As if paying off teams to go to your city and then tell you 5 years down the road you gotta pay them off again to stay is a good deal for taxpayers? Orlando had to deal with that after they gave the Magic a sweetheart deal, and the same thing happened with St. Pete's Devil Rays. No free stadium is ever free enough for these corporate hogs at the pork trough. Guess what happens if you go for ten years without a team? You spend money on other stuff that's more important than subsidizing already wealthy owners and spoiled players.
I can't understand how conservatives buy into this 'stadiums-for-the-public-good' crap. Bread and circuses.
More important to who?
I can't understand how conservatives buy into this 'stadiums-for-the-public-good' crap. Bread and circuses.
Because life with the NFL,MLB,NHL and NBA is better than life without for a large segments of the population; the taxpaying part. If that isn't a public good, what is? It's not like publicly owned stadiums for sports teams is some kind of new concept. Many cities and states across the nation have rich histories and traditions tied to their professional teams, nearly all of which have played for their entire history in publicly financed stadiums and arenas.
If you don’t like sports, good for you. I don’t like hanging out in city parks. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t exist. It's all about the most benefit to the most people. A large majority of the public enjoys pro sports to some degree, even if its once a year at their neighbor’s Super Bowl party. Stadiums that keep teams in the black and in town are indeed a public good. Very few people are affected if the local bolt factory leaves town. 75% of men and perhaps half of all women are very negatively affected if an NFL team moves away to some other city willing to pay the price.