How D.C Mayor Muriel Bowser is Closing the Commanders, RFK Stadium Deal

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0:42Hi, everyone. Welcome back to The Deal. I'm Jason Kelly alongside Alex Rodriguez, who's about to get a little bit older. He's on vacation, about to celebrate and join the 50 Club, The Five Handle. I welcome you prematurely to this club, Alex. Hope you're enjoying your vacation. And, wow, big birthday. Not quite the 50-50 club. Just the 50 club. Just the 50 club. And I'm very depressed. Are you? No. Come on. Look what you've done in your first half century. I am, Jace. Because, you know, guys like you and I, we've always been, like, the young guys in the group with older friends. And now we're, like, getting to that point where we're now the senior guys in the room.

1:25I know. Pretty depressing. You're right. You're right. But you got to lean into it. You got to lean into your wisdom. But in the meantime, we've got a great interview with Muriel Bowser. She's the mayor of D.C., the first mayor we've had on the show. And, man, she's a dealmaker. Obviously, and a big one, that is. I mean, this is as big, if not one of the biggest, for sure, projects that Josh Harris is spearheading with the football club there. And I'm really excited to hear the process, how did it go, how difficult was it? Yeah. So what's so interesting about her is, you know, this is a mayor who, in the span of less than two years, has brought the commanders, Josh Harris's football club and the NFL juggernaut, back to the District of Columbia on the old site of the RFK Stadium.

2:14And at the same time, kept Ted Leonsis and his Washington Wizards, Washington Wizards, the Washington Mystics, and the Washington Capitals there in the nation's capital. I should also mention that is where the, at one point, great Georgetown Hoyas also played basketball there in downtown DC. But she was the one who really brought it all together. And I mean, you know this from, you know, having lived and worked in New York, Miami, you know, now in Minnesota and the Twin Cities. You got to have the public officials on your side. And when you do, they can be very powerful forces, especially in the world of sports.

2:50Yeah, you got to give her a lot of credit because it's not one of the most popular things as a political person to do these days, right? To take public money and use it for, you know, these private businesses. But I think you got to give her credit because she recognized how important sports is, how it brings people together, how it's good for people's morale, self-esteem. And look, when the commanders win, there's no denying it. People go to work on Monday with a, you know, hop on their step. And when they lose, the opposite is true. So to keep both those big conglomerates in that community, big congrats to her.

3:25Well, Alex, you and I know never easy to do deals with the likes of Ted Leonsis and Josh Harris. And these deals never really stop with the drama on the sidelines in the time since we recorded this interview with Mayor Muriel Bowser. A reminder also that she is in the nation's capital and has the attention of none other than the President of the United States, President Trump, taking to social media, calling for a name change of Washington's football team and making that a condition of this deal going through. Mayor Bowser in a press conference said nothing like that is going to stop or delay this stadium deal from getting done and that it all really rests with the D.C.

4:09City Council. Coming up, Mayor Muriel Bowser here on The Deal.

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4:55Welcome back to The Deal. I'm Jason Kelly alongside Alex Rodriguez. Thrilled to have with us the mayor of Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser. Mayor, so good to see you. Oh, it's my pleasure. Thanks for having me. Well, it's so interesting to us because obviously we talk a lot about deals. We talk a lot about sports. It feels like you've probably done more sports deals than any mayor that we know about. How did that come about? How did you become the mayor of sports? Well, we have been investing in sports in D.C. for a long time. We see the transformative effect that it has, not just on the kind of the civic spirit, but on dollars and cents in the nation's capital.

5:36And so I've had the great opportunity to be mayor of my hometown for 10 years. And we've had some great opportunities from building a practice facility for the NBA to a stadium for the MLS soccer to saving our teams in downtown and now bringing our team home. And I can't leave out baseball during my tenure. We've also, you know, we won a World Series and hosted an All-Star Game. So we've had a lot happening. We are always happy to welcome the world to D.C. so that you can see we're more than monuments in the White House and Capitol, but real people live here. And we know how to have a good time.

6:24You know, you mentioned that it's your hometown, Mayor. So what was your relationship with sports growing up? Were you a sports fan? Was it a sports household that you grew up in? What did you think about the teams as a kid? I mean, I think that we were fans. And keep in mind, and this may be interesting to you, Alex, I grew up in a D.C. that did not have a professional baseball team. And I grew up with a dad who loved baseball because he grew up with baseball in Washington, D.C. So we were always fans of all the sports. I'm one of five kids. We always played sports for fun and sportsmanship and fitness and all that good stuff.

