The debates in Oklahoma City over the wisdom of coughing over arena money while other pressing issues exist is painfully familiar to longtime Seattle residents.
One of the many reasons Robert Kraft is a top owner in American pro sports. Built Gillette stadium with his own damn money. And has since turned the patriots (with a lot of help from TB12) into the 4th most valuable franchise in the world.
If a city does this, I think they should be ineligible for federal funding if any kind for 10 years. They clearly don’t need the money, why should I (a taxpayer in another state) be subsidizing sports teams in a city (even if it’s in a roundabout way)?
These comments are dumb. They are really stupid and doesn’t make sense in a business world. The analogy to this, and let me explain, if you own a business and your looking for a place to relocate. Your options are a mall and a shopping center. You choose the shopping center. You, as an tenant, become the Leasee. The shopping center becomes the Leaser. You sign a lease for x amount of years. After x amount of years the shopping gets rundown from wear and tear. After the end of your lease you have options. To sign a new Lease, build your own Facilities, or move. This same process has with sport franchises, the city and facilities is what attracts said business, and the cities are considered the Leader. If the City are business wants to keep their tenants the have to provide facilities etc to keep said tenants. This shit happens to real people but they can’t get this concept. Its the same as owning a house or renting an apartment, which do you prefer.
the new trae young sports complex in norman was built by tax payers money. like 70 percent tax dollars, 20 some group and 10 percent trae. and it’s called the trae young sports complex. and it’s semi private iirc(not sure about this but it never said it was a public facility.)
ti’s gross how much these rich folks get away with.
The public who are funding these stadiums are also seeing their spending power reduced each year by inflation and other market factors out of our control … all while billionaires have profited hand over fist following the pandemic and are growing their wealth at historical levels … almost on par with the days of the Robber Barons. Make it make sense.
New stadium new businesses. Depending on location it could revitalize thar city. Brings in foot traffic to near by businesses during game day and other events at the stadium(i.e. Taylor swift concert, Monster truck events, WWE events)
I’ll never understand why people don’t understand why this happens. It’s so absurdly simple:
Team wants new stadium
Team demands current city pay for stadium, else team will run away to one of a dozen other cities who would happily pay for the stadium instead
Either current city pays up to not lose the team, or team relocates to city who will pay
The end
People can debate the positive/negative economics of it all day long, but it’s really neither here nor there. Bringing in a pro sports team to your city is a politically super popular move, and politicians only care about whatever helps them win their next election.
I’ll never understand why people don’t understand why this happens.
I don’t understand why people who put getting/keeping a sports team above all other considerations think everyone else should be forced to help their favorite billionaire pay for it.
Because the billionaire usually has other options. I don’t understand why people think they have leverage. It’s either help the billionaire or watch them leave. We’ve seen this show before. Numerous times.
If the choice is tax giveaways for more corporate suites or watching the team leave…then don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Even better if all the billionaire groupies follow them to the next scam.
But that’s the extreme minority view. Most citizens don’t care - that’s why this happens endlessly and people get all pissed off when they lose a team.
People who wine about the economics don’t understand the leverage and owner group has. Just cause it’s the right thing to do, it doesn’t mean it’s the smart thing to do.
Not just over 50%. Why at all. I love sports but the returns you get for investing in a stadium is pretty bad. People will say jobs, but the amount of jobs it brings and the tax revenue it generates is negative. These are not poverty ladden organizations, these are worth billions of dollars and will create billions more for the owners.
And these guys will move at the drop of a hat when presented other opportunities. I’m not in Oklahoma, but I would not want this if I were there.
Because of the threat of moving. It isn’t financially responsible for the government, yes but the government is competing for the team’s location with other city governments.
The Braves moved from Atlanta to Cobb County because Cobb coughed up 391 million dollars for the new stadium. That’s about $1,000 per tax payer in Cobb and it won’t be recouped in tax revenue. But now residents of Cobb live much closer to the Braves stadium which makes some people happy, while residents of Atlanta have to go further which makes them sad. And if you average going to ~1 game per year, you likely come out financially ahead as a Cobb resident in cost of an Uber.
There’s a lot more to it than the surface financials when professional teams have some flexibility in location.
These billionaires know they can use other cities/states that are itching to get a team and are willing to pay. Las Vegas and Oakland is a prime example. They owners use the threat of a possible move to get their way and if they don’t get what they want they do everything to move and secure funding outside their current fan base.
If the stadium has a favorable leasing agreement and is owned by the city they can be good investments.
Example, city raises money to build $100 million arena and agrees to lease it to an NBA team for 5 million/year for 20 years. Plus city gets revenue from concerts and other events of another 2 million/year and now over a 20 year window the city pays back the stadium+maintenance and get some increased tax revenue in theory as well.
The thing is this worked in the 20th century when arenas and stadiums were like $100 million now every new thing is a 1 billion or more and taxpayers are just getting scammed.
I wrote my final paper in school on this. Even privately funded arenas cost cities and country 100s of millions in infrastructure improvements.
And before people argue about developments occurring around arenas, any economic development has been show to just be shifted from what would have happened in the city regardless. Building an arena just concentrates certain development around it without being additive
What you dont get is most cities have a hotel tax of % of each hotel room/night. The more people these venues attract to the city the more money the government collects.
This money is then used by the city to re invest into events etc.
The other thing is when you bring people to the city you also have people spending money at local businesses/restaurants.
Each room night is charged New York State tax of 8.875%, a New York City tax of 5.875%, a New York City Occupancy Tax of $4.00, and a New York State hotel unit fee of $1.50.
The people have the leverage if they made it an issue. All that it requires is a stroke of a pen by Congress and the President to make it illegal to give any kind of benefit or subsidy to a team that leaves the state.
While I agree, it should really be “Fuck Howard Schultz forever” he knew goddamn well that Bennett could and would move the Sonics. He just didn’t give a shit.
This is one of the biggest taxpayer rip-offs in the country. Under the guise of the limited jobs it creates. Study after study proves what a rip-off it is. New York taxpayers are about to foot 1 billion so the Bills can keep coming up short of expectations.
Hahahahaha wait til you learn who’s not paying any or paying extremely low property taxes in your city. Hint: any big corporation that recently moved there, private high schools, colleges, golf courses, malls, etc.
The fact that it’s coming from the state and not the municipality is the truly wild part of the Buffalo stadium deal. It’s one thing if the money’s coming from the area because, even if they’re still atrocious “investments” when it comes to public funding, at least it’s still the people that will gain whatever benefits there are to be had from having a stadium and NFL team. The vast majority of NY state taxes come from NYC, though, and I feel damn confident saying that at least 99% of NYC residents are literally never going to see any benefit in the slightest. That’s next level fucked, IMO.
