First, it was the Utah Jazz, for chrissakes, now it’s going to be the San Antonio Saints?
That’d be like a team called the New York Cornhuskers.
How about the San Antonio Sans?
I’m cool if we want to agree to disagree, as you do actually have a point.
I don’t look at it as the Giants are the only non-bank robbers. I look at it more like they’re the only politician who tells the truth. Sure, everybody is expected to tell the truth in polite society, but those standards don’t seem to apply to politics. In that scenario, a truth-telling politician would meet my definition of classy. But it could easily not meet yours, which is not a problem as far as I’m concerned.
If at some point in the future, we start railing against the money-grubbing extornionst professional sports team owners, don’t be surprised if I add the caveat that the Giants are the exception to the rule.
Wow, teams moving out and abandoning their fans unless they get a free ride, in the land of the free markets.
I just don’t understand how US taxpayers would stand for this subsidy, I guess its the exception that proves the rule in US business.
In the UK we had one Soccer team move from its spiritual home in Wimbledon - London, mainly so that the valuable land could be sold by opportunistic directors.
They went to Milton Keynes, but their fans stayed away in droves.
They changed their name to MK Dons, but there is just no loyalty from the Milton Keynes residents who perhaps don’t feel any empathy with a transplanted franchise.
Meanwhile, the original Wimbledon fans have taken their loyalty to another local team bearing the same but playing at a much lower level, but they are up and coming.
http://wimbledon.rivals.net/default.asp?sid=900&p=2&stid=8271036
I can’t think of any soccer fans at all who welcome the idea of any sucess for the MK Dons, personally I hope they crash and burn badly and take their owners down the plughole with them.
Much as there is a huge amount of passionate rivalry among UK soccer supporters, no-one likes betrayal of anyone on this scale, Wimbledon were well noted for their very loyal supporters, and the fact they always brought plenty of spirit with them even when they had the odds against them, and they generated a lot of affection throughout the English leagues.
In UK towns where soccer clubs use city stadiums, they still have to pay for the use of the facilities, some towns charge more than others, but no-one would ever try to fly the idea of the local townsfolk paying up the cost of a stadium just to hang on to their team, we’d likely to tell them to ***k off and get on with building a club from scratch that didn’t have the temerity to think it somehow has more importance than its own supporters.
So when the Giants move, are they going to dig up Jimmy Hoffa and plant him in the new end zone? 'Cause that would be classy.
Add Indianapolis to the list of “new playpens at taxpayer expense” - Governor Daniels signed the financing bill this week. The $900 million price tag does include an expanded convention center so that we can get bigger conventions :dubious: . It will be financed by increased hotel, restaurant, car rental, and game ticket taxes in Indianapolis, and an optional tax from the surrounding counties (which they’ll all pass, because they get to keep half of the increased tax revenues.)
Any attempt to make the Colts shoulder any part of the financing was met with a “no deal - we’ll leave” attitude from the team.
I thought it went more like this:
Adams: …and so I’ll be taking my team and leaving this city in three years.
City of Houston: Uh, you can leave now.
Adams: butbutbut…
City Of Houston: Now, please.
Adams: butbutbut you throwing away a football tea…
City of Houston: and getting a new one. Times ticking, go.now.shoo.
Which is why the whole “Tenessee Oilers” fiasco happened. Good for Houston.
But that was an outsiders perspective. I suppose the truth is something more disappointing.
hehheh, that’s had me chuckling all morning.
You may or may not be aware of this, but the new Patriots stadium was almost completely privately financed by the owner, Robert Kraft. I can’t find any numbers with a quick search, but all the cites I can get say “almost completely” or “almost all” of the $350 million project. If I had to guess, the cost to the state came in the form of road improvements along Route 1.
Despite all the initial posturing about moving to Hartford and all that, the Patriots didn’t end up robbing the state blind, not by any measure, but especially when you compare it to the highway robbery the Jets are attempting to perpetrate 
I was completely unaware, and if true, I have even more respect for the Patriots organization. I really thought it was publicly funded.
Agreed completely about the characterization of the Jets. I’m not saying I’m doubting you about the Patriots, but I’m wondering what the point of the Hartford thing (which was big news in these parts) was? Why threaten to move in the first place? Was Boston really too cheap to improve the roadways?
Well, considering the rousing success the Big Dig has been to date, I guess I could see some reluctance to do any more roadwork.
Bank of America stadium (formerly Ericsson stadium) in Charlotte was also privately financed from seating rights sold to fans and from Richardson’s personal wealth.
I think initially the Patriots wanted to actually get closer to, you know, Boston - Foxboro is a good central point for New England as a whole, but most of the initial sites they were looking at were in or very close to the city. The city was less than hospitable to what would be involved - I assume at this point we’re talking the eminent domain, tax breaks, and everything other than money that a city usually throws at a team. Kraft was willing to put up the money to build the stadium, but he wanted help to make sure any new location would work. Hartford, I believe Providence, and some others made offers at that point - Hartford in particular would have loved the team as another step towards the reconstruction of its image that it had been working on since they lost the Whalers. The big thing was that, since they are the “New England” Patriots, and Foxboro itself isn’t exactly a municipal power, any movement within the region would have been fairly easy for the team and certainly less complicated than your normal relocation threat.
Naturally, after a year or two of posturing by every major or semi-major city in the region, they built it basically right next door to the old stadium.
