Miami-Dade's commissioners stall the county's GTA 6 deal: "We're depicting Miami like a murder capital"

The Welcome to Vice City sign is already on the roof of the Kaseya Center, the county-owned arena where the Miami Heat play. What Miami-Dade's commissioners are arguing about now is whether the county should go any further, and on Tuesday 6 October they decided not to let it, for now.

The $975,000 sign

Rockstar's paying $975,000 for the rooftop sign, which went up in September and runs for about three months, through New Year. The number matters. County contracts of $1 million or more need a vote of the full commission, and this one sits $25,000 under that line, so Mayor Daniella Levine Cava's office could approve it on its own authority. Her chief of staff, Chris Hudtwalcker, negotiated it.

One report puts the figure at $957,000 instead. Either way it's under the threshold, and that's what counts.

The airport, the port and transit

Commission chairman Anthony Rodriguez brought an item that would let the mayor negotiate a bigger promotional deal with Rockstar, above $1 million, potentially covering Miami International Airport, PortMiami and the county's transit system. It's the same idea first floated in the summer, when the county sheriff came out against it.

It hit a wall.

• René Garcia: "We're depicting Miami like a murder capital." He said he'd like to claw the existing deal back, and asked why the county was getting under $1 million from a campaign he put at $150 million. He didn't say where that figure came from, and neither Rockstar nor Take-Two has published a marketing budget.
• Micky Steinberg said setting this kind of policy is the commission's job, and not the administration's.
• Juan Carlos Bermudez, Rob Gonzalez and Vicki Lopez all had reservations about a county promoting a game built on crime from county property. Bermudez had said in September that if it went ahead, the money should go to the Sheriff's Office.
• Oliver Gilbert shot down the sheriff idea, citing that office's record budget, and then used a procedural motion to end debate and postpone the vote.

Rodriguez's defence was simple: it's a fictional game, and turning the money down would be cutting off the county's nose to spite its face.

Pushed to 20 October

Nothing was defeated. The commission voted that any Rockstar agreement over $1 million has to come back to it, which is already the rule, and the broader item was postponed to the commission's next meeting, on Tuesday 20 October. The mayor's office says talks with Rockstar are still going. Since deals under $1 million don't need a vote, nothing stops a series of smaller ones, though the administration hasn't said it plans that.

Nobody knows yet how Tuesday's vote will go, or whether it'd end the county's talks outright or just limit them. It's also not clear whether Rockstar still wants the airport and the port after a month of this.

Everyone else said yes

The county's the outlier in its own backyard. The City of Miami unanimously approved temporary banners of up to 10,000 square feet on downtown buildings from 15 October to 31 December, with the fees going to a greenway in Overtown and potential revenue above $1 million. Miami Beach voted 4-3 in September to negotiate Vice City branding on the beach chairs and umbrellas run by its concessionaire, worth around $3 million by one report. And the Heat themselves are playing their 18 November home game as Vice City, the night before launch.

GTA 6 is out on 19 November whether the county signs anything or not. That's the real bargaining chip in all this, and the county isn't the one holding it.