Angels take $2.75-million settlement from Anaheim over doomed stadium deal
The Angels and the city of Anaheim agreed Monday to settle a two-year-old dispute, providing the team with $2.75 million in financial relief while granting the city the right to build a fire station on the Angel Stadium property.
The resolution announced Monday has no impact on the Angels’ long-term future at Angel Stadium, where the team’s lease expires in 2029. In a statement, the city said that issue was not raised during talks to settle the dispute and there are “no long-term talks underway now.”
In 2022, after the FBI disclosed allegations of corruption against then-mayor Harry Sidhu, the Anaheim City Council killed the deal in which Angels owner Arte Moreno and his company would have bought the stadium property, renovated or replaced the ballpark, and surrounded it with a village of homes, shops, restaurants, offices and hotels.
Anaheim owes Angels owner Arte Moreno $5 million, a debt that is two years old after a tainted stadium plan fell apart. Why hasn’t the city paid?
Under the terms of the deal, the city owed Moreno $5 million if Anaheim called off the transaction. The city had declined to pay. Five months later, when the city wanted to build a fire station on the property, Moreno exercised his right to prevent development on the stadium property. The two sides had put potential litigation on hold while pursuing a settlement.
The settlement provides the Angels with $2.75 million in credit toward what the team would otherwise owe the city in revenue from ticket sales, parking and special events.
Over the past 12 months, the city said it has received $1.4 million in such revenue from the Angels.
“This is a fair settlement for our city,” Mayor Ashleigh Aitken said in a statement. “It allows both sides to move forward without needless expense and distraction.”
The Angels declined comment.
In 2023, Sidhu signed a plea deal that acknowledged he “provided confidential negotiating information belonging to the city … so that the Angels could buy Angel Stadium on terms beneficial to the Angels” and kept that disclosure secret from the rest of the city council. The FBI affidavit said Sidhu planned to ask the Angels for a $1-million contribution to his reelection campaign.
Sidhu pleaded guilty to obstructing a corruption investigation, committing wire fraud and making false statements. He is scheduled to be sentenced in December.
Neither the FBI affidavit nor the plea deal alleges the Angels did anything wrong.
Go beyond the scoreboard
Get the latest on L.A.'s teams in the daily Sports Report newsletter.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
