Help me to understand why my taxes should go to sports teams

Great Debates
1

So St. Louis has spent 2 years now trying to put together a referendum to turn into a motion on a hearing about a bill that…whatever. The baseball stadium needs money and they’re asking taxpayers to foot the bill. Kansas City, in its bandwagon mentality, has said “me too!” and they’ve got six months to work out a proposal wherein they nab money from the Jackson Countians. The stadium doesn’t need renovation. For a 31 year old building it’s holding up remarkably well. But damn, why let St. Louis get all the green? me too! me too! me too!

One question. One word. Why?

Why should the public support a for profit organization with subsidies from the taxpayers? When did this become the norm? We’re paying to build their stadium so that they can turn around and charge us to enter their stadium. Someone explain this!

And don’t tell me that the stadiums produce revenue for the community. That same money would be dispersed to other businesses if the sports teams weren’t there. Or it would go in a bank and help strengthen the economy. It’s not like I’m forced to decide “spend money on the Royals or that money disappears.”

But if we didn’t fund their business, they’d move elsewhere. Fine then. LET THEM! I’m very sorry my money for season tickets and sports paraphenalia aren’t enough. I’m very sorry the prices I pay for parking and their TV and radio contracts aren’t enough. This is a business, it’s not a NFP organization.

Why am I paying taxes for this?

2

To give money to corrupt politicians and their friends.

Your basic argument is correct; tax money spend to subsidize a major league sports team is essentially thrown away. If the money was profitably spent they wouldn’t have had to ask the government to pay for it in the first place, since private interests would have paid. Government money given away to the Cardinals is no more productive than government money given away to Amtrak, General Dynamics, General Foods, or any other corporate welfare case.

That said, you are incorrect in asserting that the community has nothing to gain. Actually, the community might take a few entertainment dollars from surrounding communities. If the Cardinals get a shiny new stadium in downtown St. Louis, an attendance spike could divert entertainment dollars from surrounding towns into St. Louis. Of course, for all Americans as a whole, you’re still getting screwed, and it’s very unlikely that the increased revenue will make up for the amount of money St. Louis and the state of Missouri have proposed to spend.

In all likelihood, the issue here is local graft. If you dig deep enough into ANY stadium deal you’ll find connections between the politicians who voted for the deal and real estate developers who stand to make a killing by building Mark McGwire a new playpen. Trust me; do some research and you’ll see that the key councillors and state legislators who pushed for the deal stand to make money for themselves or their associates.

3

You’ve got to be kidding. Kansas City/Jackson County is actually seeking to replace Kauffman Stadium? Say it ain’t so! That building is a gem!

As for your actual question, if the team in question is threatening to leave the area if there’s not a new stadium (and I’d love to find a single Kansas Citian who cites “boredom with stadium” as a reason they don’t go to Royals games…heck, I’d say that “enjoyment of stadium” is probably the only reason most do attend Royals games!), the municipality has to judge whether the loss of the team will cost the area more in revenue than spending the money to keep the team by building a stadium. In that sense, money would disappear if the stadium money isn’t spent.

Good grief, are the Royals really threatening to move and claiming Kauffman Stadium isn’t a good enough facility?

4

All wrong. Your taxes should not go to support new stadiums for sports teams. Money for stadiums should be raised by taxing out-of-towners, tourists, folks who rent cars and stay in hotels. You know, njon-voters.

Sheesh. Hasn’t anybody been paying attention?

(BTW: I second the outrage over replacing Kauffman Stadium. I spent many a fine evening both there and at Arrowhead during my penance at Leavenworth. They are indeed gems of stadium architecture. Of course, they were designed to increase teh pleasure of the average fan, not maximize revenue from overpriced syboxes. There’s no place for such communist ideas in the American Past-its-time.)

5

What I don’t understand is how Pittsburgh can afford to build new stadiums and convention centers galor…

But a great many schools are being shut down for lack of funding.

Can you HEAR my outrage? Hell, can you FEEL it?

6

**

They shouldn’t. And my real feelings about sports teams attempting to hold cities hostage is best left for the Pit.

**

Stadiums and sports teams do bring revenue to the city they are in and probably to the cities in the surrounding area. I don’t have any objections to cities granting tax breaks as they would to any other large business they want in the area. I do draw the line at actually providing public funds to build a private stadium.

**

I agree. And I wish more cities had the guts to stand up and say no. And I’m a big football fan.