Dumbasses won’t even be able to host a Super Bowl either cause it’ll be open air! The whole point of the new stadiums is to get in the SB circuit. They’ll never host an outside SB in the winter in Buffalo.
the base essential idea of taxes is that they are collected in one place and spent in another, money collected from one person provides a service for another
im not saying stadiums are a good investment just that its not “truly wild”, or “next level” that taxes collected from NYC go to a project in Buffalo, very much the same level that we’ve always been on
There’s very little musicians left who can draw crowds big enough to fill these places up. Especially in poor smaller markets. Then the NFL stadiums which are custom built for 8 home games a year.
I don’t know Chase Center in San Francisco doesn’t seem to have this issue. I know the income level there is higher than other places, but the tours don’t start and stop in SF so they must be filling arenas in other areas… no?
I am not sure if SoFI count as an average football stadium, but the event calendar of that place looks crazy. One of the few venue that actually earn its money
Yeah, Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta is also a good candidate to say it was worth it. 8-9 NFL home games, 17 MLS plus any other tournament matches Atlanta United plays, at least 2 college football games per year with one of those being a New Years Six Bowl. Monster truck and motocross events are relatively common. I don’t remember if the DCI circuit still goes through Atlanta but I know the GA Dome used to host one of the last big competitions before finals. I know Elton John and Taylor Swift have both played there in the last couple of years.
That’s because it’s NFL season and it’s actually getting used for football. Major concerts usually require preparations a week in advance to load everything in and build out a stage, etc…
NYC, LA, and Vegas (maybe Miami) are the only cities that get major entertainment attractions year round and have the demand for it. Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Phoenix are all close but they aren’t entertainment hubs like those first 3
I’m in PHX. We get the final four on rotation, college bowl games, we got both Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, CONCACAF soccer games, international friendlies. The stadium gets used.
Lumen Field in Seattle hosts the Seahawks and the Sounders. It does have concrete here and there. That being said Seattle is a sports city and can support NBA NFL MLB NHL MLS easily.
There are legitimately only 3 or 4 artists in the world with any possibility of filling a stadium right now. Unless you have Taylor Swift and Beyoncé coming regularly, there’s just no chance of a decent return.
U2, Paul McCartney, and The Rolling Stones did notable stadium tours in the last decade or so I think. But yeah other than that it’s one-offs like when the dead did Fare Thee Well. I bet outside or major markets the NFL stadiums don’t get used for concerts more than like 3x a year on average.
Maybe in any given year a stadium would be used for a concert 3-4 times, but there’s definitely more than 4 acts that can fill stadiums. George Strait just did a sold out stadium tour this year.
Still not something the city/state should pay for.
Ehh. I’d say any of the following could still fill an NFL stadium:
Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Madonna, Britney Spears, Blackpink, The Weekend, Lizzo, reunion tours of NSYNC/Spice Girls/Backstreet Boys/U2/Guns n Roses/Metallica/Foo Fighters/One Direction, others I’m forgetting. But yes, most could not.
Lumen Field is probably the exception that I can think off the top of my head. Currently, four professional sports franchises call it home: Seahawks, Sounders, Reign, Sea Dragons.
NYC was about to ‘pay’ Amazon, the richest company in the world, 1.5 billion dollars to build HQ2, and when it failed, they just went and spent a billion of their own funds to hire the talent they wanted in the first place.
The fact that my state school (Rutgers) gets ~140m a year, and can expect taxpayers and tuition to cover any loses they garner doing that, to cosplay a D1 football school is nuts. Half the school is Indian and asian and couldn’t give less of a shit about football - give us like 1% of that budget for a funded cricket team and we’d demolish.
Meanwhile most professors are on one-year rolling contracts that can be cut at any moment - especially in the humanities. The main reason I did not go into a Masters and a Doctorate, even though I really wanted to, is that all my professors and advisors told me how tough it is to find a stable job, even with PhDs from prestigious as hell universities.
But hey, I’m glad Coach Dickhead makes 20m a year from public money.
The data for it’s economic impact is murky, but part of that is because it’s hard to quantify. They’re an economic multiplier. Depending on the city it will have differing levels of impact across a multitude of businesses. But part of the intangibles are creating a brand identity for the city. In your example it also makes Buffalo a bigger travel destination. I’m a lot more likely to travel to Buffalo to visit Niagara Falls and catch a Bills game than I am to travel there to only do one of those things.
I wouldn’t say Buffalo getting a new stadium makes them a bigger travel destination. If anything, Buffalo’s new stadium shows how much of an absolute waste these publicly funded stadiums are.
Niagara Falls has the majority of its visitors come in the spring and summer which is outside of when the Bills play so you aren’t really getting any dual tourism benefits. The new Buffalo stadium is also open air which most likely rules it out of getting any major entertainment events like concerts during the winter. And for Buffalo as a city it will always play second fiddle to Toronto for a tourist destination so a new stadium doesn’t really push the needle for more people to vacation in upstate NY and not stay in Toronto.
Like you said, professional sports can bring a lot of intangible benefits for a city such as brand identity or lumping them into infrastructure improvements. However, the $850 million public contribution NY is giving towards building a stadium could easily be used for other infrastructure improvements that would economically improve Buffalo.
Counterpoint is I’ve heard of Buffalo and part of that reason is because of the Bills. People gravitate towards latching onto sports team and it makes them feel invested in them and their city. I have no connection with either city but if I get a job offer to move to Buffalo, NY or to Bismarck, ND you damn well know which one I’m picking. It’s a level of prestige it gives a city. If they have a sports team I know they’re going to be a moderately okay place to live with things to do.
Also $850 million spread out over 20 million New Yorkers is a bit different than $900 million spread out across 4 million Oklahomans.
That’s nonsense. When there are only 8 or 9 home games a year, and the overwhelming majority of tickets go to season ticket holders who live locally and tailgate in the parking lot, the overall economic multiplier impact is negligible. Study after study debunks that claim. Meanwhile you have a giant concrete ring surrounded by an enormous asphalt circle of parking lots, all empty for at least 340 days of the year. A football stadfium is not not only a bad thing to subsidize, it is just a bad use of land, especially high value land in the center of a city or along a river. Subsidizing a football stadium with public money is madness - most cities are better off without football stadiums even if they are built entirely by the teams themselves.
