By MARK LORENZANA
In four years, the federal government of Mexican President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), through the Secretariat of Agrarian, Territorial and Urban Development (Sedatu) has disbursed more than 1.6 billion pesos in the purchase, construction and remodeling of 26 stadiums and baseball parks throughout Mexico.
And the government is not done yet, as Sedatu launched a tender to build a new baseball stadium in Tepic, Nayarit, a state governed by Miguel Ángel Navarro, with Geraldine Ponce as municipal president of the capital — both from Lopez Obrador’s ruling party, the leftist National Regeneration Movement (Morena).
In a report by Mexican daily newspaper El Universal, Sedatu detailed that in 2019, the government agency invested 159 million pesos; in 2020, close to 15 million pesos; and in 2021, 1.2 billion pesos. Last year, 205 million pesos were allocated for baseball stadiums and parks.
Baseball, incidentally, is Lopez Obrador’s favorite sport.
On April 18, 2022, Navarro announced on Twitter that AMLO authorized the release of funds for the construction of a new stadium in Tepic, which would accommodate 8,000 sports fans.
A Sedatu proposal titled “Construction of Public Space and Baseball Stadium in Tepic, Nayarit” justified “the need to consolidate the Santa Teresita sports complex and surrounding areas through the planning and construction of a quality sports space in the north of Tepic, in an extension of 32,000 square meters.”
“This proposal is made up of the baseball stadium, surrounding public areas and vital sports spaces for the development of the so-called ‘King of Sports.’ This set will be endowed with great potential to be a benchmark in its immediate context and in the region in urban terms, social development and architectural heritage,” read the Sedatu document.
Still according to the Sedatu, the construction of the stadium “will be a door for the development of public life by providing spaces for meeting and social and cultural interaction, as well as the development of citizen life through sports.”
“This project seeks to become a reference for life in the city of Tepic, as well as consolidate itself as an urban landmark and tourist destination that at the same time manages to promote the economic development of the environment in which it operates,” said the Sedatu in its proposal.
The Sedatu further described the project as such: “Zone A is one of the greatest considerations, since the stadium infrastructure project is developed there along with its access plaza, which is why a higher budget is estimated. The second zone consists of a minor reconditioning in the basketball and fronton zone and includes green areas and paths.”
The Nayarit stadium project will also involve “building public areas for spectators and public squares that trigger cultural activities complementary to sports, and that establish a point of attraction for the inhabitants and visitors of the city of Tepic.”
According to the Sedatu report, six baseball stadiums were constructed in 2022: two stadiums in Lopez Obrador’s home state of Tabasco, two in Sonora and one more in Veracruz — Mexican states governed by Morena — and another stadium in Quintana Roo.