The Nationals Want Taxpayers To Put A $300 Million Roof On A Stadium They Just Paid For

Over the summer the Washington Nationals made a shockingly bold request to Vincent Gray, the mayor of Washington, D.C. According to a recent report by the Washington Post, in a private one-on-one meeting, team owner Theodore Lerner asked the city to fit the bill for a retractable roof over Nationals Park.

Apparently the proposal was “swiftly but politely rejected” by Gray, which makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is why Lerner made the request to begin with. If he felt it was a long shot, but figured it couldn’t hurt to ask, that’s fine. If he thought for a second he’d actually walk away with the money, that’s insane.

The city already paid for and owns the stadium.

Yeah, that’s right! Lerner wants the city residents to pay for a massive renovation to a stadium they already paid for and the city owns. Nationals Park, which opened in 2008, was built with over $600 million in taxpayer dollars. The District owns the ballpark, charging the Natties $5.5 million a year in rent.

The team contributed nothing to the cost of the park and is now hoping to contribute nothing to the cost of an unnecessary upgrade.

They have no idea how much the roof will actually cost.

This might be the most stunning part about the whole thing. The Nationals priced the cost of the new roof at $300 million, but the truth is they have absolutely no idea what the final number would be. The park wasn’t designed for a roof and adding one after the fact is far more complicated than it seems.

Unforeseen construction and engineering obstacles make it impossible to predict the final cost of the project. Agreeing to it would mean giving Lerner a blank check.

The Nationals have made the playoffs just once since relocating to Washington from Montreal in 2005.

This is completely irrelevant after the first two points, but may play a role in terms of public perception. It’s one thing for a successful team to ask for something of this magnitude—less fiscally responsible fans could argue they deserve it—but this is a team that’s made the playoffs twice since its inception in 1969.

The fact that Mayor Gray politely rejected the Lerner’s proposal and didn’t laugh him out of the building should help his bid for re-election next year. That’s far more restraint than most of us could show in the same situation.