Marc

7

To alleviate fears, I have heard nothing about the Royals moving anywhere…yet. But the practice of “pay this for me or we’re gettin’ out of Dodge” is far from uncommon. And if every city refused to pay out money, there would be nowhere for them to go and no way to blackmail the government.

Right now the Royals and various committees are in the process of finding a way to take money away from St. Louis’s efforts to revamp their stadium. I mean, Missouri taxpayers can only pay so much so you might as well get it while the gettin’s good. I say St. Louis should come back with “it’s very simple. You are trying to kidnap what I have rightfully stolen.”

Basically they want more sky boxes. It will attract corporate america into the stadium which is where the real money is. Because obviously the real money doesn’t come from the taxpayers or the GA section. So they have to find out, which costs less: tearing it down and starting over, or just renovating the hell out of it? Isn’t that sweet? They’re trying to save us money.

Are there any other non-government regulated businesses out there that receive this much government assistance? I really can’t think of any.

8

Ironically, those low-cost GA tickets are the only justification I can possibly see for this sort of thing. I think one could argue that subsidizing low-cost entertainment for large numbers of people from a variety of economic strata is a legitimate civic interest: maintaining parks and public sports facilities sorta fits under that idea. It is not a great arguement, mind you, but it could at least be said with a straight face. Bread and circuses.

I am not a big sports fan, but it always seemed to me that one big downside to basketball’s overtaking baseball as the most popular sport in America is that whereas a working class family could go sit in the bleachers and watch a game of baseball, pro-basketball seats costs the earth. Going to a baseball game could just be something you did, but if you’ve shelled out $40/seat for a basketball game you have to treat it like an event, and the idea of taking the kids along with you . . .you have to be seriously wealthy. Apparently they want to do the same thing to baseball.

9

Sports teams have as much claim to tax money as do any other businesses that can plausibly threaten to close or move if they don’t get their own tax abatements. That’s all part of how the system works (and how it should work is a different subject). If you want to keep the GigantiCorp plant in town, it’s gonna cost you. If you want to keep the Mudville Aardvarks, it’s gonna cost you.

The difference is that the decision on the GigantiCorp plant can only be made on economic grounds, with cost-benefit calculations based on jobs and ripple effect on other jobs. Even if the deal still analyzes out as a net loser, it can still be made - no politician wants to get blamed for losing the plant, after all.

But sports teams very arguably, and I’ll argue it, mean more than that to a community. They’re not normal businesses, but cultural institutions whose influence extends further than the usual tax-subsidized concert hall or art museum, most of which don’t get objected to very much. They provide a means of creating common interest and social cohesion that is almost unmatchable by any other institution - almost anyone in the town can start a conversation with almost anyone else by saying “How 'bout them Aardvarks?”, and thereby create a bond and an opening for further communication. If the 'Varks are winning, they create a common feeling of joy and anticipation among their fans that can indeed help break down other barriers. Sadly, there will always be some snobs who think that’s all beneath them, and object to the smallness of the number jobs the team creates as if that’s all that matters - such people are to be pitied.

So yes, in theory anyway, a new stadium is just as valid a use of taxpayer money as a new city park, if not more so. The park doesn’t necessarily create jobs, but it does make the city a better place for all of its citizens, and the sports team does likewise.

It’s an entirely different question about baseball’s lack of effective regulation of revenue generation between teams, unlike the other major leagues, leads to attempted ripoffs of the local taxpayers for money they could afford themselves and still be wildly profitable (provided they also kept player salaries at a merely outrageous level, not an insane one). On that I agree. But the situation is as it is. For KC to enjoy any of the fruits of a winning team, it is going to have to let the Royals compete with the big-market cities on a more-equal financial basis. The good townsfolk of KC can either pay up or have a losing team. They’re not moving anywhere, btw - the attractive markets are gone, and MLB is seriously considering cutting some existing teams.

10

I repeat what I’ve said many times: I’m a believer in free enterprise. Some people believe in socialism.

But what we have in pro sports today is neither capitalism nor socialism, but the WORST possible combination of the two. Today, the taxpayers bear the expenses, while private enterprises reap the profits. WHat sense does THAT make?

M preference would be for franchise owners to build their own facilities, at their own expense, and for local governments to butt out. But if that’s not realistic, there’s another solution:

RIght now, it appears that the Royals don’t like their stadium (not enough luxury boxes), while the fans like the stadium just fine. A new stadium would cost at least 300 million, while the ROyals themselves MAY be worth half that much. So…

IF the taxpayers of KC are DETERMINED to spend money to keep the Royals in town (as a “civic boon,” or whatever), why not pay $150 million to buy the team outright, and leave them right where they are?

