A Stadium's Costly Legacy Throws Taxpayers for a Loss

The Wall Street Journal ^ | JULY 12, 2011 | REED ALBERGOTTI and CAMERON MCWHIRTER

[MinorityRepublican]

CINCINNATI

[GeronL]

Hey in exchange for those $500 million from your town we will give you three low-paying dozen jobs sellings peanuts and beer 9... no 10 days per year!

What a deal!!

Government subsidizing businesses of any kind should be outlawed.

[buccaneer81]

In Columbus, Nationwide Arena was built with private money. Thank God.

[Rembrandt]

Cincinnati now has an African American City Manager and an African American Chief of Police. Now, Cincinnati can succeed like Detroit has.

[Psycho_Bunny]

Don’t even get me started about what happened with the 2 stadiums in Seattle.

[flowerplough]

Voter to self in ‘96:

They wanta put two new pay-for-themselves stadiums here in Rustbelt-Landfillville? What could possibly go wrong?

[scrabblehack]

A mayor and a city manager, no? The mayor was on Undercover Boss and mentioned his city manager.

[pterional]

It was heartbreaking to see them tear down Riverfront Stadium. One, it was a perfectly functional stadium and two it wasn't yet paid off.

[Waco]

They have 2 stadiums to go with their one subway and a zoo. Only in Cinci.

[boop]

There was nothing wrong with Riverfront stadium. I HATE taxpayer financed stadiums. We pay for them, but we aren't allowed to use them as we could with a city library or park. Imagine if you went to Great American Ballpark and tried to play catch with your son in the outfield. You'd be frickin' arrested. All we get to do is PAY to get into them, after we've paid for their construction.

I'd love to see one city call the owner's bluff if they threaten to move. There are only so many cities that can support major league sports. And they'd have to be able to sucker THOSE cities into building $500 million dollar money pits.

And don't get me started on Seattle. The Kingdome was just fine. It was used for other things than sports, like the boat show. Qwest Field was built at huge expense and besides soccer, is only used for 10 home football games per season.

[raygun]

Copy that.

[Jean S]

Don’t get me started about the Milwaukee Brewers stadium. Four counties have paid an extra sales tax to pay for it. Guess what? Now that the sales tax has expired and the stadium has supposedly been paid for they are looking for an excuse to keep the tax.

No one one will notice, it’s only .025%

[count-your-change]

That's how it feels to have a tiger in your tank, it grates!