(New York, NY) --- Sports owners seem to live in a vastly different universe at times. A couple of weeks ago, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, talking at the Cowboys Oxnard, California training camp facility said that some "movements" in NFL ownership groups might eventually mean that Los Angeles would land an NFL team. While Jones was pumping up Los Angeles, California Gov. Schwarzenegger was warning of a looming budget crisis in the state. A couple of days after Jones remarks, Schwarzenegger ordered a lay off of more than ten thousand part-time employees and temporarily slash the pay of about 200,000 state workers to the minimum wage of $6.55 an hour in a negotiating ploy to get state lawmakers to agree to a new state budget.

It does make one wonder. Do sports owners really know what is happening in the real world? Jones is charging between $16,000 and $150,000 for personal seat licenses in his new stadium in 2009. Jones is not going after state workers to buy tickets. They can't afford it.

There will be state wide cuts in programs in California and no doubt the California budget crisis will affect Los Angeles' efforts to get an NFL team. Ed Roski, who failed in an effort to land an expansion team in 1999 somewhere in the greater Los Angeles area, wants to build an $800-million stadium in City of Industry. Roski is hoping to get state assistance in the form of tax breaks and incentives to help pay for the facility. The $800 million price tag may not be realistic. The new Giants-Jets Meadowlands Stadium may cost more than $1.6 billion and Jones is working on the assumption that his new Arlington, Texas Cowboys stadium will have a final price tag of $1.2 billion. Can California justify giving Roski tax breaks and incentives and possibly money for infrastructure while the state is going through a financial crisis? If Roski gets tax breaks, tax incentives and some monies, how will that play in San Diego where Alex Spanos has spent the past eight years looking for a new stadium for his Chargers football team and up in the Bay Area where the York family wants to leave San Francisco for Santa Clara.

There are California owners in other sports who also want state aid. Lewis Wolff would like to move his Oakland A's down the I-880 to Fremont into a ballpark village which would be surrounded by retail and commercial space along with housing that would be partially funded by tax breaks and incentives and the Maloof Brothers still want someone to pay for a new basketball arena in Sacramento for their Kings NBA franchise. Al Davis has been quiet but his deal with Oakland is done soon and Davis may be able to once again shop the Raiders and Arte Moreno may be looking for a new facility in or out of Anaheim for his Angeles at some point in the not too distance future.

California is not the only state with big financial problems. New York Gov. Patterson has laid out the difficulties the state faces and that could have a major impact on the Yankees and the Mets. With all the size of the budget deficit that the state has encountered, can the state continue to pay subsidizes to help fund the new stadiums that will open in the Bronx and Queens next year along with Nets owner Bruce Ratner's proposed Brooklyn arena project? Can the state justify continuing giving Madison Square Garden a pass on paying annual property taxes?

Patterson revealed some startling figures in his address to New York residents that should have had John Mara and Woody Johnson in New Jersey, the Steinbrenners in the Bronx, the Wilpons in Queens, the Dolans in Manhattan and Ratner take notice because it may not be good for the Giants, Jets, Yankees, Mets, the Rangers, the Knicks and Nets along the United States Tennis Association. A lot of corporate money to pay for tickets comes from Wall Street and banks. Patterson said "in June of 2007, the 16 banks that pay the most on taxes to their profits remitted $173 million to our New York State Treasury. This June, just a month ago, they sent us $5 million—a 97 percent decrease."

Patterson, who concedes that New York State is in a recession, also said, "The damage on Wall Street is affecting all of our communities and its effects on our New York State’s finances are devastating."

That does not bode well for the two New Jersey-based NFL teams who need big money customers to buy personal seat licenses and tickets for games. The same holds true for the Steinbrenner Family and the Wilpons as both need well heeled individuals to pay for tickets in the two new stadiums next year. The Dolans, along with New Jersey Devils owner Jeffrey Vanderbeek, Islanders owner Charles Wang, St. John's, Rutgers, Seton Hall, the MLS Red Bulls (a franchise which is scheduled to move into a new facility sometime in 2009) are all going after the same customer pool in tough economic times.

Sports somehow has always made it through tough economic times. There are no MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL or MLS franchise owners actively looking to selling or move their franchises although there are some NFL, MLB and NHL owners looking for new or renovated facilities. Clayton Bennett moved his Seattle SuperSonics NBA franchise to Oklahoma City because he could not get a new basketball arena built in either Seattle or in the city's suburbs. But sports today is very dependant on government aid and if there are legitimate across the board cuts, then sports owners should be feeling the squeeze not only in California and New York but in Maryland, Minnesota and other states.

There is another problem that has suddenly entered the picture for sports owners. In mid-July, Anheuser-Busch accepted a $52 billion takeover bid from Belgium's InBev. The Belgium owners might decide to cut back on advertising and that could cause big difficulties. A-B spent $21 million for spots during the 2008 Super Bowl. Various Anheuser-Busch brands are the official beer sponsors of the Beijing Olympics and of the National Olympic Teams in 25 countries, the 2010 World Cup of soccer along with the English Premier League and Manchester United Football Club. The brands also are the official beer sponsors of Major League Baseball and 26 teams along with Major League Baseball in Panama; the National Basketball Association, 26 NBA teams and the official beer sponsor of the National Basketball Association in China and Mexico.

The National Hockey League’s official beer is an A-B product and 21 NHL teams have an A-B product as their official beer sponsors. Twenty-eight of the 32 National Football League franchises feature A-B products as official beer sponsors; Budweiser is the NFL's official beer in Canada. A-B is the exclusive Super Bowl beer sponsor through 2012 and the Bowl Championship Series through 2010. A-B products are the official beer of Churchill Downs, the Daytona International Speedway and the Daytona 500 among others. A-B spends hundreds of millions of dollars on sports in an effort to reach 21 to 34 year old males, a key demographic for breweries.

InBev is known as a lean company when it comes to spending on sponsorships. But InBev also intends to make Budweiser an international brand name. So far InBev has not cut back any sponsorship and recently renewed some sponsorships. InBev is doing business in pounds and euros which means the company is paying for the sponsorships at a discount rate in the US as the pound to dollar and euro to dollar exchange rate is very favorable to Europeans. It remains to be seen what InBev will eventually do with sports sponsorship.

The American sports industry has been financially expanding at record rates for more than four decades thanks to favorable laws enacted by federal, state and local governments. But states like California and New York may have nothing more to give and with companies tightening their fiscal belts, Wall Streets economic problems, the home mortgage difficulties, and the high cost of gasoline, the different universes of unprecedented sports growth and economic realities may be colliding shortly. The results may not be very tidy for sports owners who are seeking customers to fill up the seats.

evanjweiner@yahoo.com