Mayor Jim Strickland’s Memphis stadiums enhancement plan was unveiled last October, announced at the time as a $684 million package of renovations and new construction at four of the city’s sports venues.

Nearly a year later, no agreements have been reached regarding funding allocation, including $350 million in cash from the state. No ground has been broken. No renovations beyond the essentials — previously planned, or separately approved — have been made, anywhere.

Emails, texts reveal what Memphis president pitched to Big 12

The total amount of money to be spent and precisely which of the initially proposed projects — major renovation work at Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium and FedExForum, comparatively minor renovation of AutoZone Park, the minor-league baseball stadium, and conversion of the vacant Mid-South Coliseum basketball arena into a soccer stadium — will be funded remain undecided or undisclosed.

Recently disclosed documents show that in late August the City of Memphis proposed spending $714 million on two projects: a $494 million renovation of FedExForum, which it owns in conjunction with Shelby County, and a $220 million renovation of Liberty Stadium, which the city owns.

But the Grizzlies estimate $550 million is needed for the scope of work required at FedExForum, The Daily Memphian investigative and enterprise reporter Samuel Hardiman wrote earlier this week, and the university’s full upgrade cost estimate for Liberty Stadium was $295 million.

That’s a shortfall. And that’s a problem still to be solved.

A total of $681.4 million from the city’s $712 million proposal would come from taxpayer funding, including the $350 million in state money. Approximately $197 million of the taxpayer funding, however, does not currently exist. That’s another problem.

Those problems aside, Daily Memphian readers have many questions regarding just what they’ll be getting for their tax dollars.

The city has provided few answers, the Grizzlies have provided few answers, and the two sides apparently continue to quietly negotiate behind closed doors.

Even the university — which initially laid out somewhat detailed plans and recently has gone very public pushing its desire for funding to formally be put in place sooner than later — has provided few answers lately when it comes to specifics.

But we’ll do our best to provide some answers here:

Documents show framework of stadium deals, but with work left to do

How does the city plan to divvy up the $350 million in state money?

Based on the late-August proposal, it plans to allocate $228.5 million to FedExForum and $121.5 million to Liberty Stadium. But it’s unknown if that has changed since then.

FedExForum is less than 20 years old. Why does it even need renovation costing that much money?

The Grizzlies want it, and if you’re the city, you can’t get them to sign a new 30-year lease without a full renovation. If the city is to retain its only major professional sports franchise, that’s all that matters. And that’s why you wind up doing it in the end.

So what do you get for $500 million or so?

It’s no secret that the arena’s configuration is illogical when it comes to revenue-generating opportunities.

Currently, there are more cheap seats higher up in the bowl and fewer expensive seats closer to the arena’s floor space. Inverting the configuration would generate more money for one of the NBA’s small-market franchises.

“From a local revenue perspective, ticket sales are critical and the number one driver of local revenue. And that’s the case, I think, throughout the league, so we’re no exception there. And that’s why the value of the seats is; how you locate your seats; and how much you’re able to fill matters enormously. In the near and long term,” Grizzlies president Jason Wexler said to the Memphis City Council, as reported by The Commercial Appeal in December 2022.

What would Grizzlies fans get out of it?

For starters, more opportunities to watch games from down low, closer to the action and with a much better view.

Moreover, a lease extension would help ensure the Grizzlies — happy they can make more money — stay in Memphis far beyond the current expiration date of 2029.

Stadium funding could land on next Memphis mayor’s desk. Six candidates said what they’d do.

Why won’t the Grizzlies make up the entire difference between what the city can contribute and what they feel is needed to make FedExForum right?

Because they don’t have to.

Other suitors will wine and dine them — perhaps with Seattle, which lost its NBA franchise long ago, at the front of the line — and there’s a risk the Grizzlies could leave Memphis.

Why not just let them leave then?

It starts with civic pride. Having a major pro franchise boosts esteem in the eyes of many.