7:04And we went to games occasionally, but we watched games a lot. So, Mayor, take us back to like when you were a teenager. Did you ever dream that you would be in such a powerful position to make an impact on so many Americans? Well, I knew, Alex, that I loved D.C. and I love politics. We have a elected position here that is a volunteer position called a Bias-Free Neighborhood Commissioner. And we're unique, of course, in the American system where, you know, we pay taxes, but we don't have senators and we don't have a voting representative in the Congress. So every elected office in D.C. like takes on even more importance, even the voluntary ones like A &C Commissioner.

7:53And my dad was one of the first ANC commissioners. So I grew up just really loving the city and seeing how activism can change lives. And so I think I went all the way through college not really knowing exactly what I would do, but I knew I wanted to work in D.C., change neighborhoods, help people. And I found out quickly the fastest way to do that was getting myself elected. Yeah, it's so interesting to think about Washington, Mayor. I had the good fortune of living there twice, one when I was born. I was born at Walter Reed Hospital when my dad was serving in the military. And then I went to Georgetown and I learned what an ANC commissioner was because, you know, at Georgetown, you're kind of invested in the politics of the world, but also the politics of the city.

8:47One of the things that's so fascinating and it takes us right into the sports of it all is the nature of the governance, which you talked about, but also the proximity to, you know, two other states where, as you've seen in your lifetime, as we've all seen, teams can just go and play there. They don't have to go very far to still be in the area, which certainly was the case, you know, with the commander. So let's talk about that deal. Josh Harris has been a guest on the show. David Blitzer has been a guest, Magic Johnson. So we've talked a lot about the commanders because it was such a seminal deal in the transition from Dan Snyder to Josh Harrison in his group.

9:27But this moment where they are moving back to, you know, what I think Josh and you and others have called the spiritual home of this team is a big deal. Tell us the genesis of that from your perspective, because it was always on people's minds. But what was the moment where you thought, OK, this could actually happen? I've always believed it was going to happen, Jason. I was sworn in as mayor in January of 2015, and I believed from that day until now that it would happen. We have the best site and we had to work hard until all of the conditions were right. The ownership conditions, the political conditions, and our ability to advance a great deal that D.C.

10:14residents believed was a great deal. And so I do think Josh's ownership and his approach has been the right one. Dan Snyder had really soured on the people of the district and vice versa. And having Josh come in to change the culture, invest in the team, and restart his relationship with Washington, D.C. has been a great deal. I also have been very encouraged by the type of business person he is and the type of person that he is. So I trusted when we sat across the table from each other and we agreed to roughly what a timeline needed to be for the team and for the city. I thought if we could deliver in that timeline, then we would come to terms.

11:04And that's where we are today. Tell us about that first meeting with Josh. Did you know him before? I mean, you know, like you, he grew up in the area. Was he on your radar or was it just sort of an outreach that he said, hey, can I come see you and talk about this? Like, how does that happen? I didn't know Josh, but he had brought together a couple of local folks who I do know very well. And Mark Ein and the Rails family. Mitch Rails has headquartered his very large company in D.C. for a long time. And so I knew that relationship. And I think one of the first meetings that they had in D.C. after they secured the ownership was with us, and it was with us in City Hall.

11:45And so I believe from that point on that we would have a shot. Now, here was our problem. Our problem was we didn't control the land at RFK. For decades, that has been controlled by the National Park Service, which is part of the Department of the Interior. we had a long-term lease, but that lease restricted us from a multi-use development. And the lease was ending in like, now I'm going to forget, I think 2032. And so we as a city, you know how these things work. If it takes city investment where we have to bond out or we have to build infrastructure, we need at least 30 years on a lease to do that.

12:29And for me to be able to feel really good about the development, it had to be more than football. And it's 180 acres there. So you are familiar with Walter Reed. Walter Reed is 120 acres. And this one is on the banks of the Anacostia River. When you look west, you see the Capitol and the Washington Monument. So it's on the monumental axis. So it's unprecedented location. and it also has the benefit of having operated as a football stadium. And so we know a lot of the issues that have plagued their current stadium in terms of the fan experience and getting there and getting in and out, we'll be able to deal with.

13:13So, Mayor, you mentioned that Josh and his group did some things very well. What were some of those things as far as whether his attitude or the way he came at it from maybe a gracious way, one. And then two, what's been the hardest and the easiest part of getting some of these things through past some of your partners in D.C.? Yeah, I think I kind of define integrity as doing what you say you're going to do. And that has been my experience with Josh. If he says he's going to meet with us, he meets with us. If he says, like, this is our timeline, that has been the timeline. It hasn't wavered. It hasn't gone back and forth.