Bear in mind, many (maybe MOST) of the arenas and stadiums that owners decry as “too old” aren’t very old at all! Some are only 20-30 years old. Why should taxpayers pay 300 million to build a stadium that owners may decide is not good ten years down the road, when they COULD pay half that amount and NEVER have to listen to blackmail again?

11

I can see both sides of this issue. I tend to lean towards the notion that governmental funds can be spent in a better manner than subsidizing the tinker toys of the community’s wealthiest citizens. (I also don’t believe that governments belong in the entertainment industry which results when they own structures useful only for public spectacles.) That having been said, here’s a story:

In the mid and late '90s, the taxpayers here in Columbus or in outlying communities were asked to pony up to pay for stadiums or arenas of four separate occassions. Each time the issue was rejected.

The last time it came up, shortly before the NHL announced where its expansion franchises would go, the sales pitch went something like this: “We have a strong ownership partnership that the league will find attractive. The NHL really wants to put a team in Ohio. But the partnership does not have the funds to buy a franchise and build an arena. Without an increased sales tax to pay for an appropriate venue, this city will remain the largest city in the US without a professional sports franchise (the current euphemism for “Cow Town”).” Naturally, and in my mind, properly, the good citizens were not buying this line of crap: the issue was soundly rejected.

While the NHL extended its deadline for expansion proposals, some of the city’s wealthiest citizens, representing the daily newspaper and Nationwide Insurance, the city’s biggest business after Buckeye Football, got together and managed to find the money to build the arena, now appropriately named Nationwide Arena.

The good citizens of this cow town got their arena and got their hockey team. It seems to me that the money was there all along, it took the will of the electorate, though, to shake the tree.

12

You’ve got Trouble, my friends, Trouble.

Here in my humble home, they built an art Museum, somewhat small, on a chunk of city land, on the rich side of town, and used city taxes to pay for it and mainly the rich use it, but they had problems with funding to get a dentist and doctor for the public health department and, surprise, there are no funds available for the local homeless shelter!

We have the Dodgers staying here every summer and have since as long back as I can recall and I’m 49! Thirty years ago they got new quarters but the stadium is an old, open air one from the last 40+ years. A new owner bought the team and muttered something about moving them and the city big wigs went into panic mode! Within a week they had plans drawn up to design and build a whole new stadium and quarters area, paid for by our taxes! Well, down the road about 25 miles the Mets have a whole new stadium and a complete Mets community built around it so we should have one also.

By the time the community heard of it, the proposition was being presented to the owner and around 75% of the city considered bringing back tar and feathers for the city Big Wigs because things are expensive enough here as it is and, for a smallish town, we have one of the highest power rates in the State! All of the major, powerful Realtors, worth many millions, were for it, especially those owning land around the stadium. (Relators are a Blight Upon The Earth, the cause of ruining forests, mountains, lakes, and whole States because of their greed.) Then the Bankers joined in, smelling riches upon riches and checking to see who was in the vicinity behind in their mortgage payments that they could call in the note and kick them out to sell the land to the Developers, who were already salivating and drooling and ready to put in over priced homes. The City Rulers had already sold out, seeing great amounts of profit rolling into city coffers from tourist and game generated income and higher property taxes, which meant more for them to steal. The Tax collector was licking his beefy jowls, thinking about the ‘secret’ land deals he could do in ‘public’ auctions and rubbing his pudgy hands together as he contemplated his large bribes or kickbacks.

We finally stalled the process, when the new owner hesitated for some reason, mainly that another city in another state which had offered them a multimillion dollar stadium backed out at the demands and costs. We voters started attending meetings and making little comments like ‘we put’cha in there and we kin take ya out!’

So, what’s going on now, we don’t know. The Dodgers are still here, there have been no more threats of leaving and talks have dropped to upgrading the living quarters. Someone pointed out that the field is one of the last of the old time baseball fields and is a part of history, but we just know the city movers and shakers have not given up.

They’re still there, in the background, lurking, keeping hidden, having their secret meetings in the dark depths of city hall, behind barred doors, just waiting… and plotting… until their time comes again to spring out into the light, nefarious plans in pale, pudgy hands.

