As the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports, a bidding war seems to on the verge of braking out between Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia over the site of a new stadium for the NFL’s Washington Redskins. Just one thing: The Redskins aren’t anywhere near the end of their lease at their current stadium:
The Redskins’ lease at FedEx Field expires in 2027, but general manager Bruce Allen said hitting that far-off date will require advance work.
“We’ve been looking at different options,” he said. “As we’ve noticed with other NFL teams, it really is a 10-year process when you’re going to build a new stadium these days.
“There’s people — you know, Prince George’s County loves us, obviously the District would like to have us and we love our home in Ashburn, too.”
That competition is likely to mean a big public subsidy from whichever locality the Redskins select — the average cost to build an NFL stadium in the past decade has grown to more than $750 million.
If it really does take a decade to plan and build a new NFL stadium, then what exactly does the deal Charlotte recently cut with the Panthers do, besides throw public money at a team that wasn’t going anywhere in the immediate future anyways?