This is not so true for basketball arenas. Many more games, the arena is useful for concerts, conventions, circuses, etc., and if you minimize the parking lots, people will spend money in the local restaurants before the game. Billionaires should still build their own basketball arenas, but throwing some money there is not as ridiculous as a football stadium.
That’s a really good point, there are numerous concerts and other events held at most NBA stadiums. Just off the top of my head this year at Gainbridge Fieldhouse they had WWE Fast Lane, a number of concerts, Indiana Fever games, and girls and boys high school finals.
Sacramento’s new arena kind of saves downtown Sac. It’s now wonderful and I’m not sure it would have been without that stadium being the lifeblood of the city
And on top of this they’re doing international and neutral games, lowering then number of games at the stadium. Not a thing yet in the NBA (outside of preseason) but it will be. Why does the city never get a percent ownership in the team at least?
the “brings in local jobs” argument only makes sense when you consider that most political terms are 2 or 4 years. The opportunity to immediately “add” 1000+ construction jobs for 18 months is relatively easy compared to building up sustainable long-term industries.
Plus there’s no long term jobs gained because all of the day of game staff would also work at the old stadium. And that’s 9-10 days tops per year. So “part-time” work that equal 3% of the entire year lol
And the minimum wage jobs for working concessions and security/ushering it brings during the season is not really something to celebrate as a great return on investment. Besides, those jobs also already exist at the current stadium/arena.
Every single time a private company engages in a compromise with the supposed government it is a poor idea for the populace. A single entity has chosen to go against the majority. So ask yourself why you ever have a private corporation.
It’s not a ripoff every study is done after the fact of a franchise being in the community for years. Its effects can’t be measured on an economic basis because its business is limited to itself. Its value is based of a social and cultural aspect. When OKC was trying to get companies like Boeing, Amazon and other Tech companies in the medical field they were worried about coming there because they had nothing to attract youth and young people to move or come here. They were worried about Brain Drain( when Young college graduates leave an area). Since the Thunder have came in 2008 the amount of companies and population has increased to where OKC used to be in the top 40 in population to now where in the 20s. This study has been done by OKC Chamber of commerce and Oklahoma City their effect is a collateral effect and not a direct effect. There hasn’t been a study of a city that hasn’t had a franchise to getting one. One thing that is certain is that every place that has complained about paying for a new arena and lost a franchise always pays for a new one to get back another franchise facts.
The Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce put out a study that promotes Oklahoma City? Okay. I can point to multiple studies by University of Michigan, Brookings Institute, and on and on that says the economic benefits are not realized. If you want to argue that it makes a city more appealing, maybe. However, when a team leaves people generally find something else to do. You are talking about a minuscule percentage of a population that fits into an arena. Just because people desire a sports franchise, like Baltimore bringing back football, doesn’t necessarily mean it equates to better economics. That can be tracked. And it has been shown to not economically benefit areas all that much.
They’re doing the same thing here in Jacksonville for the Jaguars. Instead of putting money towards education, infrastructure, or our decaying downtown taxpayers will instead pay a billion dollars for a “stadium of the future” for a mediocre ass football team that hasn’t won shit in the almost 30 years that they’ve existed. They’re arguably the most irrelevant franchise in all of North American pro sports and they’ve become a bottom tier organization under Khan’s ownership yet they have the audacity to ask us to split the bill lmao.
Could you explain your stance a little bit more in depth? I would think building a state of the art arena that your city owns would attract more people to Oklahoma City and therefore provide great benefits to the city.
Michael Leeds professor of Economics at Temple looked at Chicago. He said a baseball stadium in Chicago (a good example because of number of games) showed the same economic impact as a department store. Football is worse because less games. Would a city fund a billion dollar department store through taxes? Probably not. They have found that most of the economic benefit goes to the owners. You can Google this and there are a lot of studies.
I am a sports fan. And I certainly don’t think public funding of stadiums will ever stop. In fact, it’s getting more expensive. I just don’t agree with it. There are plenty of other things to fund with tax dollars that will improve livability. And for instance, the owners of the Bills are worth 5 billion. Why can’t they fund it? There are owners that privately fund.
Right but have you looked more in depth into these studies? Just because someone is professor of something doesn’t mean people aren’t paying them money to say what other people want to hear. I mean just literally think about what you said to me you are comparing a Billion-dollar stadium to a department store. I have never taken an economics class but I’d be willing to wager a hefty bet that this stadium would have a far greater impact than a department store.
But I believe it would bring an economic boom it’s not about necessarily getting direct value out of a stadium. It’s about getting super wealthy people to want to invest in the future of OKC. The best way to do that is to get them near the city and want to be around it, therefore nothing attracts the wealthy like a state-of-the-art arena.
There was something posted on reddit that the state budget cut almost the same amount from social services, some mother kid program.
The republicans would say but the mom could get a job there! Yeah, slinging hot dogs or cleaning toilets, the pay of which is the whole reason she’s using social services
I really wish that we could have just let them move to Austin.
Buffalo is a wintry city with immense snowfall. It will never be the tourist destination a place like Vegas will be and the stadium never went to a vote.
That’s just it, they’re not owned by the billionaires. Billionaires know what a pain in the ass owning commercial real estate is, so it’s a lot easier and cheaper to be a tenant.
The leverage a team has over local politicians is enormous.
I wonder what would happen if a politician told the voters that they would sponsor a fundraiser for the team instead of using tax dollars. If the voters want their money to go to the stadium, they can give it directly instead of raising taxes for everyone.
Because they promise jobs, increased local business uptake, new and improved restaurant and consumer based infrastructure. You have to look outside the box of “tax loophole” and think about the trickle down economic effects of the publicly funded money. Taxpayers money is helping the area where the stadium will be built. Plus it’s a lot of jobs that can temporarily employ people during the construction. Then you have to feed those workers and those workers will slightly stimulate the local economy during that construction period.
Because billionaires can ask and hold moving the team over the heads of the council and mayor. Making one of the reasons to own a sports team as “real estate scam.”
This won’t be popular. But, they usually are not owned by the team. It’s owned by the city and they take money off the top for concerts, etc. They just subsidize the crap out of the Arena for the “anchor” tenant which is usually an NBA or NHL team by giving them handouts. Stadiums wouldn’t be built if they didn’t make money for the surrounding businesses. Field of Schemes and a lot of anti-arena people don’t understand or only paint a narrative otherwise. Also people don’t get up in arms when cities lure companies with subsidies too. There’s more to it.
