The Tennessee General Assembly in April gave $350M to Memphis to help renovate FedExForum, Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium and AutoZone ParkPopulous
The heat is officially on Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland to "come up with a solution to a problem he created -- by successfully convincing the state to give Memphis more money than perhaps ever" -- and the longer this "uncertainty lingers, the more it feels like the beginning of a civic war" among the Univ. of Memphis, the city and, most importantly, the Grizzlies, according to Mark Giannotto of the Memphis COMMERCIAL APPEAL. The Tennessee General Assembly gave $350M to Memphis in April to "help renovate FedExForum, Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium and AutoZone Park." This was "supposed to be a good thing. A great thing. A historic thing." Giannotto wrote and maybe "we’ll get a new soccer stadium out of it, too." But yesterday, UM President Bill Hardgrave and AD Laird Veatch stepped in front of a microphone and used their news conference, "intended to speak about conference realignment, to lobby for the school's share of this public money ... right now." Giannotto: "To steal a football analogy, it doesn’t matter if you’re good at moving the ball down the field if you can’t score touchdowns. The city is in the red zone. If it can’t get this across the goal line, nobody is going to remember all the work that preceded this." The language in the state budget "specifically mentions Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium and FedExForum," and it seems "increasingly likely there’s not enough money available to satisfy both entities -- let alone the ones proposed for baseball and soccer." The Grizzlies "have been notably quiet about all of this," perhaps not "wanting to inflame the tension." They have, however, "always been the priority." Or they "should be," as they have "more leverage than anyone" (Memphis COMMERCIAL APPEAL, 8/28).
BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY: In Memphis, Jason Munz wrote Hardgrave does "not want conference realignment to pass the Tigers by again" and he is "letting everybody know it." Hardgrave and Veatch yesterday "addressed their efforts to make the leap from the American Athletic Conference." Hardgrave said that he even "made a phone call to another university president over the weekend to get the message out about Memphis." Munz wrote the "biggest factor" in Memphis' conference realignment efforts "remains addressing Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium." Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s budget to "fund various major renovation projects" includes a $150-$200M "slice of that amount ... to go toward significant renovations at Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium." Veatch yesterday said, however, that the $350M total from Lee's budget has "not yet been allocated," and that UM is "still planning to start work on the project in early to mid-January 2024" (Memphis COMMERCIAL APPEAL, 8/28).
