You really don’t have the facts. First of all, even if the Giants stayed and did nothing, that $124M would still not be the Giants responsibility, so that’s an irrelevant number. But let’s say for a second that it is the taxpayers’ cost of building a new stadium. Every other stadium deal in the league costs the taxpayers many times that amount. (The Jets want NY taxpayers to pay $700M for their stadium, for example.)
The Giants were clearly the class act in this situation, no matter which way you slice it. The state was not living up to its contractual obligations regarding stadium upkeep, was refusing to let the Giants build a stadium with their own money, (which, I might point out, no other team in the league has done), and on top of all that, is spending 1.3 BILLION on a complex that would use the same parking lot, further infringing on their lease agreement with the Giants. The folks of New Jersey were about as happy with this as the team was:
So the Giants had to force the hand of the NJSEA in order to gain the privilege to give the taxpayers a sweeter deal than any other team in the league has done:
I’m pretty sick of the stadium blackmail BS that’s going on. The Vikings have sold out every game since 1997. Yet they keep on threatening to move unless the taxpayers buy the billionaires a new stadium.
Ellis, I don’t want to keep hijacking the thread, but since we’ve blown that already, it looks to me reading between the lines that the Giants real objection is that they don’t want anyone else - ie the proposed Meadowlands Xanadu project - shearing their sheep. I’d be interested in knowing what the opposition to the Giants plan was, because no matter what the Giants say, there is no such thing as a free lunch. If anyone in the NFL looks to be giving you something with one hand experience in Cleveland, St. Louis, Dallas, Oakland, Indianapolis, Baltimore, etc teaches that they’re out to take twice as much with the other hand. Maybe its just me, but given how much newspapers make from sports, I’m suspicious when newspapers editorialize in favor of sports stadiums because I don’t think that they are disinterested or objective in that regard.
I’ve been to many stadiums including Giants Stadium. It is a perfectly fine place to watch a game with excellent sight lines and IMHO doesn’t need to be replaced anytime soon. The Superdome on the other hand, has too many seats between the goal lines in the lower deck that are too far from the field. Compare similar seats at Giants Stadium with the 'Dome to see what I mean.
They don’t want to share the parking lot, which is rightfully the Giants’ on game day.
The opposition is that instead of the Giants paying the state for use of the state’s facility, the Giants will be paying for their own stadium and keeping all the profits they generate from it. I’d imagine this also means the Giants get to keep the stadium profits on concerts and whatnot.
But the land itself has value, and so the Giants will be paying $6M a year to the state in rent or property tax or whatever you want to call it.
That’s what makes the Giants classy. Unlike the Patriots, Jets, and every other team, the Giants aren’t robbing the state blind to get a new stadium. And they didn’t even use blackmail threats of relocation. They consistently stated they wanted to be in NJ.
So, which is it? They aren’t classy because of the $124M burden, or they’re too classy, so something fishy must be going on? Just curious which position I’m rebutting.
The sight lines (and the seats themselves, for that matter) are fine, I agree. It’s the locker rooms, practice facility, training rooms, and concourses that are woefully out of date. Unlike the current stadium, the new stadium will allow the Giants to move into the stadium for day-to-day operations. (It’ll actually house offices and whatnot.)
Not to mention that they won’t need an entire separate locker room for the Jets. The current stadium has three: Giants, Jets, and Away. Time to kick those moochers to the curb.
Also, I live 55 miles from NYC, and so I get all the NYC radio and TV stations. I listen to more sports radio from NYC than I care to admit. (Stupid baseball town, talk about the NFL already!)
I hear at least one anti-Jets stadium commercial per day, if not a half dozen. I hear radio personalities crucify the proposed location. I see TV ads blasting the idea on NYC local channels. I hear fans call in and bitch about how they don’t like anything about it on all the sports call-in shows.
I have never heard a single negative word about the Giants stadium proposal from any source. Ever. The only thing I’ve ever heard about it is people complaining that the state was being unreasonably greedy.
Take that anecdotal evidence for whatever it’s worth.
From what I can gather, the Maras have Wachovia money backing them, and so don’t concern themselves much with the profitability of the Giants; it’s more of a labor of love. That’s why the Giants have never sold their stadium naming rights, ($3M per year profit), have never had cheerleaders, ($1.2M per year in calendar sales/appearance fees), rarely if ever change their uniform*, (spurring additional jersey sales), or stoop to any of that money-grubbing philosophy.
These same criteria apply to other great, classy franchises such as the Packers and Steelers, though I would bet the Steelers new stadium cost the taxpayers a damn sight more than $124M. (I still dispute that $124M. I’ll concede $30M for road construction.)
Yes, I’m aware they changed the away uniforms this season. They changed them back to the same ones they had when they won the Championship back in the 50s. The Giants are seriously old-school.
I’ve read that the minor-league Lake Elsinore Storm just renamed themselves the Los Angeles / San Diego / Anaheim Storm of Lake Elsinore. If that’s true, you’re too late, reality has already progressed past satire.
L. A. will not get another football team. Every proposal (that actually has real money behind it) will include renovating the Coliseum. Executives in L. A. tend to be lacking in imagination.
You know, our Houston teams pulled that same shit. Bud Adams threatened to pull the Oilers a while back and as a result, the way-cool scoreboard got ripped out of the Astrodome to put in more seats. That placated his greedy ass for a while, but he packed up and left anyway.
The Astros have a new playpen; the Texans have a new playpen; the Rockets have a new playpen; all at taxpayer expense. It’s a crying damn shame that we, as a city, didn’t have the collective balls to tell these owners to go fuck themselves. If they want a new stadium, they can build it and pay for it themselves.
In the meantime, the Astrodome, which is incredibly cool and much better than Minute Maid Park, sits vacant except for an occasional monster truck rally. And we’re still paying for it.
Not any more. The Super Bowl is not coming to New Orleans any more since the stadium doesn’t meet the standards they want, i.e. fancier and more luxurious, without millions of dollars of upgrades.
And as a NOLA resident, I have to say that they don’t sell out without some major corporate strongarming – I know for a couple of years they’d get Harrahs to buy up all the unsold tickets and give them away (we picked up several free sets and gave them to local charities) so they could avoid the local TV blackout. Last season at least one time they failed to do that and the game wasn’t aired locally. I think Harrahs was tired of being the only corporation with enough $$ to do it, and so we’ll probably see a lot more not-sold-out games.
There is just NOT a strong corporate base in New Orleans to support pro sports today, at least at the level the teams expect to be supported. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the Saints leave, and the Hornets will probably be close behind them.
Meaning the Saints owner asked Tagliabue to help him out in his extortion. The Saints wanted a new stadium, so suddenly, the NFL says the Superdome isn’t up to snuff and the Super Bowl won’t be coming around anymore until they get a new one.
Ellis, I’m sorry, I appreciate your pro-Giants/pro Mara position, but I just can’t consider the Giants classy because of the fact that the Giants are paying their own way for their football stadium while the other 31 teams in the league mooch their respective cribs off of us poor taxpayers. If you belong to a club of 32, 31 of whom are extornionists and you aren’t, that doesn’t by itself make you classy. Doing the right thing - which in this case means not committing extortion and paying one’s own where whenever possible - is what is expected of people in society. Doing so isn’t considered classy behavior anymore than not robbing banks is considered classy.
:rolleyes: