Mark Sanchez: This harkens back to the line in the movie, if you build it, they will come. And the soccer stadium is going to happen there on the other side of the freeway in downtown and behind the Y (David D. Hunting YMCA) and former Big Boy restaurant. The question is now, who's going to play there? Last week we saw Amway buy the naming rights for the stadium. It will be Amway Stadium with a $33 million commitment. And so, the question becomes, who plays there? My coworker Kate Carlson, who attended that event last week, talked to Carol Van Andel a little bit of Grand Action 2.0. She was telling us a professional team will be announced next month. And it's all coming together, it's getting pulled together with the business and marketing and branding. So, within a month, maybe a nice little Christmas gift, we'll learn exactly what league, what franchise, and at what level we'll play in this new stadium that's along the city's waterfront here in downtown.
Patrick Center: You mentioned a league. There are a couple of professional leagues out there. There's MLS and there's USL. Is there any sense of which league this team might play in, dependent on the construction of the stadium and its size?
Mark Sanchez: Really couldn't quite tell that aspect about which way they're leaning. And you have to believe they've already probably secured something and they're just putting the details in place on exactly which league they'll have a team in. That's not quite clear just yet, but those are the two options you mentioned. Those are probably the two favorite options that folks are looking at right now.
Patrick Center: The question is the ownership group. We know Dan DeVos and Ventures LLC own the Grand Rapids-Griffins and the Rise. Is the sense that they too will then take ownership of the soccer team?
Mark Sanchez: That's the sense and remember the DeVos family has also been a limited partner in the major league soccer franchise, Orlando City Soccer Club since July 21 down in Orlando. They have a minority stake in that with the Wilf family, which owns NFL's Minnesota Vikings. So, there's some connections there. And again, whether it's the USL or MLS, guess we'll find out in a month. But this is just one more stake in the ground that this project moving forward. They've got, think about 80% or so, it's a $175 million project. They're trying to raise a $60 million to help finance that development. And they have about 80% of that raised and that includes a $33 million commitment last week from Amway. This has actually been a long time in the works and Grand Action, the folks there, they do have a track record of envisioning, identifying, planning, getting the details together and pushing forward with a lot of big projects in this town. So, this is just another example. They identify those barriers you need to knock down and they go working on each and every one.
Patrick Center: The soccer stadium has some economic spinoff. We'll see that unfold over time. The economy in the near future, U of M has a report out.
Mark Sanchez: Yeah, this is an annual economic outlook that the University of Michigan issues one every quarter, but the big one comes out to this time of year, Annual Economic Outlook for Michigan, the U.S. and things are looking okay. You know, the economy obviously has been slowing a little bit nationally. And of course, we're auto dependent still here in Michigan and the auto industry's been slowing a little bit. We've got now this prospect of tariffs coming on board with the new administration and President-elect Trump taking office in January and he’s promising tariffs on China, Mexico, Canada now has been mentioned. So, we'll see what effect tariffs have on the economy. The U of M outlook nationally said that's going to drive up inflation a little bit in 2026, when the tariffs really take effect and gain traction, but then that'll work its way through the economy. For Michigan right now, there's some uncertainty out there, but the U of M outlook says the state's economy, well, negatively impacted by the tariffs and other restrictions, including immigration, should still see some job gains here in the next couple of years. And some of those barriers, headwinds that we mentioned with tariffs and immigration challenges, that's going to get partially offset by the expected tax cuts that the president elect will propose. So, there's a lot of things in play right now, but basically the U of M outlook says the state should hold steady, should still see some job growth at a slower rate than what we've seen the last few years. But that's also the aspect of talking to Gabe Erlich, one of the economists who writes this report, says, yeah, Michigan's got a soft patch in terms of job losses going back to May and then some softness that's going into 2025 and through 2026. But part of those growth rates we've seen the last couple of years, that was coming out of the pandemic and that deep dive the economy took there four years ago. So those comparisons are a little difficult, but bottom line, there's still a job growth ahead in the next couple of years for the state, albeit a little slower than what we've seen the last few years.
Patrick Center: We're talking with Crain's Grand Rapids business staff writer, Mark Sanchez. You've written a piece entitled Blue Cross to Drop Coverage of Costly Specialty Drug Humira.
Mark Sanchez: Yeah, this is one of these drugs, specialty drugs, that we've heard so much about the last few years, that are really driving the healthcare spending in America. It's an expensive drug. It treats a number of things, and just to give you some numbers on exactly how expensive this drug really is for Blue Cross Blue Shield, we're looking at, I think he said, the gentleman, the chief pharmacy officer there said, you're looking about $6,700 per prescription. It's an injectable drug, and typically a patient uses six to eight prescriptions a year. So how costly is this? Well, in 2023 Blue Cross Blue Shield's spend on this particular drug was $500 million for about 60,000 prescriptions. So, this type of drug, these specialty drugs, are really, really pushing healthcare costs up. And what Blue Cross Blue Shield is doing, it will stop coverage for the brand name drug and then switch over to kind of what's known as a biosimilar. Think of this in comparison to many years ago when your insurers and in your care providers started adopting and adapting more to generic drugs because they cost less than the brand name drugs. The brand name drugs come off patent, no longer have that protection. You get a generic manufacturer to make a lower cost version. Well, that's similar to what's now happening with what's known as these biologic specialty drugs. They're beginning to come off patent, losing their exclusivity. So, you have a producer that will make a biosimilar version of that. It costs less, still expensive, but it costs less. And that's what Blue Cross Blue Shield is switching to from Humira, the brand name, to the biosimilar version. And in the conversation, the story we had last week in Crain’s Grand Rapids, talking to the chief pharmacy officer at Blue Cross Blue Shield, he said, this is now going to be standard practice each and every time a biologic specialty drug comes off patent and we see a lower cost biosimilar come to market they're going to take a look at it, analyze it, and possibly, probably switch to covering that lower cost drug, the biosimilar, and drop coverage of the brand name drug.
Patrick Center: Crain's Grand Rapids Business, staff writer Mark Sanchez, thank you so much.
Mark Sanchez: Thank you, Patrick.