You have to understand that in the US, big-city governments tend to be extremely short-sighted. Many of them don’t want to be “the government that let the team go.” Also, a lot of them believe that the teams’ demands, while outrageous, come back to the city in the form of tax revenue (this idea is slowly going away thanks to studies which universally say otherwise). So, in their minds, the city is gaining on the deal.
Moreover, take a look the states where this happens: there’s often one major city which dominates the state, and that’s the city where the team goes. That city can soak the state government or push the surrounding counties into splitting the costs.
But a lot of is because Americans as a whole travel too much. Most people move several times in their lives (a fact I hate), and have no local loyalty anyway, if they even know who their neighbors are. I don’t, thanks to my parents ripping me up from Indiana to Knoxville years ago.
It’s not the same feeling. Teams do not have nearly the same kind of local support, and some have virtually no local fans. Most of them derive big revenue from TV as much as tickets. Local boys don’t join the team, and football players don’t have a good reputation as a whole (obviously, with exceptions). Too many of them wind up drug addicts because they’re filthy rich, idled their way through college, and have no real skills except hitting things.
Free markets are one thing and monopolies are another. The American pro sports leagues are monopolies that skillfully play off various state/local governments against each other in order to gouge the taxpayers.
I guess then, that it all has to do with effective monopolies.
The idead that fan loyalty and ticket receipts are related is interesting when you look at most European soccer, especially the highest earning teams.
The ticket price is usually only a minority of income, as in most highly exposed sport, most of the money comes from tv deals, and this generally brings along sponsors following in the wake wanting tv coverage from clothing and other listings.
A few years ago, it was noted that for every £1 or $1 or whatever in ticket revenue, each team took at least twice that nd often more in other income streams.
For example teams like Juventos, Mancester United and Real Madrid make plenty of money fro overseas fans who purchase items mail order, but will never attend a match or buy a ticket.
Some cities do help out their teams, things like operating a stadium and then charging less than a commercial rate for its useage, and a few teams share grounds which makes for a fixture schedule headache, especially when some has to decide which team is playing at home and which is playing away ( particularly in two event fixtures)
Its still that case though, that if a teams directors tried to blackmail a city by threatening to move out, they would be told to ‘get on with it’.
I think this is because the loss of supporter loyalty would be so great if a team did try to switch cities that it would not make economic sense.
Except there’s no way to build a team from scratch and have it compete in the NFL, NBA or MLB. Sports clubs are franchises. In order to join the NFL, for instance, a club would have to get approval from the other NFL owners, then pay a hefty franchise fee, etc.
So if a football team leaves, then that city has no football team and no way to get another one unless they either steal another city’s or convince the NFL (or NBA or MLB) to give them an expansion franchise. This can be a big deal for some cities because they’d like to be seen as “major league” quality, and a professional sports franchise located in the city brings a lot of positive exposure to that city, especially if it’s a successful franchise. So you see a lot of the more insecure cities really ponying up. It’s the larger cities that are more likely to tell the sports team to go pound sand.
Los Angeles, for instance, lost its two football franchises to St. Louis and Oakland in the mid-90s, essentially because they refused to build them fancy new stadiums while St. Louis and Oakland were eager to (well, not Oakland really, but they did do a massive renovation of the Oakland Coliseum, much to the A’s chagrin). The NFL then believed that because of its loss, LA would be missing the NFL so much that they’d build an expensive new stadium for an expansion team and pay the hefty expansion fee. LA pretty much laughed in their face and told them that they had a perfectly nice stadium in the LA Coliseum where the Raiders used to play. Houston, instead, ponied up the money and got the team. Which suited pretty much everyone in Los Angeles just fine.
Don’t you have a heirarchy of leagues ?
What I mean is that in English league soccer, is possible to start out as a Sunday afternoon team in the local league, and over many years, work your way up the pile through winning promotion and reach the very top.Obviously for every promotion, there is a demotion, so the lowest teams drop down at the end of the season.
There are about seven or so differant levels, and one criteria when reaching into the national leagues is that your stadium has to have adequate facilities, but other than that, you can start at any particualr level and work your way up - or down as the case may be.
There are so many clubs and so many local level teams, that are trying to just make the regional leagues and on to the national leagues, that there will always be a potential replacement, even if it takes several years to do it.
This is exactly what Wimbledon is trying to do, their team went off to Milton Keynes, just like a US franchise, losing all their support on theway and now a local team in Wimbledon carrying a very similar name has much much larger attendances than would be usual at that particualr level, they also have, as a result, a higher income, and are slowly working their way through the various leagues.
It should be interesting if they should ever reach a level where they face the Mitlon Keynes team.
Here’s what I mean
This takes a club to the highest non-full time clubs, seven steps, but promotion can be gained from their to the 4 full time leagues.
Its misleading nowadays because the top conferance teams trying to get promotion to the full time professional leagues may have some or all of their players full time, and some of the strugglers in the proffesional leagues have been know to have a few part timers.
New Orleans has a football team?
Next thing you know, Phoenix will get one!
Baseball has that sort of hierarchy. But not football.
That’s not quite so. The teams themselves don’t move up and down, only the players. I’d like it if it did work the way the FA does; I’d enjoy seeing a Buffalo or Albuquerque work their way into the majors, and the Yankees having a bad year and being sent to AAA.