“Obviously we’re going to have to update the FedExForum to make sure the Grizzlies are as competitive as they possibly can be with their product,” Memphis Tourism president and CEO Kevin Kane said last November. “And, also, we want to make sure that the Grizzlies stay here for the long haul.”

Economic impact and cost-benefit studies generally are worth the paper they’re written on, and — much like football and basketball statistics — can be twisted to make just about any argument you want. But the bottom line is it’s way cooler to have a team in town than watching it pack up and leave.

“It drives the image and reputation of a city,” Strickland told me in October. “It opens the door of your city to so many people.

“During economic development pitches, where I’m involved trying to pitch a company to relocate to Memphis or expand in Memphis, more often than not, the Grizzlies are involved in that discussion.

“Nobody says, ‘Oh, we’re coming to Memphis because of the Memphis Grizzlies.’ But it is part of that discussion. Companies go where they can recruit employees, where people want to live. And people want to live in cities that have major sports.”

How much will the Grizzlies contribute to the project?

According to the city’s proposal, $27.6 million. The Grizzlies have not specified how much they’re willing to spend.

Renovations in mind, Showboats make seating changes for upcoming season

Enough about the Grizzlies. What will a renovated Liberty Stadium look like?

The university has dodged the question of what will get cut from its wish list if funding comes in on the low end rather than the high end of a full upgrade.

But stadium renderings released in May 2022 shed some light on what to possibly expect. 

“This isn’t just a new press box and a fresh coat of paint,” columnist Geoff Calkins wrote at the time.

“The west side of the stadium, the side where the press box is now, will be completely rebuilt with new suites, club seating and all of the modern (and expensive) bells and whistles. The plans also include remaking the ‘halo’ around the building to add trees and stages and food trucks.”

Can you be any more specific?

Fine.

“The project,” Daily Memphian beat writer Frank Bonner II wrote then, “will also create a hospitality experience in the hollow space around the stadium, create family boxes on the north end and party deck patios for students on the south end.”

If amenities aren’t sliced and diced, that is.

“What we really need to make sure gets done,” Simmons Bank executive chairman George A. Makris Jr. told The Daily Memphian’s Drew Hill in September 2022, “is that the university has a state-of-the-art facility to help them meet their goals.”

So what is the University of Memphis athletic department’s biggest goal these days? 

It used to be getting into a Power 5 conference, which is what drove the renovation bid in the first place.

With the pending demise of the Pac-12, no realistic shot at getting into the SEC or the Big Ten, yet another round of conference passing with the Big 12 not taking Memphis and the ACC apparently not ready to make its move until if or when it loses current members, that may have shifted.

Now, it may be reduced to making sure you come out on the right side of whatever further separation among college athletics’ haves and have-nots.

Buckley: Tigers are trying on conference realignment. Just ask Bill Hardgrave.

What does the stadium have to do with conference realignment?

Not having a renovated stadium was part of why Memphis was left behind when Houston, Cincinnati, Central Florida and BYU all were invited into the Big 12 in 2021. Having one won’t guarantee that the Tigers get into a better league than the American Athletic Conference in the future, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt the cause.

“I don’t think doing this with the stadium will, in and of itself, get us into a Power 5 conference,” Tigers athletic director Laird Veatch told Bonner in April, back when there still was a bona fide Power 5. “But not doing it could be a great way to prevent it.

“So it is I think a necessary and critical step. Not just because we need to look like we belong. But because of the message that sends that we have the capacity, the commitment, the people here that care to invest those kinds of dollars in our football program.”

Is it really worth renovating Liberty Stadium, though, if the Tigers can’t come close to filling it these days?

The Tigers are in a pickle.

They can’t afford to own and build from scratch their own on-campus stadium. They need somewhere to play, and moving to Halle Stadium isn’t going to cut it. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)

Liberty Stadium is the only choice.

