The state of Mississippi’s demand for the city of Jackson to return Smith-Wills Stadium to its control is still tied up in court.
The state leased the Smith-Wills Stadium property to Jackson in 1944. The city paid $50,000 for the property and agreed to use it specifically for “park purposes.” Provisions of the deed state that if the property is not used for a park, it would revert to the state.
In 2019, the city leased the stadium to Kusche Sports Group, LLC, formed by Tim Bennett. Kusche Sports Group subleased a section of the stadium to a cigar bar and part of the parking lot to the Veterans Administration.
Last year, the Legislature passed a bill with a provision that directed the attorney general to sue to take back ownership of the property because it is no longer used for park purposes.
Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch filed a counterclaim against the city in Hinds County Chancery Court last year, and the city sued to stop the state from taking back possession of the property.
When asked for an update about the lawsuit, MaryAsa Lee, communications director for the state Office of the Attorney General, communicated by email that she could not provide a comment about an active legal matter.
Ashby Foote, who represents Ward 1 on the Jackson City Council, asked during the Jan. 14 council meeting if Kusche Sports Group was up to date with payments to the city.
“I know of nothing they are out of compliance with, and the payments are current,” said Drew Martin, city attorney.
Foote said he inquired because he believes the city should collect what it is due and it doesn’t always do that. “We’ve got to be more prudent about that,” he said.
Martin advised the council during the Jan. 14 meeting that it would have to go into an executive session to speak further
about the lawsuit. None of the details of the lawsuit were discussed and the council did not adjourn for an executive session.
Bennett, a former co-owner of the Biloxi Shuckers minor league baseball team and manager of MGM Park in Biloxi, negotiated a contract with the city in 2019 to manage the 49-year-old stadium.
Kusche Sports Group, formed by Bennet, responded to a request for professional management services of the stadium that the city issued on Oct. 31, 2018.
Kusche Sports was the only entity to respond to the request and have a plan to breathe new life into the facility. The stadium serves as the home of the Hank Aaron Sports Academy.
In 2019, the city council OK’d an agreement for 10 years with Kusche with an option to extend the contract for two 10-year periods. The terms of the agreement called for Kusche Sports to remit to the city the greater of a base rent of $125,000 per year or 20 percent of all gross marketing revenue generated at the stadium up to not to exceed $250,000 per year beginning on Oct. 1, 2020, with successive payments made annually on Oct. 1.
The contract also called for Kusche to pay the city 30 percent of all revenue on ticketed and non-ticketed sales gate events and concessions, starting on Sept. 1, 2019. The contract also required annual audits to be presented to the city.
During the July 2, 2024, council meeting, Foote brought the stadium up as a discussion item. He said Bennett had paid only $32,000 to the city since leasing the facility in 2019, despite leasing the use of the parking lot to the Veterans Administration for $370,000 annually since 2021.
Under the terms of the original contract, Kusche Sports should have paid the city $500,000 since 2020.
Foote said during the July 2, 2024 council meeting that he was disturbed because Bennett did not tell the council he was collecting rent on the parking lot before the council amended the contract earlier this year. “That’s a material omission from the discussion,” he said.
Foote asked during the meeting: “When we went into negotiations did anybody in the city know about this VA contract that was paying the vendor $370,000 a year?”
He said he only became aware in March that Bennett had signed a contract with the Veterans Administration to lease the parking lot.
Bennett said in a phone interview with the Northside Sun that he answered a request for proposals to provide overflow parking for the G.V. (Sonny) Montgomery V.A. Medical Center and that he went through all the required permitting.
Bennett said he talked to the city about the venture, but he could not off the top of his head provide the name of the person he spoke with. “I would have to go back and look at the paperwork,” he said.
The V.A. contract required investing “six figures” to provide a shuttle service to the center, Bennett said. The stadium parking lot had to be repaired, two shuttle buses had to be acquired and drivers employed, bus stops had to be built, the interior of a building improved so that employees could wait there during bad weather and insurance had to be obtained, he said.
Foote also asked during the July 2 council meeting: Was the leaseholder in default on the contract in January 2024 when the council amended the contract?
Martin said he didn’t know for certain because he didn’t deal with the contract at that time. Martin has served as the city attorney since Feb. 13, 2024.
The council approved modifications to the contract in January, 2024. The contract was amended so that Kusche Sports’ investments in renovating the bathrooms, installing new equipment, maintaining the baseball fields and allowing local high schools and college teams to use the field as needed were accepted as partial rental payments.
Foote asked if a performance bond was in place, as the original contract required. A performance bond would allow the city to recoup some of the money due. Martin indicated there was not one. “It looks like we didn’t move on the performance bond,” he said.
Foote also asked during the meeting if the city should terminate the contract and take the stadium back. Martin said he didn’t know whether the contract would be terminable and if that would be a wise choice.
Opened in 1975, the stadium made a name for itself as the home of the Jackson Mets, a minor league farm team for the New York Mets. After the Mets left in 1990, it became home to the Jackson Generals, followed by the Jackson Diamond Kats and the Jackson Senators.
The stadium name commemorates the lives of the late Doug Wills and the late John Smith, who were killed in two separate accidents. Wills, a Murrah High School baseball player, had just completed his medical residency at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, when he was killed by a drunk driver. Smith, a pitcher for Provine High School, was killed along with his coach on the road to an American Legion baseball tournament.
Almost every day as part of the Hank Aaron Baseball Academy, the stadium has games, practices and clinics taking place, Bennett said.
“We have coaches who learn to coach and kids who learn to play the game,” Bennett said, noting there is also training for umpires and soon will include softball instruction.
The academy works with the minority initiative program of Major League Baseball that focuses on increasing the number of minority players at all levels, he said.
Hank Aaron, considered one of the greatest professional baseball players in the history of the game, was concerned by the drop in the number of minority players during the last 35 years, he said.
The death of Aaron, who died on Jan. 2, 2021, had an impact on the academy, Bennett said. “The financial support is not there,” he said, noting there has been no funding from Major League Baseball.
The stadium shares a parking lot with the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum and the Mississippi Museum of Agriculture and Forestry. The three entities are part of the LeFleur Museum District, which is located on approximately 313 acres the city purchased from the state in 1944.
