Discussion for article #238351
I’m mean. I would have said to the woman railing against her mayor and city council about their lack of support for their sports team- you have two choices, ma’am. One- we raise your taxes to 60% to deal with how this team is draining our coffers or two- we tell them not to hit the door where God parted them because, honestly, we don’t want a** prints on our doors.
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Socialism for the rich. Capitalism for the rest of us. In other words, plutocracy.
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I tend to think of it as “Socialism for the rich- destitution for the rest of us” because I don’t even think Capitalism covers how the rich are screwing everyone over.
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When the wealthy owners get the taxpayers to pony up the funds, it becomes just another vehicle for wealth transfer to the top.
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This was a brilliant and devastating piece.
With each of the cities mentioned, I just found myself thinking, “Wow, great stadium… meanwhile, I wonder what state of repair/modernization their public schools are in, and how much money is being pulled in from those bake sales.”
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Quite some time ago, I discussed a similar issue with a college professor. We discussed college sports teams and how much they are a burden on the schools. He told me that his school made a modest profit off of their not-exactly-stellar team. Their team didn’t have ultramodern facilities or huge scholarships for prize athletes. But, take teams like at UGA and the school loses money badly because no matter how good their team is- even if it is the best in the world- it cannot fill enough seats to actually turn a profit.
What he thought was, basically, in order to turn exorbitant profits, sports teams needed to have someone else pay for everything at any level.
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It goes well beyond just sports stadiums, too. I remember visiting Toledo OH doing work for Owens Corning back in the 90s…and they had this HUGE monstrosity of a HQ built for them on the river. The city and port authority paid for every dime.
Now to keep it in context…you could walk downtown Toledo for blocks and blocks…and not see a single store or even human being (I did,walking back and forth from old OC locations to the HQ on many occasions). Just bricked up and closed buildings.
Here are some photos of the building from their web site: http://www.hines.com/property/detail.aspx?id=252
And not a dime of it was paid by the company.
This sort of thing goes on everywhere, where states and cities bend over backwards to cough off revenues they don’t have just to get Corporation Z to open up a location. And rarely, if ever, does the increased in employment make up for the lost revenue.
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Colleges like UGA are not supposed to make money off of their sports team. They are required to spend all of it. Which is why you have a constant increase in facilities and coaching salaries instead. And while ticket sales are nice, the real money comes in from TV contracts, memorabilia and alumni donations…none of which the athletes ever see. Those video games Oliver referred to? The NCAA versions of them use the actual players (incredibly realistic) likenesses, names and performance stats…the athlete receives nothing, the school and the NCAA gets all the royalties.
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thank you for elaborating on that. I stand corrected and wish I could present that to the professor I talked to.
Socialize the cost, privatize the profits. Every damn time.
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And the top teams make enough to pay for the rest of their sports programs Like you said, the smaller teams that stay small do well enough, but there’s many schools who pour a ton of money into their program, but aren’t in the top tier that cost their schools money.
I understand that the billionaire owner of the St Louis Rams football team bought the old Hollywood Park racetrack in Los Angeles and then threatened the city that if they don’t build him a new stadium than he will pack up the team and move back west. The stadium, now called the Edward Jones Dome, opened in November 1995. My god, it’s ancient!!! Of course, Bill Bidwill, the owner of the former St Louis Cardinals football team, had picked up and moved everything to Arizona after the city refused to build him a football specific stadium. After all, he was forced to share Busch Stadium with the baseball Cardinals, and his lease prevented him from taking all the money from stadium concessions. So, in came the Rams to a brand new stadium that the city built to lure a team. This extorition has been going on too long. Fans must realize that the team owners have no loyalty to your town. Don’t fall victim to greedy owners. Los Angeles, where I live, has not had a pro football team in 20 years, but we have UCLA and USC to fill the gap. I think owners have noticed that.
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Oligarch mantra: “Socialize Debt, Capitalize Profit”.
and the addendum: “Never gamble with your own money, that’s what suckers are for.”
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It’s a jobs program, right?
“Helping Americans get back to work is our number one priority, and we’re going to do everything we can to help create jobs and to boost our economy.” – John Boehner, 2010.
Here in Minnesota, we are currently building a state-subsidized (to the tune of $450 million in bonds) $1 Billion stadium for the Minnesota Vikings (who suck) and who are owned by the convicted felons (of Real-Estate Fraud no less) from New Jersey, the “Wilf” brothers. Even though they have to pay almost 50% of the cost (after much arm twisting) they get to issue long-term bonds to pay for it, and keep all the naming rights money, concession money, seating money, TV money, non-football revenue, and most importantly, the real-estate development rights AROUND the stadium. It will host the 2018 Super Bowl and they get all that largesse too.
They have already successfully sued other companies in the area of the stadium to force them to remove existing logos and advertising from their buildings because it would “dilute the naming rights value” of the now-named “US Bank Stadium” and unsuccessfully tried to block the city of Minneapolis from creating and developing a large park area just to the west of the new stadium.
P.T. Barnum was right. There is a sucker born every minute.
For years I have never understood the reasoning for this and other tax giveaways programs. I don’t believe there is a single one of these deals that has even come close to being revenue neutral despite what politicians have said. Same with World Fairs, Olympics and other such venues.
Then these are those usually 20 year tax reduction idiocies to bring jobs to an area. They never work and in 20 years the taxpayers are threatened with, give us more or we move.
Yea every once in a while a town will say no. Lived in a town that did just that only to have the Mall go 3 miles down the road into the next county and get the tax deal. This resulted in the first town getting shafted due to need to improve roads to handle the traffic, etc. That was everybodies first impression. However, when all was said and done, a study completed at 20 year mark showed that even with the added road expense the town still was better off.
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They have not noticed, the NFL’s ratings have gone up dramatically, and the league has grown more popular and more profitable than ever over the last 20 years Even without a team in the 2nd largest market . There is no dispute, the NFL is our only real national game at this point. .
While I agree with the stance of the City of Los Angeles, UCLA and USC are not replacements for professional teams. At least for people who are fans of watching the game played at the highest level. Don’t get me wrong, the college game is fun to watch as well, but it is a joke compared to the Pro’s.
The only way to solve this issue is more teams. the top 50 markets should have a professional football team. Market size should not make huge difference in the NFL, since as someone stated earlier, it’s all about the TV money. Green Bay has 95,000 residents for Christ sakes. Jacksonville is a tiny market as well. But the league won’t have that, they are creating an artificial shortage in order to allow these owners to take their local communities hostage. Remember, before the Rams took off for St. Louis, they moved from the Coliseum in LA to Anaheim Stadium in Orange County after LA refused to upgrade the Coliseum.
The only thing I would say, is that the whole CTE thing has made me consider giving up watching all forms of football. So by the time we get a pro team back in LA, I’m not sure I’ll be watching anyway.
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I always liked the line, the road is crowded therefore we must expand it or ZXY Corp will move facilities elsewhere. So town spends and spends, ZXY Corp expands at the same site and the following year the road is crowded once again and the cycle repeats. If instead the town made a single improvement aimed at an area that was ripe for corporate expansion that would encourage the ZXY Corp to go that direction. I saw the result of such a move by a town in Sweden, they actually built a 2 lane road as a “subway” for a companies exclusive use. That resulted in many many facilities being built along that route. It also meant that businesses needed to support those facilities grew, such as restaurants, shops, etc. This resulted in the corp traffic of heavy trucks etc staying off the public roads which retained their traffic easy flow, even during shift changes. Eventually the town expanded the “subway” into 4 lanes and opened it up to any corporation.
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Maybe but not often and if a squeeze occurs the other programs are cut first.