It’s a racket. They make all the money you pay for it. But it’s the same as big pharma with the vaccines. Publicly funded research, publicly funded free vaccines but the pharmaceutical companies made all the money
Well, usually the facility is used for more than the NBA. Concerts and other Events stimulte the economy and help local businesses and provide jobs. Not saying those billionaire owners need a break, but unless the venue is used by only the NBA team there should be joint cost. Sports and entertainment salaries are just bananas. Until players and movie stars command less money along with greedy owners/entertainment companies, it will only get more ridiculous. Watching sports/concerts/live events is quickly becoming impossible financially for anyone but the extremely wealthy.
It would make sense to me if the public was entitled to 50% of the subsequent revenues but it never goes that way does it? We just pay and get…nothing.
I always think back to this article from grantland. If someone wants to own a sports team in this day and age its not because they need it to be profitable.
They shouldn’t, but generally there’s a city somewhere with an idiot mayor that will think it’s beneficial to their city and make an offer so the team moves
Bc the city gets major publicity worldwide when your part of the big leagues. Games generates revenue for local businesses, there’s a whole bunch of ripple effect positive impact it creates.
What kind of split should it be then just out of curiosity? I imagine an owner that’s worth just $1B can’t exactly pay 100% of +900M stadium unless most of that wealth is liquid
Only way it would make sense to me is if you could then recoup the taxes directly from the revenue that is generated by the facility. Like put a heavy tax until the money is recouped and then lower it a bit every 5 years until it’s virtually gone. It would probably incentivize owners from not dipping a region as well if they had a low tax rate already on their current arena. Like yeah they could get another arena, but then they have to start paying heavy taxes again.
Unfortunately, this only works in a world where every region agrees to play hardball like this. So long as there’s a decent sized market that is willing to bend over backwards, this will never work.
I will never understand why public funds should pay for >50% of the funds for a privately owned sports clubs arena
One of the many reasons Robert Kraft is a top owner in American pro sports. Built Gillette stadium with his own damn money. And has since turned the patriots (with a lot of help from TB12) into the 4th most valuable franchise in the world.
If a city does this, I think they should be ineligible for federal funding if any kind for 10 years. They clearly don’t need the money, why should I (a taxpayer in another state) be subsidizing sports teams in a city (even if it’s in a roundabout way)?
For example, OKC received 122M in federal funding one of the past years (the website doesn’t say which fiscal year and I don’t care enough to dig much further). My point stands regardless if the year - if the city can find stadiums they don’t need my tax dollars. (https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/136/fiscalrecoveryfunds-metrocitiesfunding1-508A.pdf).
Billionaires don’t get there by accident
These comments are dumb. They are really stupid and doesn’t make sense in a business world. The analogy to this, and let me explain, if you own a business and your looking for a place to relocate. Your options are a mall and a shopping center. You choose the shopping center. You, as an tenant, become the Leasee. The shopping center becomes the Leaser. You sign a lease for x amount of years. After x amount of years the shopping gets rundown from wear and tear. After the end of your lease you have options. To sign a new Lease, build your own Facilities, or move. This same process has with sport franchises, the city and facilities is what attracts said business, and the cities are considered the Leader. If the City are business wants to keep their tenants the have to provide facilities etc to keep said tenants. This shit happens to real people but they can’t get this concept. Its the same as owning a house or renting an apartment, which do you prefer.
the new trae young sports complex in norman was built by tax payers money. like 70 percent tax dollars, 20 some group and 10 percent trae. and it’s called the trae young sports complex. and it’s semi private iirc(not sure about this but it never said it was a public facility.)
ti’s gross how much these rich folks get away with.
Not to mention that they have been holding prayer at the openings. If it is public get religion out of it.
The public who are funding these stadiums are also seeing their spending power reduced each year by inflation and other market factors out of our control … all while billionaires have profited hand over fist following the pandemic and are growing their wealth at historical levels … almost on par with the days of the Robber Barons. Make it make sense.
That’s what keeps the ticket prices down. Wait a second…
the NFL started removing home games from its stadiums and sending them to Europe & Mexico to be played
So instead of 8 guaranteed home-games it became 7
Now with 17 game schedules they can work out the guaranteed 8 home games without being sued.
“Well if you don’t want to buy us a shiny new arena, I know another city that would love to have us and buy us one!”
grins in evil billionaire
New stadium new businesses. Depending on location it could revitalize thar city. Brings in foot traffic to near by businesses during game day and other events at the stadium(i.e. Taylor swift concert, Monster truck events, WWE events)
Honest answer: It’s the same reason they build roads and fix up schools, new stadiums are popular with voters.
Just ask the owner of the Edmonton oilers. If they can why not.
Because afterwards the tax payers get back way more. Especially in smaller cities
Billionaires never have enough its pure greed. Thats how they get Billionaires in first place ,evading tax and taking tax money from government …
And tickets are expensive as heck.
and the maintenance costs…
I’ll never understand why people don’t understand why this happens. It’s so absurdly simple:
People can debate the positive/negative economics of it all day long, but it’s really neither here nor there. Bringing in a pro sports team to your city is a politically super popular move, and politicians only care about whatever helps them win their next election.
What do you think business and events do? Same thing.
OKC used to have the National Finals Rodeo. Vegas said we will do better facilities and more prize money. Bolted in 10 minutes never to return.
I don’t understand why people who put getting/keeping a sports team above all other considerations think everyone else should be forced to help their favorite billionaire pay for it.
Just democracy in a nutshell. Majority wins and way more voters want a team badly than those who don’t.
Because the billionaire usually has other options.
If the choice is tax giveaways for more corporate suites or watching the team leave…then don’t let the door hit you on the way out. Even better if all the billionaire groupies follow them to the next scam.
But that’s the extreme minority view. Most citizens don’t care - that’s why this happens endlessly and people get all pissed off when they lose a team.
People who wine about the economics don’t understand the leverage and owner group has. Just cause it’s the right thing to do, it doesn’t mean it’s the smart thing to do.
Not just over 50%. Why at all. I love sports but the returns you get for investing in a stadium is pretty bad. People will say jobs, but the amount of jobs it brings and the tax revenue it generates is negative. These are not poverty ladden organizations, these are worth billions of dollars and will create billions more for the owners.
And these guys will move at the drop of a hat when presented other opportunities. I’m not in Oklahoma, but I would not want this if I were there.
Save those money for schools.
Because of the threat of moving. It isn’t financially responsible for the government, yes but the government is competing for the team’s location with other city governments.
The Braves moved from Atlanta to Cobb County because Cobb coughed up 391 million dollars for the new stadium. That’s about $1,000 per tax payer in Cobb and it won’t be recouped in tax revenue. But now residents of Cobb live much closer to the Braves stadium which makes some people happy, while residents of Atlanta have to go further which makes them sad. And if you average going to ~1 game per year, you likely come out financially ahead as a Cobb resident in cost of an Uber.
