by Jon Styf
The Nashville Mayor’s Office paid Inner Circle Sports $120,000 over a six-month period for consulting services related to negotiating the $2.1 billion stadium deal between the office and the Tennessee Titans.
The report was released on Friday in a records request from Justin Hayes, an interested Nashville resident.
Inner Circle Sports is a subcontractor of Hilltop Securities, who holds a $750,000 contract with Metro Nashville. Inner Circle Sports’ David Abrams and William DiBlasi were paid the $120,000 for six months of work on the negotiations between last Dec. 27 and June 30. A contract or invoices for work beyond June 30 was not included in the request.
Both appeared before Nashville’s East Bank Stadium Committee to present the proposed deal, which includes at least $1.26 billion of public funding.
The contract stated that Inner Circle’s work was to “prepare a set of objectives for determining the appropriate level of investment and terms around the improvement of the existing NFL stadium to current NFL standards. ICS will assist Metro in developing parameters around which Metro may agree to tender, lease or sell property surrounding the NFL Stadium to the Team to further develop in accordance with an agreed upon set of project standards, risk allocation and expectations related to return on contributions.”
Invoices said that Inner Circle held weekly video and telephone calls along with three trips to Nashville.
Hilltop, meanwhile, is under contract for independent financial analysis of bond sales and refunding, a commercial paper program and financial transactions and general financial advising related to bonds.
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Jon Styf is an award-winning editor and reporter who has worked in Illinois, Texas, Wisconsin, Florida and Michigan in local newsrooms over the past 20 years, working for Shaw Media, Hearst and several other companies.
Photo “Nissan Stadium” by Nissan Stadium.
