Mustangs and city of Billings at odds over new Dehler Park lease agreement

However, their home stadium, Dehler Park, is owned by the city of Billings, and the Mustangs' 10-year lease ends in December. Instead of renewing the lease, city leadership opted to renegotiate the contract and after an initial round of meetings both sides remain far apart on a finalized contract.

Billings City Council member Scott Aspenlieder called the current contract “a bad agreement for Billings,” and said the city wants to take back operational control of the ballpark to turn it into “a true multiuse facility,” for the community, fulfilling promise made to Billings voters nearly 20 years ago.

Mustangs owner Dave Heller said the city’s initial contract offer would blow a hole in the team’s finances, leaving them in a precarious position, saying, “If we gave the city everything they’re asking for, the Mustangs would go bankrupt in a few months.”

A baseball stadium and multiuse facility

From their founding in 1948 until 2007, the Mustangs played their home games at Cobb Field.

In the fall of 2006, the city asked its voters to approve a $12.5 million bond to construct a stadium to replace the aging ballpark. To help sell the project to voters, city leaders at the time said the facility would serve as a baseball stadium and public “multiuse facility,” available for legion baseball and other events, such as concerts.

Voters approved the bond, and Cobb Field was torn down to make way for Dehler Park, named for local businessman Jon Dehler who purchased the naming rights for his family.

Once completed, the city signed a 10-year lease with then-team ownership. In 2014, in the middle of the contract, the Mustangs were sold by their former ownership group, fronted by former team general manager Woody Hahn, to Heller and his company Main Steet Baseball.

In 2017, both sides agreed to renew the contract for another 10 years, with the only large change being a rent increase for the Mustangs from $30,000 a year to $60,000 a year.

The current agreement expires at midnight on December 31, putting a firm deadline on negotiations.

Under the terms of the 2017 contract, the city retains ownership of Dehler Park and is responsible for making large capital improvements costing over $25,000.

For the $60,000 they pay annually, the Mustangs maintain nearly full operational control of the stadium, keeps all proceeds from ticketing, merchandise sales and advertising. The team is also responsible for day-to-day upkeep and for making repairs under $5,000.

Aspenlieder, chair of the council’s budget committee and one of the council members leading negotiations with the Mustangs, said the city wanted to renegotiate its contract with the team to ensure the facility could be utilized by the entire Billings community.

In accordance with their first proposal, the Billings Parks and Recreation Department would take over full operational control of the stadium from the Mustangs, something Aspenlieder called “non-negotiable.”

Since Dehler Park opened in 2008, it has scarcely been used to host concerts or other community events, and local youth baseball teams have been able to play at the field less and less.

Aspenlieder said city leaders had been meeting with several local groups, including Billings American Legion Baseball and the Pub Station to gauge community interest in stadium use.

“This isn't a knee-jerk reaction. This is being done very thoughtfully to try to make sure that we're taking care of all of the user groups in our community and plan for a good transition,” he said. “This isn't a decision wasn’t made in a silo. The subcommittee is doing its homework.”

Legion Board President D.J. Smith confirmed they had been in talks with the city, saying he appreciated being consulted by the city and hoped both sides could reach an equitable agreement while also allowing legion baseball to play games at Dehler Park at a greater clip in the future.

In addition to taking over control of the stadium’s operations, the city is seeking to gain a cut of the team’s associated revenues, such as ticketing and merchandise sales, as well as raising the Mustangs rent from $60,000 to $172,000 a year.

Speaking on the city’s decision to ask for a rent increase of $112,000 a year, Aspenlieder said he recognized the asking price was high but explained the number came from the city expecting to take over the operational cost of running the ballpark.

“Now he doesn't have a groundskeeping crew that he has to pay for. He doesn't have janitorial and cleaning that he has to pay for. He doesn't have maintenance that he has to pay for. He doesn't have utilities that he has to pay for anymore,” he said. “All of that's going to be assumed by the city. And it's going to be spread equally amongst the user groups, including the Mustangs.”

Finally, Aspenlieder dispelled any notions of the city trying to drive the Mustangs out of Billings and said such an outcome was absolutely the last thing anyone in city leadership wanted to see happen.

“There isn't a person on the council and there isn't a person in the city administration that does not want the Mustangs to continue to play baseball in Billings,” Aspenlieder said. “And I firmly believe that we will get there in the negotiating. But we have to have an effort to reset what was 20 years of bad contracts given out.”

‘It would kill us in a month’

From the very start of their existence, the Mustangs were almost constantly a minor league affiliate for a Major League Baseball team. Their longest partnership lasted nearly 50 years with the Cincinnati Reds, operating as the team’s Rookie League affiliate and providing them with consistent sources of both funding and revenues.

However, in 2020 the MLB reorganized its minor league system and ended its partnership with the the Pioneer League, redesignating it as an independent MLB Partner League.

This decision, which stripped the Mustangs of a highly dependable revenue source, had already put the team on the backfoot before the city came in with their new contract demands.

According to Heller, if he were to accept the city’s current offer, it would almost certainly bankrupt the team. Specifically, he took issue with the city looking to nearly triple the rent while simultaneously trying to take a cut out of some of his primary revenue drivers.

“The city of Billings has no comparables to support its position, not one,” he said.

He pointed to the Great Falls Voyagers, the closest pioneer league team to the Mustangs, as a team in a similar situation. The city of Great Falls owns the Voyagers home stadium but they only pay roughly $13,000 a month in rent. Great Falls also hosts regular concerts at their ballpark.

“Why should the Billings rent be more than 10 times greater than the Great Falls rent?” he said. “We play in the same league we pay the players the exact same and we have all the same expenses. Except our travel expenses are larger because we’re further away from all the other Pioneer League teams.”

When asked what he saw as the best-case scenario coming out of these negotiations, he simply said a deal keeping the Mustangs in Billings.

“The best-case solution is something that keeps the Billings Mustangs in Billings for at least a decade, if not longer,” he said. “It's hard to imagine the Mustangs without Billings, we belong together, but we need a lease that allows the team to survive financially. What they proposed would kill us in a month.”