13:55He hasn't tried to play the jurisdictions against each other. I think he's been pretty straight up in saying, like, we believe this is where we're supposed to be. It's not that we don't love Maryland. It's not like we don't love Virginia. But I don't want to play you against each other. We're going to take our shot with the district. And the term that I use is when they were ready to throw down with us, we were ready to throw down with them. But we are all grownups and we know that we have to put together a great deal, a business deal that he has to be able to deliver to his ownership group. And a deal on our side that I have to be able to deliver to the D.C.

14:35Council and D.C. voters. And that's where we are. So I think that's what he's done well. He's kept his word and he's been an honest broker among all parties. The tough parts, I think we anticipate. We had to wrestle the land from the Congress and we jumped through a lot of hoops to do that. And that's harder for us, quite frankly, because we don't have two senators. And we're talking about getting something from another state that does have two senators. So that's been hard. But even then, we have great relationships with our counterparts in Maryland and Virginia. I've worked very hard to make this a win-win for them and for us.

15:15And I think we're getting there. The last parts are the politics related to investing in sports stadium, which nobody is surprised by. What we needed to do was put together a great deal. and when we stack our deal up against stadium deals across the country, we have contributed less than any other jurisdiction other than the kind of the outlier that was 100 percent funded out in Los Angeles. Even when we look at the deals within the district, this one compares very favorably. Nats Park, for example, where the Washington Nationals play. People forget this, but back in 2008 or so, that stadium was completely funded by taxpayers at$600 million.

16:03In today's dollars, that would be over a billion dollars. This deal, the city will only contribute towards the horizontal infrastructure under the stadium, another$200 million for infrastructure on the campus, and another$185 plus$175, $356, I think, in parking garages. So just under a billion dollars. And we also want to build a local sportsplex for our kids that gets us to$1.1 billion. So when you talk about all of the stadium deals across the country, we know ours is a good one.

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17:27And so, Mayor Bowser, I mean, as you said, you anticipated some of the political wrangling and back and forth that's been happening, especially with the D.C. City Council. I know enough to be dangerous from having lived around there that, you know, nothing's ever easy, you know, getting done in the district. You know that better than anyone. Has the opposition, though, or the questions been more than you anticipated? And is it to the point where you feel like things are in jeopardy? Are you worried at this moment? I know there are a lot of moving parts as we speak. Well, the biggest support I think that we needed to win was in the public.

18:06And we have managed to do that. D.C. residents support us contributing to building a new stadium with a mix of uses, housing and recreation and parks at RFK Stadium. The fans support it, like in Maryland and Virginia as well, having the stadium located at RFK. And I believe the vote at the council will be 10 to 2 or 11 to 2 in the final analysis. Where I'm a bit frustrated is the urgency I think that the council is lacking because in my world, things change fast, especially now. Context changes, people change, world events happen that can affect deals going through. I told a group of folks recently, and this is how I live my life.

18:59Sometimes there are windows of opportunity that open. You never know when they're going to close. So while they're wide open, you better get through that window or else that opportunity could close on you. And that's, I believe, where we are. I negotiated a great deal that allowed us a period of exclusivity through July 15. And I am particularly sensitive to periods of exclusivity because I won back our teams during a time when they thought they were going to someplace else. And I'm talking about the Wizards and the Capitals now. But because I believe that that deal was tenuous, I didn't think it was right for the teams.

19:45I knew it wasn't right for the city. I refused to stop talking to our owners or just refused. So they didn't have a period of exclusivity. And so in that time, we want our teams back. So I know how important it is when team ownership is only talking to you. And I know how perilous it can be when other offers are, you know, are thrown at them. So, Mayor, you mentioned another giant in the world of business in Ted Leonsis. Yeah. Obviously, he owns the three teams, the Mystics, the Capital, and the Wizards. How would you describe either both superpowers or how is their approach different the way they went about building new arenas?

20:29I think Ted has been like an amazing part of the D.C. business community. And I think he didn't make a great decision. That's how I've kind of approached it. And it was my job to convince him of that. And more than that, to make him a part of something bigger. which was how we described it as the D.C. comeback. Post-COVID, downtown D.C. kind of suffered. It was the remote work phenomenon where so many people were working at home. We saw our streets a little bit emptier. Our restaurants suffered a bit. And monumental sports was at the heart of downtown. It didn't suffer. In fact, it got bigger in the post-pandemic years.

