesa stipulates passage of a financing plan, plus voter approval in a November referendum. If either step collapses, the Cubs can resume negotiations for a potential move to Florida with Naples-based Fifth Avenue Advisors and Chicago-based Esmark Inc.

The groups said they have studied a combination of private and public financing, but are not requesting an increase in property taxes or sales taxes for Collier County.

"It's tough for me to judge whether Florida has been complacent" in keeping Grapefruit League teams, said Tim Cartwright, a partner with Fifth Avenue Advisors, a financial firm. "But it's obvious that Arizona has been aggressive.

"Maybe we're biased, but we feel Florida is the place to be for spring training. When you plan a family vacation, you can go to the game, go to Busch Gardens or Disney World the next day, meet up at the beach after that. We feel Florida has much to offer."

But recently, teams have practically left skid marks. Venerable Dodgertown, once considered a Vero Beach showcase, has become a ghost town. Winter Haven's Chain O'Lakes Park sits vacant. For the first time since 1949, no teams will train in the South Florida hotbeds of Fort Lauderdale and Miami.

Fans have needed a scorecard to keep up with the changes. After all the defections, the Grapefruit League has hunkered down, perhaps ready to reverse the decade-long trend. The simple days of spring training, complete with mom-and-pop stadiums, have passed. Now it's a high-stakes competition - with a lingering question.

At what cost?