13

Just to throw some actual economic analysis on the issue, the Baseball Prospectus website had an article from a few months back about an article written by two economists who concluded that sports teams did not bring extra revenue to a city, and actually decreased the average income by around $40 per person per year. The conclusion was that cities most certainly should not subsidize sports teams in any way. I’m not sure if BP keeps old articles on their site, which is down now anyway. But the URL is http://www.baseballprospectus.com, in case anyone wants to check it out and search.

14

Here’s the article.

15

George Steinbrenner just bought interest in the NJ Devils and NJ Nets. He also bought a cable TV station for the sole purpose of showing these teams, along with the NY Yankees, in action, like Ted Turner did for his Braves. Yet he is still begging for a new baseball stadium to be paid with taxpayer money. Oh please!! Look at Newark. Those teams will be playing in a new stadium there with owner and wealth money. Also look at the NY Mets (not the team this year; they’re horrible). They will do most of the financing to build a new stadium next door to their current Shea Stadium.

16

You know something? A perfect solution to the whole stadium-funding issue just occurred to me.

Let the stadium be financed from the public till. But make part of that deal that if the franchise gets sold at a profit, an independent party assesses the amount of capital improvement in the team that is attributable to the stadium and that goes to the municipality which financed it. Oh, and no deductions for the lobbying money that the club owners spent to get the stadium.

That way, you don’t have these deals like in Texas, where George W. Bush and partners profited handsomely off their turnaround on the Rangers based almost entirely on money that the public and not they themselves had invested. Instead, you have a new facility to satisfy the club and the fans, you have a municipal investment with a much better chance of paying off, and you have owners whose financial stake in their team is genuinely based on the investment that they put in, most likely on the field or on fan amenities.

Sheesh, though, how can anyone seriously consider replacing Kauffman Stadium?

Chaim Mattis Keller

17

Interesting idea, but I’m sure the team’s lawyers would figure it out. Just look at the manipulation the owners can pull with writing off the players as depreciating assets, for instance.

Not to mention the money that the government essentially stole from local landowners via eminent domain, handing it to Bush et al., so they could resell the land at a profit.

No argument from here, CM.

18

Simple reason. People like watching sports. Even if the stadium doesn’t bring a single cent to a city, there are a number of intangible benefits. Teams like the Red Sox and the Yankees are a part of the culture and character of their cities. Yes, they are a business, but what politician wants to be responsible for the Sox leaving Boston?

Remeber ‘Gladiator’? The colleseum was built to entertain the masses. Most people could give a shit about half the laws being passed in their ciy. But if all of a sudden the Yankees want to move to Wisconsin, well there would be an uproar like you wouldn’t believe. Politicians are sensitive to that.

Sure a lot of people make a lot of money off of it, but that doesn’t necessarily make it wrong.

19

Seems to me that if a sports team wants public subsidy for a stadium, the public should demand some control over the pricing of tickets. Sure, let 'em squeeze the corp-box types dry, but there oughtta be a section where the average Joes and Jos can play hooky on a nice afternoon with their kids.

Here in New York, the city has spent an indordinate amount of money over the years subsidizing Madison Square Toilet (home to the Knicks and Rangers), both directly and througn massive tax rebates. But ticket prices are so high that even in the “cheap seats,” a family of four who takes the train in from Queens has a hard time paying less than $150-$200 for the event. With the hundreds of millions we taxpayers have shoved into the damn thing, we should at least make sure that some seats stay affordable.

20

I think some of you are being a little too quick to judge. Communities benefit a great deal by having these sports arenas or stadiums. Not only do they get the entertainment value of a sports team, but these arenas are used for many other purposes. They attract concerts, the circus, business conventions, as well as many other things. Without sports venues, you not only lose the team, you lose these things as well.

I know specifically the Ballpark in Arlington was built with the second largest baseball museum, children’s centers, parks and picnic areas, a lake, and a little league park. This was all funded jointly by public and private funds. Use of private funds was passed by over 65% of Arlington citizens. Arlington has definitely profited from having this. They have already paid it off and now they are trying to attract the Cowboys new stadium.

Plus, stadiums and arenas can play host to college events like conference tournaments or bowl games. They Big XII is having its basketball tournament in the new American Airlines center in Dallas. They are having their football championship game in Texas Stadium and the Texas Longhorns played a couple of their games in the Ballpark in Arlington.

Also, Dallas is trying to host the 2012 Summer Olympics. Obviously these new stadiums and arenas are necessary to host something like that.