Hi-Corbett Field is not nearly as nice as Tucson Electric..although it is closer to the city. I think a good solution would be to build complexes south of the Phoenix area as those areas develop so the distance to Tucson won’t be that great. There are too many people in Tucson to not have any spring training teams.

Don’t know if you remember, but there was a tragic accident there in 1986 when a gas heater in the clubhouse exploded. General Manager Harry Dalton and manager George Bamberger were burned and coach Tony Muser was seriously burned.

The Chandler Ballpark (Compadre Stadium) is a nice little facility (used by City Leagues now) but nowhere near the standards of a major league spring training facility now.

Pima County has no funding mechanism. Maricopa County created the Tourism And Sports Authority which gets money from hotel and rental car taxes (surcharges). It was created to help fund Bank One Ballpark and UOPS and also spring training facilities.

Pima County cannot create such an authority because it was a one shot deal passed by the voters to approve funding for BOB. A town like Marana would have a very difficult time coming up with the money to build a ballpark on their own. Ain’t gonna happen.

As far as accepting the deal that the Sox offered; Pima County has looked at this every which way for a year now and they concluded this was the best they could do. The Sox had made it clear that they were more than willing to try all sorts of shenanigans to break the contract. They discussed letting a Mexican League team use the ballpark as a “replacement team” (apparently the contract was not specific that it had to be a US major league team). They also said they were going to have players train in Tucson, but bus them up to Glendale to play their home games. It became a big pissing match and Pima County realized that getting something was better than nothing, because the White Sox were going to leave no matter what.

It’s interesting that the Pima County officials are not mad at the White Sox, they are mad at the way, in their words, “Phoenix and Glendale have abused the TSA. It was intended to fund new facilities to keep teams in the area and to lure teams from Florida, not to cannibalize teams from Tucson.”

No question they have a point.

If you want to play woulda coulda shoulda, the news about the Final Four bid was contained in an article in the East Valley Tribune that was bemoaning the fact the University Of Phoenix Stadium, where most of these events have/are taking pace, was originally to be built in Mesa..about a mile from Hohokam Park.

But the wise city leaders of Mesa decried that the Stadium would cause too much traffic and congestion. Meanwhile, the city of Glendale said “build it here!”. They seem to be managing the traffic/congestion just fine, along with enjoying all the new jobs, and revenue from retail, hotels and other businesses that now surround the Stadium.

you are saying, but if you mean does weather play into the fact that Phoenix gets all these mega sporting events, the answer is absolutely. When I was trying to think of another city that has hosted all these different events, I immediately thought of Miami. They have had Super Bowls, World Series, NBA FInals, BCS Championships, etc. The only thing they haven’t had is a Final Four and I’m not sure they have a facility that would work for that.