But the facility is terrifically outdated and does not have nearly enough of the amenities spectators have come to want and expect in 2023, resulting in a loss of substantial revenue generating streams created by luxury boxes, premium seats and the like. So significant renovation is needed no matter how many fans are in the stands, much like it is important to maintain the house you own no matter how many people live in it. 

Otherwise, eventually, it’s time to hang the condemned sign.

Analysis: Which path forward will the stadiums deal take?

But if the Tigers aren’t going to get in the Big 12 anytime in our lifetime, why not just keep playing in it as is?

Fine. Don’t renovate. But then you risk what happened in Birmingham, for example.

Legion Field, bless its historic heart, is a dump. Neglect over the years contributed to that. Anyone who sat in the rain at Memphis’ 2018 Birmingham Bowl loss to Auburn should remember that.

How much is the university contributing to the Liberty Stadium renovation?

According to the city’s proposal, $5 million. The university has said it is looking into ways to contribute but has not specified how much.

“We absolutely recognize that we’ll have a part in this, for sure,” Veatch told Calkins and me in December. “Really, for us, it’s going to be driven by revenue associated with those premium areas. Suites, club seats, all that.”

So is seating/revenue generation just as important at Liberty Stadium as is trying to get into a new conference?

Almost, if not as much at this point.

Both the football stadium and FedExForum need to change their entire template of seating to maximize earning potential.

“That’s the trend you’re seeing across the country. These premium experiences. That’s what everybody’s buying,” Veatch also said in December. “Everybody you talk to — they sell out of suites and club seats. It’s the seats up in the corner that are cheap that you have a hard time turning.”

Plus, let’s be real: Those Liberty Stadium bleachers aren’t exactly built for comfort.

City, U of M ink deal as Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium renovations loom

Is the city planning to downsize Liberty Stadium?

Capacity at the aging stadium built in 1965 is 58,325. Based on what Strickland said in May 2022, then, the answer is yes.

“This will reduce it (to) somewhere between 50,000 and 53,000,” he said then.

Temple plays in an NFL stadium, Lincoln Financial Field, the AAC’s largest at 67,594. Charlotte’s Jerry Richardson Stadium is the conference’s smallest, a 15,000-seat facility, built so it could someday be expanded to 40,000 seats.

Are there any non-sports related benefits to renovating Liberty Stadium that citizens will get from their tax dollars being spent?

Strickland, as Daily Memphian government and politics reporter Bill Dries wrote in May 2022, said the opening up of the stadium’s north side, as was in the plans at the time, would set the stage for blockbuster concerts at the city’s biggest single-stage venue.

Two years earlier, the Memphis City Council had called for and received an engineering study on what structural changes it would take to modify the stadium to accommodate such shows.

“What we found was the acts like U2, Beyonce, The Rolling Stones — they have to be able to drive all those tractor trailers actually onto the field to build the stage,” council member Frank Colvett said, as Dries reported. “The way the Liberty Bowl is configured currently, they actually have to build the stage outside the stadium and then kind of haul it in piece-by-piece which makes it time-consuming, cost prohibitive.”

Whether the city can even attract such concerts to a renovated stadium, especially with so many of today’s biggest acts already going to Nashville, remains to be seen.

Why can’t you take the $350 million from the state and fill the pothole in front of my house? Or somehow reduce crime in the city? Or keep my electricity from flickering off every time it spits rain in Memphis?

Don’t exaggerate. But it’s a perfectly good question. And to answer it: The $350 million is a one-time allocation from the state earmarked exclusively for city-owned college and pro sports venues. There’s no redirecting it elsewhere.

Tigers coach Ryan Silverfield weighs in on Liberty Stadium renovation funding

Back to football, will the Tigers be OK if they don’t get the full $295 million they’re seeking?

Well, they can’t threaten to leave for another city. That much we know.

So while it may not be enough to do all they want, $220 million should make a pretty dent.