National's Not Paying Rent For New Ballpark

According to this Washington Post article the Washington National's of the MLB have decided to not pay their rent for the newly built National's Park that was completed before this season.

The Nationals went through the district and tax payers paid over 611 million dollars of public money towards the completion of the new park.


However as the season as officially passed the midway point the Nationals have decided to skip paying rent to the city because of some completion errors and other reasons.

The National owners have failed to pay $3.5 million in rent for the District's new ballpark, contending that the state-of-the-art stadium is still incomplete.

Besides withholding rent, the team is demanding damages of $100,000 a day, dating from March 1. The team and the city are also at odds over the timing of sales tax payments on tickets, with the Nationals paying game-by-game and the city wanting tax revenue from pre-sold ticket packages upfront.

D.C. officials said they plan to hire a special lawyer to handle what they expect to be prolonged arbitration over the ballpark, which was built with tax dollars.