There’s a lot more to it than the surface financials when professional teams have some flexibility in location.
Voters are getting wise to it and a few stadium referendums have failed to pass in the last few years
To paraphrase the words of MLK, “socialism for the rich and rugged free enterprise capitalism for everyone else.”
Because the threat of leaving is a big one. Teams have a lot of leverage in these scenarios.
I mean, billionaires are very notably cheap sons of bitches
Is it much different than tax dollars being used to bail out privately owned companies?
It’s cuz they’ll leave for a city that will help. Sucks but it’s the way it is OKC wasn’t getting a team ever without it. Same story as St Louis
Brewers are doing this right now. $600m for Miller Park renovations and I think like $475m is coming from tax dollars.
They say they want to know the fans will “show up” and support the team
These billionaires know they can use other cities/states that are itching to get a team and are willing to pay. Las Vegas and Oakland is a prime example. They owners use the threat of a possible move to get their way and if they don’t get what they want they do everything to move and secure funding outside their current fan base.
Greed. Lots of greed. Something this particular ownership group has an exceptional amount of.
If the stadium has a favorable leasing agreement and is owned by the city they can be good investments.
Example, city raises money to build $100 million arena and agrees to lease it to an NBA team for 5 million/year for 20 years. Plus city gets revenue from concerts and other events of another 2 million/year and now over a 20 year window the city pays back the stadium+maintenance and get some increased tax revenue in theory as well.
The thing is this worked in the 20th century when arenas and stadiums were like $100 million now every new thing is a 1 billion or more and taxpayers are just getting scammed.
I wrote my final paper in school on this. Even privately funded arenas cost cities and country 100s of millions in infrastructure improvements.
And before people argue about developments occurring around arenas, any economic development has been show to just be shifted from what would have happened in the city regardless. Building an arena just concentrates certain development around it without being additive
Socialism for the rich only
Sounds like those billionaires need to just lay off the avocado toast and fancy coffee, pull theirselves up by their bootstraps, and write that check.
Great reply
Clearly they need to start shopping at Costco. 10 Avocados, 2 Loafs of Bread, and 248 Keurig K-Cups for like $17 after tax.
You forget that politicians are in the pocket of billionaires.
What you dont get is most cities have a hotel tax of % of each hotel room/night. The more people these venues attract to the city the more money the government collects.
This money is then used by the city to re invest into events etc.
The other thing is when you bring people to the city you also have people spending money at local businesses/restaurants.
Eg New York
Cause this is America and the country caters more towards the 1% than the 99%
Let’s be honest - it’s because they can. People lose their mind when sports teams leave. They have leverage
Oakland told the Raiders to fuck off
And they did
Bread and circuses
The people have the leverage if they made it an issue. All that it requires is a stroke of a pen by Congress and the President to make it illegal to give any kind of benefit or subsidy to a team that leaves the state.
They shouldn’t, and fuck clay bennett forever
I’ll be just as sad about Bennett’s obituary as I was about Stern’s.
While I agree, it should really be “Fuck Howard Schultz forever” he knew goddamn well that Bennett could and would move the Sonics. He just didn’t give a shit.
This is one of the biggest taxpayer rip-offs in the country. Under the guise of the limited jobs it creates. Study after study proves what a rip-off it is. New York taxpayers are about to foot 1 billion so the Bills can keep coming up short of expectations.
Hahahahaha wait til you learn who’s not paying any or paying extremely low property taxes in your city. Hint: any big corporation that recently moved there, private high schools, colleges, golf courses, malls, etc.
Not like I don’t know companies get tax breaks. Not really news. Also doesn’t make the main example the right thing to do.
They do the same shit for Amazon warehouses. Build here and pay no taxes, oh and we’ll help you build it!
Just what we need in 2023, $15 hr jobs to bolster the economy.
no one realistically expects anything from the bills
The fact that it’s coming from the state and not the municipality is the truly wild part of the Buffalo stadium deal. It’s one thing if the money’s coming from the area because, even if they’re still atrocious “investments” when it comes to public funding, at least it’s still the people that will gain whatever benefits there are to be had from having a stadium and NFL team. The vast majority of NY state taxes come from NYC, though, and I feel damn confident saying that at least 99% of NYC residents are literally never going to see any benefit in the slightest. That’s next level fucked, IMO.
Dumbasses won’t even be able to host a Super Bowl either cause it’ll be open air! The whole point of the new stadiums is to get in the SB circuit. They’ll never host an outside SB in the winter in Buffalo.
Kathy Hochul, the NY governor, is a Democrat who is up for re election soon. She is from Buffalo and doesn’t give a shit about downstate
the base essential idea of taxes is that they are collected in one place and spent in another, money collected from one person provides a service for another
im not saying stadiums are a good investment just that its not “truly wild”, or “next level” that taxes collected from NYC go to a project in Buffalo, very much the same level that we’ve always been on
Hello I pay NYC taxes and the Bills can go fuck themselves
The Bills should not be very high on your list of reasons to be angry at NYC or the taxes you pay there lol
people were pissed at aoc for refusing to fund a new amazon lol
And it still doesn’t have a roof so they can keep playing 1 game a year in Ford Field
I mean they are the only team that plays in New York so maybe it’s not a big ask.
I can tell you that most nyc citizen would not give a shit if they left.
I would be thrilled if 0 tax dollars went to a new Bills stadium.
We downstaters already subsidize upstate enough, let Western NY pay for their own fucking stadium.
When I lived in NY the cable company would advertise that they had all NY sports teams, which included the NJ Nets and not the Bills
all the new amsterdam sports teams
Catch a game at Ebbets Field, and afterwards we can check out one of those new talkies
more like head down to the wall (street) and trade some wampum for beaver pelts if you know what i’m sayin’
Imagine paying what it costs to live in NYC and watching a bunch of idiots use your money to jump through a table at their brand new stadium.
There’s very little musicians left who can draw crowds big enough to fill these places up. Especially in poor smaller markets. Then the NFL stadiums which are custom built for 8 home games a year.
I think the one or two preseason games make up the difference /s
I don’t know Chase Center in San Francisco doesn’t seem to have this issue. I know the income level there is higher than other places, but the tours don’t start and stop in SF so they must be filling arenas in other areas… no?
This is the number one issue for me.
How many days a year is the average football stadium in use? The answer is “not nearly enough for it to be worth public resources”
I am not sure if SoFI count as an average football stadium, but the event calendar of that place looks crazy. One of the few venue that actually earn its money
It being in Los Angeles removes it from average football stadium contention.
