It’s up to the people of a city how much they want to spend and on what.
Sports happen to be very popular with a large group of people who aren’t interested in the rest of what a city spends on. You can have those people watching sports or you can have them complaining about the rest of the spending because they didn’t get their piece of the pie.
On the most recent election day in America, voters precisely decided not to pay for stadiums.
> Voters in Denver, Colorado, approved ballot measures on Tuesday authorizing the city government to issue bonds to spruce up parks, renovate homeless shelters, and upgrade public transit.
> They rejected just one portion of Mayor Michael Hancock's five-part, $450 million bond proposal: the one that would have directed $190 million of that borrowing toward the construction of a new multi-use stadium near the city's hip River North neighborhood. While the first four parts of Hancock's proposal won support from at least 60 percent of voters, 58 percent rejected the stadium subsidy, according to The Denver Post's election tracker.
> ...
> Meanwhile, 65 percent of voters in Augusta, Georgia, rejected a similar bond issue that would have seen the city take on debt to fund the construction of a $235 million stadium for a yet-to-be-determined future occupant (possibly a minor league hockey team). The cost of the new stadium was projected to add about $100 to the average property tax bill in the city—all to create "a handful of new permanent jobs," according to The Augusta Chronicle. Who wouldn't vote for that?
> But voters in Augusta might not have the final say on whether their wallets get raided for the project. Brad Usry, vice chairman of the county authority that would run the new stadium, told the Chronicle last month that a "no" vote would "only delay the project so the authority can find other means of funding it."
> So voters were asked to give their approval for the stadium project, but rejecting it apparently doesn't count? Cool democracy you have there, Augusta.
How many cities allow their citizens to vote on these subsidies for stadiums? If they're so popular, they should easily pass. Problem is, when it comes time to negotiate the deal, both the owner of the team and the city politicians are sitting on the same side of the table and there's no one sitting on the other side representing the people. Sometimes the mayor/county commissioner gets voted out in the next election but by then, the local government is locked into a deal that lasts 30+ years. It was never up to the people of the city.
Seems like the issue is the fig leaf of stadium financing being about jobs and new small businesses and all that good stuff.
It would be nice if there was more transparency ("Buffalo will pay for the stadium because we know you live the Bills one million times more than all your elected officials put together") or if cities banded together against paying these bribes but that's life.
I did really like the ideas for federal level reforms, but one component the author missed is that a stadium has workforce with a fairly unique composition. If you replace it with an office park or museum will they need dozens of hot dog and beer vendors, a massive athletic training staff, a landscaping staff, outdoor lighting technicians, etc? These are working class or middle class people who will be scrambling for a limited job pool. Getting rid of 100 janitors and adding 100 web developers has a cost to it, because it will require 200 people to either move or retrain.
Somewhat agreed. A city can want lots of things few people use. I'm sure the plenty of people don't take advantage of Central Park or Golden Gate Park yet they are paid for by the government.
Further, stadiums are often used for more than just sports. They're a venue for concerts, fireworks shows, and many other things.
Central Park and Golden Gate Park are open to the public every day and don't require you to pay to get in. If I could walk in to a taxpayer funded stadium to play a game with some friends for free or nearly free (as I can with small neighborhood sports fields) then maybe I'd have a slightly different opinion of them.
Why doesn't the city buy lavish buildings for other wildly profitable businesses? Professional sports don't need our tax money, they merely want it. If sports enthusiasts want to contribute money to the football stadium fund, they are free to.
Because if a sports stadium was, you know, profitable then there would be businesses tripping over themselves to build them with private money. Instead, it becomes a big lobbying game where a bunch of bigshots all skim money from everybody.
The Chargers were a great bad example with idiocies like not televising a game locally if the tickets didn't sell out and the city having to backstop some number of tickets. San Diego finally managed to kick them to the curb and good riddance.
I no fan of Los Angeles, but I'm sorry that Dean Spanos and his cronies infested LA after we kicked him out.
Because it's a poor use of public funds to directly subsidize private profit of one particular company/team.
Major sports organizations and franchises are rich enough to handle their own expenses, they don't actually need public help. They'll take it if they can get it, of course, because why wouldn't they? It's free money! But we're under no obligation to give it to them.
It’s up to the people of a city how much they want to spend and on what.
Sports happen to be very popular with a large group of people who aren’t interested in the rest of what a city spends on. You can have those people watching sports or you can have them complaining about the rest of the spending because they didn’t get their piece of the pie.