In the wake of video game production outfit 38 Studios’ collapse — and frontman Curt Schilling eventually learning there’s nothing left to harvest from the Rhode Island Money Tree —we’ve waited with baited breath for some kind of statement from the former Phillies/D-Backs/Red Sox hurler (usually not the shy, retiring type). On Tuesday, Schilling went on the p.r. offensive, telling the Providence Journal’s Mike Stanton and Andy Smith….that it’s all Rhode Island’s fault!
Schilling’s controversial partnership with the State of Rhode Island was forged with $75 million in taxpayer-backed bonds two years ago. If 38 Studios fails, Rhode Island taxpayers will be liable to repay more than $100 million. Also, Schilling says, he stands to lose $50 million of the fortune he earned as a professional baseball player and committed to the venture.
Schilling says that state economic-development officials reneged on a deal to approve film tax credits to which 38 Studios was legally entitled, and to allow the company to defer a $1.12-million payment that was due the state on May 1 so that 38 Studios could meet its May 15 payroll.
Schilling also criticized Chafee’s “devastating” public remarks about 38 Studios’ financial health, which he says scared off private investors.
Within 72 hours of Chafee’s May 14 statement that the state was trying to keep 38 Studios “solvent,” Schilling says, a video-game publisher pulled out of a $35-million deal to finance a sequel to Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, the fantasy game that 38 Studios released in February.
He’s not a rich man or freeloader — he’s a job creator. Of jobs that don’t last very long because Rhode Island’s governor is mean and divisive.
“I have done whatever I can do to create jobs and create a successful business, with my own income,” he said. “Fifty million dollars, everything I’ve ever saved, has been put back into the economy. The $49 million from Rhode Island has been put back in the economy. I’ve never taken a penny and I’ve done nothing but create jobs and create economy. And so how does that translate into welfare baby? I’ve tried to do right by people.”
If you owe the bank a thousand dollars and you can’t pay, you’re fucked. If you owe the bank a million dollars and you can’t pay, the bank’s fucked.
But the gov’t isn’t the bank, which is why they made the loan in the 1st place, and likely why they were stupid enough to make a public stink when the debtor couldn’t service the payment. Schilling’s claim about a private investor being scared away sounds unlikely, but it’s definitely not implausible.
As far as 38 Studios, the Gov’t of RI or anyone else being a ‘job creator’ I respectfully suggest that they have the wrong motivation. Any jobs created for the sake of their own existence can’t be sustainable, as the 2008 Kurt Schilling would have no doubt agreed.
Ug. “Curt” Schilling.
You mean a Republican governor reneged on a deal? But…but..but..I thought only Democrats and the Liberal Media® ever f*cked the people over. Life will never be the same. I just don’t know who to trust anymore (I mean, besides bible-thumping former jocks).