LA is probably the #1 city in the world for music events so it makes sense?
Yeah, Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta is also a good candidate to say it was worth it. 8-9 NFL home games, 17 MLS plus any other tournament matches Atlanta United plays, at least 2 college football games per year with one of those being a New Years Six Bowl. Monster truck and motocross events are relatively common. I don’t remember if the DCI circuit still goes through Atlanta but I know the GA Dome used to host one of the last big competitions before finals. I know Elton John and Taylor Swift have both played there in the last couple of years.
https://www.sofistadium.com/upcoming-events/
Is it? Unless there’s another calendar that I’m missing something, it just looks like 2 NFL teams
That’s because it’s NFL season and it’s actually getting used for football. Major concerts usually require preparations a week in advance to load everything in and build out a stage, etc…
Most stadiums don’t have two NFL teams.
NYC, LA, and Vegas (maybe Miami) are the only cities that get major entertainment attractions year round and have the demand for it. Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Phoenix are all close but they aren’t entertainment hubs like those first 3
I’m in PHX. We get the final four on rotation, college bowl games, we got both Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, CONCACAF soccer games, international friendlies. The stadium gets used.
being in LA County goes along way
Lumen Field in Seattle hosts the Seahawks and the Sounders. It does have concrete here and there. That being said Seattle is a sports city and can support NBA NFL MLB NHL MLS easily.
The basketball stadiums do have artists that can fill them up but a football stadium is like Michael Jackson in his prime level seating.
There are legitimately only 3 or 4 artists in the world with any possibility of filling a stadium right now. Unless you have Taylor Swift and Beyoncé coming regularly, there’s just no chance of a decent return.
Taylor Swift, Beyonce, Bad Bunny, and aging classic rock acts doing a “final tour”. And those last ones are gonna start to get few and far between
Was about to chip in with a David Gilmore - Roger Waters suggestion
U2, Paul McCartney, and The Rolling Stones did notable stadium tours in the last decade or so I think. But yeah other than that it’s one-offs like when the dead did Fare Thee Well. I bet outside or major markets the NFL stadiums don’t get used for concerts more than like 3x a year on average.
Maybe in any given year a stadium would be used for a concert 3-4 times, but there’s definitely more than 4 acts that can fill stadiums. George Strait just did a sold out stadium tour this year.
Still not something the city/state should pay for.
That’s the standard and the stadium doesn’t even come close to paying itself back
Ehh. I’d say any of the following could still fill an NFL stadium:
Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Madonna, Britney Spears, Blackpink, The Weekend, Lizzo, reunion tours of NSYNC/Spice Girls/Backstreet Boys/U2/Guns n Roses/Metallica/Foo Fighters/One Direction, others I’m forgetting. But yes, most could not.
And like 5-10 country artists, too.
Which will be really hard to see again due to the pollution of the medium with the internet.
Beyonce and Taylor Swift are the only two that can
Lumen Field is probably the exception that I can think off the top of my head. Currently, four professional sports franchises call it home: Seahawks, Sounders, Reign, Sea Dragons.
I used to have season tickets to the Seahawks and Sounders. I was at the stadium at least 28 weeks a year for over a decade.
It’s also seen a decent amount of concert use too.
8 games a year unless one of your home games is moved to Europe or Mexico.
Also preseason and maybe playoffs.
It’s especially funny when you consider that the Jets and Giants, who really do represent NYC, play in a privately funded stadium
Remember Amazon HQ2? Most waste of government resources in a probably a generation
I remember they threatened to leave NYC and then just hired even more people since.
Huh?
They did pull the planned HQ2 from NYC. They added a fulfillment center with like 1,500 jobs instead.
That’s about 1/10th of the jobs lost from HQ2 pulling out.
The HQ2 in Virginia has about 10x as many jobs as that already, and plans to double them over the next decade.
They also bought a building from we-work for 1 billion dollars instead.
NYC was about to ‘pay’ Amazon, the richest company in the world, 1.5 billion dollars to build HQ2, and when it failed, they just went and spent a billion of their own funds to hire the talent they wanted in the first place.
The bigger scam is publicly funded colleges getting massive stadiums for like 8 games per year.
The fact that my state school (Rutgers) gets ~140m a year, and can expect taxpayers and tuition to cover any loses they garner doing that, to cosplay a D1 football school is nuts. Half the school is Indian and asian and couldn’t give less of a shit about football - give us like 1% of that budget for a funded cricket team and we’d demolish.
The issue would be finding other NCAA Schools to play cricket against
It would be affirmative action for south asians just like squash and crew is affirmative action for WASPs.
… and lax and swimming…
Sounds like a national championship to me!
Maybe they can start with Princeton.
I suppose. Aren’t those stadiums built by private donations?
Yes, but they don’t get to move the team for any reason whatsoever, and they rarely, if ever, get new stadiums.
Meanwhile most professors are on one-year rolling contracts that can be cut at any moment - especially in the humanities. The main reason I did not go into a Masters and a Doctorate, even though I really wanted to, is that all my professors and advisors told me how tough it is to find a stable job, even with PhDs from prestigious as hell universities.
But hey, I’m glad Coach Dickhead makes 20m a year from public money.
The data for it’s economic impact is murky, but part of that is because it’s hard to quantify. They’re an economic multiplier. Depending on the city it will have differing levels of impact across a multitude of businesses. But part of the intangibles are creating a brand identity for the city. In your example it also makes Buffalo a bigger travel destination. I’m a lot more likely to travel to Buffalo to visit Niagara Falls and catch a Bills game than I am to travel there to only do one of those things.
I wouldn’t say Buffalo getting a new stadium makes them a bigger travel destination. If anything, Buffalo’s new stadium shows how much of an absolute waste these publicly funded stadiums are.
Niagara Falls has the majority of its visitors come in the spring and summer which is outside of when the Bills play so you aren’t really getting any dual tourism benefits. The new Buffalo stadium is also open air which most likely rules it out of getting any major entertainment events like concerts during the winter. And for Buffalo as a city it will always play second fiddle to Toronto for a tourist destination so a new stadium doesn’t really push the needle for more people to vacation in upstate NY and not stay in Toronto.
Like you said, professional sports can bring a lot of intangible benefits for a city such as brand identity or lumping them into infrastructure improvements. However, the $850 million public contribution NY is giving towards building a stadium could easily be used for other infrastructure improvements that would economically improve Buffalo.
That’s a fair argument.
