Last week brought rosy predictions as to how much revenue the new Washington Nationals stadium would attract. According to a study commissioned by District CFO Natwar Gandhi, the team stood to rake in $203 million in its first year and $190 million a year thereafter, making it the third highest grossing team in baseball. In fact, the predictions were so high that even baseball officials were left to express doubts:

The projections greatly exceeded the expectations of city officials and MLB executives. And several baseball officials, who had not seen the report, expressed skepticism about the estimates when contacted this week. “Any kind of number north of $200 million that doesn’t include TV [revenue] sounds astronomically high to me,” Nationals President Tony Tavares said.

Another article in the Post may cast further doubt on how much the Nationals might take in, especially with the team’s all-important ticket sales. According to the Post’s Thomas Heath, many of the city’s well-connected power players — both in government and out — have started reconsidering the high-priced luxury boxes and free ticket giveaways that have become part and parcel of the lobbying game. Possible changes to rules governing lobbying in the wake of the Jack Abramoff scandal have had an impact on local teams, especially the Nationals, who have already seen the cancellation of 100 prime seats at RFK once held by lobbying firms and usually given to Congressional staffers. The worry becomes more acute given the 78 luxury boxes set to be built in the new stadium, most of which would be presumably be purchased by lobbyists and used to woo members of Congress and their staffers. Nationals President Tony Tavares stated in the article:

Washington, D.C., thrives on the lobbying business. It’s been part of the landscape here for a long, long time. And it’s pretty important to our team and our new stadium.

The big question remains — should lobbyist ticket purchases dry up, can area teams find enough deep-pocketed individuals to make up for those losses? If they don’t, how might it affect ticket sales, and, most importantly for the District, taxes on those sales?

Maybe those initial predictions were just a little too rosy.