San Antonio councilwoman calls Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones' revenue-sharing proposal with Spurs 'dangerous'

District 7 Councilwoman Marina Alderete Gavito meets with constituents during an event last month. Credit: Facebook / Marina Alderete Gavito

District 7 Councilwoman Marina Alderete Gavito pushed back at Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones’ proposal that the Spurs enter a revenue-sharing agreement with the city as part of a new arena deal, calling such a move “dangerous.”

In comments to the Current, Alderete Gavito said asking the NBA team to commit to such a deal could prompt it to leave the city and might even prompt other businesses, potentially even grocer H-E-B, to vacate. No other city demands a revenue deal from its NBA team, she added.

“That makes it easy for [the Spurs] to say ‘OK, so part of my profit has to go to the city budget in San Antonio, but not Austin? I’ll go to Austin,” Alderete Gavito said.

Jones has called on the Spurs franchise to share revenue from money generators such as concessions and naming rights for the new arena. She argues the funds would help the city cover its current budget deficit.

The mayor’s demand comes as voters head to the polls next month to decide whether to increase the visitor tax to 2% to help fund a new $1.3 billion arena for the Spurs. City Council approved contributing $489 million towards the project, which will be financed by a combination of property tax revenue from and around Hemisfair along with ground leases.

If the vote fails, a term sheet agreed to by the city and the Spurs would become null.

“Closed mouths don’t get fed — we need to ask for a fair share from naming rights, ticket sales and concessions,” Jones said in public statement shared two weeks ago. “An independent economic analysis would benefit the community, allowing everyone to enter this deal with the data we need to make informed decisions.”

During her regular weekly appearance on News4SA last month, Jones also brought up the topic.

“With the Spurs deal, what would I like to see? Revenue sharing,” she said. “So when some of the most lucrative aspects of that deal — whichever company gets to put their name on the side of that arena, it’s called naming rights. Normally, that’s like $10 million a year, our fair share of concessions, our fair share of parking.”

Frost Bank currently pays the Spurs $9 million annually to plaster its name on the team’s current home arena on the East Side.

Alderete Gavito told the Current the mayor’s effort amounts to a shakedown of the Spurs, which would frighten off other businesses.

“If any city is asking businesses to help [cover] their budget deficit, we will scare any and every single business away from the city, and I think that is such dangerous rhetoric to say that we want businesses to locate here to contribute some of their revenue to the city,” Alderete Gavito said.

Some political analysts and City Hall insiders suspect Alderete Gavito may be gearing up for a mayoral run. However, the councilwoman said her primary focus right now is on her Northwest San Antonio constituents.

“My only focus is doing the hard work for the residents of District 7. It’s a district that I’m raising my family in, and I’m focused on that right now,” Gavito said.

So, could the Spurs even share revenues with the city?

Virtually no professional sports team in North America gives a portion of its revenue to the municipality in which it’s based. The only exception is the Green Bay Packers, which is organized as a publicly owned nonprofit corporation.

Instead, teams in the NBA and other pro leagues engage in internal revenue sharing so they can subsidize smaller markets and lower-revenue teams.

The Spurs organization didn’t respond to the Current’s request for comment about whether striking a revenue-sharing deal with San Antonio would violate NBA rules.

Although the Spurs are a small-market team in one of the nation’s most impoverished metros, the Silver and Black are by no means a poverty franchise.

During the 2023-24 season, the Spurs boasted the league’s 13th-highest revenue, bringing in approximately $363 million and surpassing teams in more affluent markets, including the Washington Wizards, Atlanta Hawks and Los Angeles Clippers, according to business intelligence platform Statista.

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San Antonio councilwoman calls Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones’ revenue-sharing proposal with Spurs ‘dangerous’

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