Counterpoint is I’ve heard of Buffalo and part of that reason is because of the Bills. People gravitate towards latching onto sports team and it makes them feel invested in them and their city. I have no connection with either city but if I get a job offer to move to Buffalo, NY or to Bismarck, ND you damn well know which one I’m picking. It’s a level of prestige it gives a city. If they have a sports team I know they’re going to be a moderately okay place to live with things to do.
Also $850 million spread out over 20 million New Yorkers is a bit different than $900 million spread out across 4 million Oklahomans.
That’s nonsense. When there are only 8 or 9 home games a year, and the overwhelming majority of tickets go to season ticket holders who live locally and tailgate in the parking lot, the overall economic multiplier impact is negligible. Study after study debunks that claim. Meanwhile you have a giant concrete ring surrounded by an enormous asphalt circle of parking lots, all empty for at least 340 days of the year. A football stadfium is not not only a bad thing to subsidize, it is just a bad use of land, especially high value land in the center of a city or along a river. Subsidizing a football stadium with public money is madness - most cities are better off without football stadiums even if they are built entirely by the teams themselves.
This is not so true for basketball arenas. Many more games, the arena is useful for concerts, conventions, circuses, etc., and if you minimize the parking lots, people will spend money in the local restaurants before the game. Billionaires should still build their own basketball arenas, but throwing some money there is not as ridiculous as a football stadium.
That’s a really good point, there are numerous concerts and other events held at most NBA stadiums. Just off the top of my head this year at Gainbridge Fieldhouse they had WWE Fast Lane, a number of concerts, Indiana Fever games, and girls and boys high school finals.
Sacramento’s new arena kind of saves downtown Sac. It’s now wonderful and I’m not sure it would have been without that stadium being the lifeblood of the city
Yes but that is used for more than 8 games and the occasional monster truck show.
And monster truck shows are kind of a ripoff anyway. You end up paying for a whole seat when you only need the edge.
Yeah it’s really the only thing downtown has going for it at all.
Capital One Arena in DC (then the MCI Center…and then Verizon Center aka The Phone Booth) revitalized that portion of DC as well.
Billionaires telling the cities we’ll pay you in exposure!
And on top of this they’re doing international and neutral games, lowering then number of games at the stadium. Not a thing yet in the NBA (outside of preseason) but it will be. Why does the city never get a percent ownership in the team at least?
this is always my point, sure tax payers will pay for 51% of the new stadium, just sign over 51% ownership done deal
At least it is New York though. Brutal when it is some timy ass state with a fraction of the GDP equivalent, of a major city.
But still, how many schools upstate could that 1 billion + guarantee funds for? Super fucked up.
Billionaire ticks on the back of the US economy.
the “brings in local jobs” argument only makes sense when you consider that most political terms are 2 or 4 years. The opportunity to immediately “add” 1000+ construction jobs for 18 months is relatively easy compared to building up sustainable long-term industries.
And just in time for the team to want a newer stadium.
Plus there’s no long term jobs gained because all of the day of game staff would also work at the old stadium. And that’s 9-10 days tops per year. So “part-time” work that equal 3% of the entire year lol
This isn’t really what bringing in jobs is about. It’s for the area around the stadium, such as bars and restaurants
And as unbiased economists continue to prove for the last 20 years, your claim is time and time again proven false.
And the minimum wage jobs for working concessions and security/ushering it brings during the season is not really something to celebrate as a great return on investment. Besides, those jobs also already exist at the current stadium/arena.
Thats fucking bullshit
Every single time a private company engages in a compromise with the supposed government it is a poor idea for the populace. A single entity has chosen to go against the majority. So ask yourself why you ever have a private corporation.
It’s not a ripoff every study is done after the fact of a franchise being in the community for years. Its effects can’t be measured on an economic basis because its business is limited to itself. Its value is based of a social and cultural aspect. When OKC was trying to get companies like Boeing, Amazon and other Tech companies in the medical field they were worried about coming there because they had nothing to attract youth and young people to move or come here. They were worried about Brain Drain( when Young college graduates leave an area). Since the Thunder have came in 2008 the amount of companies and population has increased to where OKC used to be in the top 40 in population to now where in the 20s. This study has been done by OKC Chamber of commerce and Oklahoma City their effect is a collateral effect and not a direct effect. There hasn’t been a study of a city that hasn’t had a franchise to getting one. One thing that is certain is that every place that has complained about paying for a new arena and lost a franchise always pays for a new one to get back another franchise facts.
The Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce put out a study that promotes Oklahoma City? Okay. I can point to multiple studies by University of Michigan, Brookings Institute, and on and on that says the economic benefits are not realized. If you want to argue that it makes a city more appealing, maybe. However, when a team leaves people generally find something else to do. You are talking about a minuscule percentage of a population that fits into an arena. Just because people desire a sports franchise, like Baltimore bringing back football, doesn’t necessarily mean it equates to better economics. That can be tracked. And it has been shown to not economically benefit areas all that much.
They’re doing the same thing here in Jacksonville for the Jaguars. Instead of putting money towards education, infrastructure, or our decaying downtown taxpayers will instead pay a billion dollars for a “stadium of the future” for a mediocre ass football team that hasn’t won shit in the almost 30 years that they’ve existed. They’re arguably the most irrelevant franchise in all of North American pro sports and they’ve become a bottom tier organization under Khan’s ownership yet they have the audacity to ask us to split the bill lmao.
Could you explain your stance a little bit more in depth? I would think building a state of the art arena that your city owns would attract more people to Oklahoma City and therefore provide great benefits to the city.
Michael Leeds professor of Economics at Temple looked at Chicago. He said a baseball stadium in Chicago (a good example because of number of games) showed the same economic impact as a department store. Football is worse because less games. Would a city fund a billion dollar department store through taxes? Probably not. They have found that most of the economic benefit goes to the owners. You can Google this and there are a lot of studies.
I am a sports fan. And I certainly don’t think public funding of stadiums will ever stop. In fact, it’s getting more expensive. I just don’t agree with it. There are plenty of other things to fund with tax dollars that will improve livability. And for instance, the owners of the Bills are worth 5 billion. Why can’t they fund it? There are owners that privately fund.
Right but have you looked more in depth into these studies? Just because someone is professor of something doesn’t mean people aren’t paying them money to say what other people want to hear. I mean just literally think about what you said to me you are comparing a Billion-dollar stadium to a department store. I have never taken an economics class but I’d be willing to wager a hefty bet that this stadium would have a far greater impact than a department store.
Again, I am not against stadiums or sports. The argument to build them based on them bringing an economic boom to an area is disingenuous.
