The Final 9

NEW YORK — Citi Field will remain the name of the New York Mets' new ballpark following a government bailout the team believes will help the struggling bank survive its economic crisis.

Citigroup agreed in 2006 to pay the Mets US$400 million over 20 years for naming rights to the stadium, scheduled to open next year. Two New York City councilmen said last week that the $800 million ballpark's name should be changed to Citi/Taxpayer Field.

"The company is still an ongoing company and a vital company that is doing business around the globe," Mets chief operating officer Jeff Wilpon said Tuesday. "The taxpayers are backstopping what's going on in the global economy. It's not really Citi's fault that they're in this problem. There are a lot of other banks in the same situation - with naming-rights deals, also."

After Citigroup's shares lost 60 per cent of their value within a week and dropped as low as $3.05, the government agreed last month to give the company a $20 billion cash injection - following an earlier $25 billion infusion. As part of the plan, the government agreed to assume possible losses on risky loans in exchange for $7 billion in preferred shares.

"We have a deal with Citi that is good for them, good for us. It's good business for us to have the partnership and the relationship," Wilpon said. "We think we can bring the right people to help them market their product so they can be a going concern, and that over time, the fans that we bring here will become Citi customers and that Citi will thrive and be able to pay the money back to the government."

Signage for Citi already is visible at the ballpark, which is adjacent to Shea Stadium, and more is to come.

New York Mets say Citi Field will remain name of new ballpark....

By Barry M. Bloom

The days are dwindling to a precious few at Shea Stadium, and looming just beyond the center-field fence is the 2009 home of the Mets with its red-brick façade and Ebbets Field-like rotunda, nearing completion.
The Citi Field sign has been hung above the great Jackie Robinson Rotunda, along with other similar signage throughout the new ballpark.

"There's one that crowns the big scoreboard that looms over center field," said Richard Browne, the project manager of the ballpark construction site, during a telephone conversation on Thursday. "And when it's illuminated at night, you can see it for miles all over the place."

The new ballpark is about 85 percent complete with 80 percent of the dark green seats already installed. The rotunda may be an homage to the home of the Brooklyn Dodgers, but the green seats pay tribute to the Polo Grounds, the home of the New York Giants until 1957 and where the Mets played their first two seasons in 1962 and 1963.

Citi Field nearing completion....

By CHARLES V. BAGLI

More than two years ago, the Bloomberg administration came up with an aggressively creative way to use tax-exempt bonds to finance two of the most expensive stadiums in the world, one for the Yankees in the Bronx and another for the Mets in Queens.

The Internal Revenue Service initially approved the use of the bonds for the ballparks, but quickly issued a proposal in 2006 to tighten the rules governing the use of tax-exempt bonds so that it would be more difficult, and perhaps impossible, for this kind of financing to be used again by profitable, private enterprises like professional sports teams.

Now state and city officials say the proposed rules are jeopardizing what is planned to be the city’s next big sports palace: the $950 million Barclays Center, an 18,000-seat basketball arena for the Nets that is the centerpiece of the huge residential and commercial complex in Brooklyn known as Atlantic Yards. The project’s developer, Forest City Ratner, says it plans to break ground on the arena this fall and has long expected to use tax-exempt financing to reduce its borrowing costs by tens of millions of dollars.

Barclays Center is expected to be the most expensive arena in the world, and the lack of tax-exempt financing would substantially increase its cost. The $4 billion Atlantic Yards project already faces delays because of litigation, a sluggish economy, the lack of commercial tenants and the reluctance of lenders to finance large real estate developments.

FULL ARTICLE....