As Cardinals ‘reset’ payroll, they score a sweet deal on upgrades to spring training home
As the St. Louis Cardinals identify revenue challenges while they pursue a “reset” of their major league roster and payroll this winter, an analysis of public documents concerning the revamp of the team’s facility in Jupiter, Florida shows that the project will cost, at most, roughly one third the current average salary for a major league player annually through 2049.
The agreement, which bundles the Cardinals and Miami Marlins into a single corporate entity referred to as Jupiter Stadium, Limited (JSL), was approved by Palm Beach County on May 17, 2022. An addendum was approved on March 14, 2023.
It originally called for the issuance of $108 million in bonds to fund the improvements, with a potential increase to $126 million upon request of JSL, under certain conditions.
The original terms estimated that the teams would be responsible for approximately $44 million in use fees over the duration of the agreement, which expires on April 30, 2049. That number has increased as project costs have mounted, with the county capping its contribution at $75.1 million and the state of Florida at $50 million. The present day cost of the project, as of the 2023 addendum, was estimated at $140 million.
Isami Ayala-Collazo, the assistant county administrator and facilities development and operations director for Palm Beach County, said in an email that the total payments made by JSL by the end of the agreement “will amount to approximately $80M.”
I requested an interview with Cardinals president Bill DeWitt III and general counsel Mike Whittle for this column. The team’s media relations department requested and received written questions on Dec. 3, but did not respond with further assistance.
As a result, some aspects of the financing remain opaque.
Ayala-Collazo referred me to the teams when asked if the Cardinals and Marlins were making equal contributions to the project, which will act as a near-total refurbishment of both teams’ facilities.
Her estimate of an $80 million contribution by the teams would seem to take into account fluctuation of interest rates and cost overruns over the 25-year life of the project. If the $80 million is divided evenly between the two teams, it would equal $1.6 million annual in use fees for the complex. An Associated Press report from February found that the average major leaguer earned approximately $4.5 million in salary in 2023.
One distinction – a refurbishment rather than the construction of a new facility – is important in terms of how it interacts with funding from the state of Florida.
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and the Republican-controlled legislature have opposed the apportionment of public money for stadium projects, with the notable exception of an $8 million agreement reached this fall for infrastructure improvements around the home park of Major League Soccer team Inter Miami, the current club team of global sensation Lionel Messi.
A Florida statute first passed in 2013, though, allows for up to $50 million in state funds to be allocated for the “retention” of MLB spring training facilities, providing the facility was constructed prior to June 1, 2000, has been continually occupied by more than one major league club, and has not previously received financial assistance from the state of Florida.
The Roger Dean Stadium complex is the only facility in Florida which meets those criteria. The Florida statute also conditions aid from the state on “a financial commitment to provide 50% or more of the funds required by an agreement for the construction or renovation of the facility for a spring training franchise.”
The state has approved the financing agreement along with its contribution, Ayala-Collazo said.
The original financing agreement with Palm Beach County also offers the clearest window to date into the makeup of the ownership group of the Cardinals. The team’s most recent media guide lists 14 “additional investors” in the club along with chairman Bill DeWitt, Jr.
As part of the financing agreement with the county, the Cardinals were required to disclose any party holding at least 5% ownership interest in the team. Six corporate entities were listed.
Through business registration documents and public records in Illinois, Missouri and Ohio, I was able to link those six companies to six individuals or families listed by the club in the media guide – DeWitt Jr., Stephen F. Brauer, David C. Pratt, John K. Wallace, Jr., and the families of Andrew N. Baur (who died in 2011) and Nick D. Kladis (who died in 2009).
The Cardinals did not respond to a request to verify that the ownership group remains the same now as it was in May 2022.
Forbes most recently estimated the Cardinals to be worth $2.55 billion. A 5% share, then, would be worth approximately $125 million. The current ownership group bought the team in 1995 for a total of $150 million, and then one year later, sold the parking garages acquired as part of that transaction for $75 million.
At the team’s end-of-season press conference, DeWitt Jr. touted “significant new investments in staffing programs and infrastructure, beginning immediately and continuing in the years to come,” and said that “groundbreaking” would occur in Jupiter in April 2025. That timeline represents a delay of nearly two years, and would come nearly five and a half years after negotiations on the agreement began in earnest late in 2019.
The Cardinals and Marlins believed construction would begin in earnest as soon as the second half of the 2023 season, and preparations were made to relocate the teams’ Florida State League affiliates, the Jupiter Hammerheads and Palm Beach Cardinals, to the nearby CACTI Park of the Palm Beaches, the home of the Houston Astros and Washington Nationals.
Permitting delays, though, pushed back the process. A notice posted outside the facility in February 2024 outlined an upcoming public hearing conducted by the Town of Jupiter, a representative of which declined to answer questions.
Investment in the facility is necessary for the Cardinals and Marlins to remain on the cutting edge of major league franchises from an infrastructure perspective. The Cardinals have long had to tolerate temporary structures and an insufficient physical footprint, outgrowing their complex to the point of leasing office space in a building across the street for the training and medical staff, as well as a media work room.
Palm Beach County and the state of Florida have seen fit to make that investment public, believing in the long-term economic necessity of keeping spring training baseball viable on the state’s Atlantic coast. A presentation prepared for county commissioners from the Palm Beach County Tourist Development Council estimated that the Cardinals were responsible for $23,421,400 in economic impact in 2019, while the Marlins were responsible for $9,124,800.
At those levels, the investment for the county and state would be a sound one. For the Cardinals and Marlins, the significant public subsidization will allow them to grow into their refurbished spring home at an imminently reasonable price tag.
Whether that agreement extends past its current 2049 end date will be in part determined by whether all parties involved realize the optimism of those projections.