But I believe it would bring an economic boom it’s not about necessarily getting direct value out of a stadium. It’s about getting super wealthy people to want to invest in the future of OKC. The best way to do that is to get them near the city and want to be around it, therefore nothing attracts the wealthy like a state-of-the-art arena.
There are studies that say the opposite. That’s all I can tell you.
There was something posted on reddit that the state budget cut almost the same amount from social services, some mother kid program.
The republicans would say but the mom could get a job there! Yeah, slinging hot dogs or cleaning toilets, the pay of which is the whole reason she’s using social services
I really wish that we could have just let them move to Austin.
Buffalo is a wintry city with immense snowfall. It will never be the tourist destination a place like Vegas will be and the stadium never went to a vote.
Those studies don’t account for our feelings!!!
Look at Jersey
Jersey gives 2 NFL teams massive tax breaks but neither team wants to claim Jersey as its home
Democrats love giving billionaires money for their stadiums for some reason.
It’s not just sports teams. Big companies do this too. They get tax breaks and cash incentives. It should just be outlawed.
That’s just it, they’re not owned by the billionaires. Billionaires know what a pain in the ass owning commercial real estate is, so it’s a lot easier and cheaper to be a tenant.
It’s also because no politician actually has the balls to do what is right.
Because the politicians get bonuses when they do these things.
Set of steak knives.
At the same time the public cries for this but you bet your ass if you let a team leave under your watch you’re gonna pay for it politically
Of course you will pay for it politically and that’s why it hardly happens. It’s also why we get what we vote for.
Most Americans also wait for the general election and then bitch about the lesser of two evils. Where were they during the fucking primary?
It’s like primary colors, right? Is 2024 a yellow year, or is it gonna be another blue or red?
This guy about to vote Yellow for the 3rd time.
Correct.
The leverage a team has over local politicians is enormous.
I wonder what would happen if a politician told the voters that they would sponsor a fundraiser for the team instead of using tax dollars. If the voters want their money to go to the stadium, they can give it directly instead of raising taxes for everyone.
It wouldn’t get even close to the amount needed to make a dent
I mean, the packers do it (kinda). They raise 1/10th of what it’s needed, but they at least renovate the stadium regularly.
Packers are an exception tho as they are publicly owned.
SCAM
Because they promise jobs, increased local business uptake, new and improved restaurant and consumer based infrastructure. You have to look outside the box of “tax loophole” and think about the trickle down economic effects of the publicly funded money. Taxpayers money is helping the area where the stadium will be built. Plus it’s a lot of jobs that can temporarily employ people during the construction. Then you have to feed those workers and those workers will slightly stimulate the local economy during that construction period.
Ahhh yes trickle down economics… time to piss on the peasants again
Because billionaires can ask and hold moving the team over the heads of the council and mayor. Making one of the reasons to own a sports team as “real estate scam.”
The best is the economic impact studies assume the only 2 options are 1) Taxpayer funded renovation or 2) Relocate the team
Completely ignores 3) Privately funded renovation and 4) Maintain currently perfectly fine facility
It’s not like the taxpayers get anything in return, you only get the chance to pay for the expensive ass tickets.
So fucking dumb
This won’t be popular. But, they usually are not owned by the team. It’s owned by the city and they take money off the top for concerts, etc. They just subsidize the crap out of the Arena for the “anchor” tenant which is usually an NBA or NHL team by giving them handouts. Stadiums wouldn’t be built if they didn’t make money for the surrounding businesses. Field of Schemes and a lot of anti-arena people don’t understand or only paint a narrative otherwise. Also people don’t get up in arms when cities lure companies with subsidies too. There’s more to it.
Capitalism
It’s a racket. They make all the money you pay for it. But it’s the same as big pharma with the vaccines. Publicly funded research, publicly funded free vaccines but the pharmaceutical companies made all the money
The city owns the arena and it will be used, just as Paycom Center is now, for many events around the year.
socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor, or essentially, capitalism
The secret ingredient if bribes. No, really, they pay off our elected officials and the amounts they can be bought for are pitifully low.
Well, usually the facility is used for more than the NBA. Concerts and other Events stimulte the economy and help local businesses and provide jobs. Not saying those billionaire owners need a break, but unless the venue is used by only the NBA team there should be joint cost. Sports and entertainment salaries are just bananas. Until players and movie stars command less money along with greedy owners/entertainment companies, it will only get more ridiculous. Watching sports/concerts/live events is quickly becoming impossible financially for anyone but the extremely wealthy.
It would make sense to me if the public was entitled to 50% of the subsequent revenues but it never goes that way does it? We just pay and get…nothing.
But but but the fanchise is gonna pitch in 50mil. Come on bro! That’s all they got.
It’s also not for sports teams. Most major arenas have concerts and all kinds of shit
I always think back to this article from grantland. If someone wants to own a sports team in this day and age its not because they need it to be profitable.
https://grantland.com/features/psychic-benefits-nba-lockout/
But think about the trickle down! (/s)
They shouldn’t, but generally there’s a city somewhere with an idiot mayor that will think it’s beneficial to their city and make an offer so the team moves
Forget 50%. Why should tax dollars be spent for any of it? As you stated it’s privately owned.
Bc the city gets major publicity worldwide when your part of the big leagues. Games generates revenue for local businesses, there’s a whole bunch of ripple effect positive impact it creates.
Besides it’s a freaking 1 cent tax. Big deal
What kind of split should it be then just out of curiosity? I imagine an owner that’s worth just $1B can’t exactly pay 100% of +900M stadium unless most of that wealth is liquid
Bill Simmons’ best ever take is the “billionaire should pay for their own stadiums” take.
This was the best part of his cancelled show. So glad we as voters told Spanos to go fuck himself when he wanted the city to pay for a new stadium.
this was actually very entertaining. for all his show’s awkward moments there were definitely a few bright spots.
more upwards transfer of wealth
draining the middle class
I think his best take is the Memphis piece
Because typically there’s always another city ready to pay for it.
Only way it would make sense to me is if you could then recoup the taxes directly from the revenue that is generated by the facility. Like put a heavy tax until the money is recouped and then lower it a bit every 5 years until it’s virtually gone. It would probably incentivize owners from not dipping a region as well if they had a low tax rate already on their current arena. Like yeah they could get another arena, but then they have to start paying heavy taxes again.
Unfortunately, this only works in a world where every region agrees to play hardball like this. So long as there’s a decent sized market that is willing to bend over backwards, this will never work.
socialized losses and privatized profit, the old billionaire playbook.