Election night in Bexar County offers the first test of whether a new Spurs arena supported by many elected officials and business leaders has also captured the hearts and minds of the voting public.
Plans to move the team back to downtown San Antonio have been in the works for years now as city officials negotiated with team leaders — and eventually pulled the county on board to help fund their vision.
But voters could be a tougher challenge, as public sentiment around funding for professional sports venues has changed dramatically in recent years, leading to some high-profile rejections, like the Arizona Coyotes NHL team in 2023 and Kansas City Chiefs football team in 2024.
The Spurs currently play at the East Side’s Frost Bank Center, built with county venue tax dollars in 2002, but that team leaders have deemed incompatible with the modern NBA franchise.
Now they’re one of more than three dozen professional sports teams, including the Dallas Mavericks, either in the process of planning or building the venue of the future, known as the sports and entertainment district.
Like the Spurs’ vision for the Hemisfair arena, such venues involve surrounding a stadium or arena with high-density mixed use development, residential buildings, bars and restaurants — part of an evolving business model for professional sports.
“This is about building San Antonio,” said Bobby Perez, the chief legal officer and general counsel for the San Antonio Spurs’ Sports & Entertainment. “Since the Holts have led the company, it’s always been about … figuring out, how do they use sports diplomacy to build community and build for the future?”
For an overall $1.3 billion downtown Spurs arena, city and county dollars are expected to cover roughly two-thirds of the construction cost, while the team would fund the remaining $500 million.
Only a small portion of the funding requires a public vote: $311 million from Bexar County’s venue tax, known as Proposition B on the Nov. 4 ballot.
The city of San Antonio’s roughly $489 million contribution is spelled out in a term sheet that city leaders made contingent on Tuesday’s vote, and involves using state money from a Project Finance Zone, plus property taxes from surrounding businesses the Spurs have promised to deliver.
“In the early 2000s we saw a lot of stadium-building,” said Jon Taylor, a professor of political science at UTSA. “But the public has begun to question the costs involved [in these projects].”
With so much riding on the Prop B vote, a PAC aligned with the Spurs has poured more than $7 million into its campaign, collecting checks from USAA, Valero, along with other major employers and developers.
The Win Together PAC is pushing voters support a new future for the team’s existing East Side home as well, which would be converted into a year-round rodeo district, known as Proposition A.
The Nov. 4 ballot also includes Texas constitutional amendments, school funding measures for voters in Judson, East Central, Schertz-Cibolo and North East ISDs, as well as municipal elections in several smaller municipalities: Windcrest, Schertz and Converse.
But the addition of Props A and B seem to have drummed up far more interest than the typical off-year November election.
Early voting concluded Friday with about 148,000 in-person and mail ballots cast — or roughly 11.4% of Bexar County’s 1.26 million registered voters.
That’s about 30,000 more ballots than were cast in the entirety of the May municipal election in Bexar County, with Election Day voting still to come from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday.
“So far in this election we’ve seen a lot of voter interest,” said Elections Administrator Michele Carew. “Our numbers have already surpassed [state constitutional elections in] 2023, 2021, and 2019.”
Use the San Antonio Report’s comprehensive voter guide to make a plan to vote, and keep up with our coverage of the election results after polls close.
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