Virginia aims to lure Commanders

RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia lawmakers are advancing a measure intended to lure the Washington Commanders to the state by allowing the NFL team to forgo what could be $1 billion or more in future tax payments to help finance a potential new football stadium.

The move, which comes a year after lawmakers gave the team preferential treatment for a lucrative sports betting permit, is intended to help Virginia secure its first major pro sports franchise and beat out Maryland and the District of Columbia as the team weighs where to go after its FedEx Field lease ends in 2027.

“They’re going to go someplace. Absent some kind of incentive, they’re likely not to be here,” Tray Adams, a lobbyist representing the team, told a panel considering the legislation.

The team declined to respond to questions from The Associated Press regarding its seriousness about Virginia or its site plans. But lawmakers who have been briefed on the project, including some who met with team owner Daniel Snyder at his home, have described a stadium that would be part of a broader multiuse development in Loudoun or Prince William counties in suburban Washington with a resort and conference center, residences, an amphitheater and indoor concert facility.

“It’s almost a mini-city,” Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw, a Fairfax Democrat who is sponsoring one version of the legislation, told his colleagues.

The House and Senate passed differing versions of the measure this month with broad bipartisan support and each will now take up the other’s version. Legislative leaders have said they expect the differences to be worked out by a conference committee, meaning final negotiations would happen in private.

Both versions of the legislation would create a Virginia Football Stadium Authority tasked with financing the construction of a stadium and related facilities. The nine-member authority would be allowed to issue bonds, then recapture certain tax revenues to pay down that debt.

The type and amount of taxes that can be recaptured varies between the two. The Senate version offers more help, allowing the capture of certain sales taxes generated across the entire campus, personal income tax revenues from stadium operations, corporate income tax revenues and pass-through entity tax revenues over 30 years. The House version allows only for the recapture of sales tax over 20 years and would require that the team pay at least 50% of any naming rights revenues to the authority.

Both measures say the revenues may be used for any purpose the authority “deems appropriate for the facility,” including but not limited to debt service on the bonds. The legislation does not set a hard limit on the amount of taxes that can be recaptured, nor does it allocate any money.

Virginia’s newly inaugurated Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, seemed to throw support to the idea in his first address to lawmakers last month, making vague mention of the legislation.

Steve Helber / Associated Press Virginia State Sen. Richard Saslaw, D-Fairfax, speaks to the rostrum staff prior to the start of the Senate session at the Capitol on Tuesday in Richmond, Va. Saslaw is the chief sponsor of a bill intended to lure the Washington Commanders to the state.