21:17more shows, more people, more nights occupied. And so we knew what Monumental could continue to be for D.C. We also listened intently at what they wanted to achieve in a renovation and what they could get if they moved and they had a clean slate and they could build from scratch. It was our challenge to give them all of those, the space, the fan experience while building in place. And I think we were able to achieve that. And so, Mayor Baszler, I would love to hear more about that comeback, because it was, I mean, that, you know, watching it from a distance, I mean, it was quite a turn of events.

22:03You know, you had, I mean, there was literally a press conference with Ted Leonsis and, you Governor Youngkin, et cetera, this was all in motion. It felt, for those of us who were on the outside, like a done deal. Ted Leonsis obviously was well known to you. I mean, do you just call him up and basically say, as my seven-year-old daughter says, bro, are you kidding me right now? Like, what do you say? Oh, there were a long series of conversations. probably the one that will be remembered is maybe the day or two before they had that press conference where they met with me and other city leadership to kind of talk through their decision.

22:43And even in that discussion, it was kind of clear to me that it was a tortured decision for him. But the thing that will always ring true was that he said to me then or soon thereafter, I haven't signed anything. And I thought, ding, ding, ding, this is not done. And then I thought to myself, then what are you talking about? And so in another longer format, like we can kind of talk through the psychology of that. But I always believed that until it was over, it wasn't over. But even more, and this probably resonates with both of you, is that D.C. residents were quite upset about it. They were sad, really upset, sad, disappointed, all of the things.

23:38And so it was clear that I have as mayor to put us in a place to be ready if the team stayed, but also to be ready if they went. And we put together a great team of developers, architects, landscape artists, retail experts, just housing experts, a great team of folks. And we called it the Gallery Place Task Force. It was led by two female developers in D.C. that had very successively turned underutilized places into amazing new neighborhoods. And they just did a great job of showing us what our future could be at Gallery Place in the heart of downtown if we didn't have the stadium there. And, you know, frankly, some people were getting excited about that, too.

24:32So I think we had two great options. We always believed the best was to keep our team. It's hard to replace, especially in a short amount of time, 200 nights or 170 nights with 20 ,000 people coming in and out of your downtown and the excitement that that brings. We're also didn't want the team to stay in the same box, if you know what I mean. And so the$800 million of investment,$500 million is ours, is the city's. We have now become the owner of the arena. and we're going to have the team there for a long, long time. But now the new design better speaks to the surrounding area. So on dark nights, it's not dark, it's not cold, but it interacts with the restaurants and other surroundings.

25:24So I'm really excited about it. We think that's a great arena just where it is. And I have seen so many shows and sporting events, Most recently, an inaugural ceremony was held inside and the arena became a big part of that. So I can't even imagine that not being in the heart of downtown D.C. I mean, it was interesting, too, because, you know, again, Ted is well known to both Alex and myself. And if I recall right, and we don't have to go like super deep into this, but there was also an element of like some retail space became available. Is that like you were able to sort of reshape sort of those several blocks around it as well.

26:08So it was an even more holistic redevelopment than just the arena. Is that right? Oh, absolutely. I mean, that's a big part of it. It's an apartment office retail building right next to it. And in between the arena and that building is an alley that is owned by the district that we made a part of it. And so when you see the designs, it's like you're coming into this, like a new street, but it's inside. It's pretty spectacular. And they're going to use a lot of the retail space to improve their fan experience and a different entrance, better flow. We are just funded in our budget that we're also investing in an entertainment district so the streets will actually look different and feel different and operate different in and around that.

27:01And one really great thing that came about during this process is we just have been able to move fans in and out of the facility faster using a package of our personnel that we had perfected really at Nats Park. But now we also have it in place at the Capital One Arena. So it's been really great. Right. I'm reminded, Mayor, of, you know, Alex is just recently back from the All-Star Game in Atlanta, my hometown, and has been raving about the battery down there and sort of how they completely rethought, you know, all these intersections that you just mentioned, you know, the residential, the retail, the hospitality, obviously all anchored by sports.

27:48So it's amazing how much more thought goes into that than candidly when we were all kids. And it was like, yeah, you go to the stadium, you get a hot dog, you know, you cheer for A-Rod and then you go home, you know, and that's it. And a lot of it is come up around gallery place even more organically, but it's there. And if you haven't been, I don't know if you were at the All-Star game that we hosted here. I guess that was 2018 now. It's been a minute. But even all of the places, the bullpen and everything that has come up around Nats Park, even in the last couple of years, it's just so interesting for fans and fans of all ages.