Apparently some Charlotte legislators just can’t get enough of giving money to the Carolina Panthers: Not only did the city council vote to hand over $144 million for stadium renovations, including renovations to replace parts that haven’t even been built yet, but at least one councilmember wants to prepare to build a whole new stadium to replace the one they’re paying to renovate. Council economic development committee chair James Mitchell told the Charlotte Business Journal yesterday that the council approved a 30-year 1% hike in restaurant taxes, more than would be needed for the Panthers’ renovations, so that there’ll be a pot of money to replace Bank of America Stadium entirely in the not-too-distant future:
“In another 15 years, the stadium will be 32 years old,” he said. “Do you want to have to ask for more money? We can build a reserve and we can start building on amateur sports. It’s a 2-for-1.”
There are several jaw-dropping elements to this, not least that I can’t recall an elected official asserting that a stadium needs to be replaced at the same time he’s proposing spending hundreds of millions of dollars to fix it up. Even more remarkable, though, is that you have a local legislator proposing setting aside money that the team owners not only haven’t asked for, they haven’t even asked for the stadium itself. You gotta hand it to American technology — we’ve finally developed the first self-blackmailing politician.
They should make it a 2% restaurant tax for thirty years; that way they can start a pot of money for the stadium that will need to be built, after the stadium that is built 15 years from now. After the thirty years, the stadium that is built 15 years from now would be 15 years old. Thirty years from now a 15 year old stadium will be no longer state of the art.
It would be better to pay the money to redo the current stadium, start a pot of money to replace the current stadium, and also start a pot of money to replace the stadium that replaces the current stadium. Wise governance requires looking ahead.
So, this quote,
“Bank of America Stadium, with these renovations, could become a football version of Fenway Park or Wrigley Field, [Panthers president Danny] Morrison added, naming the two oldest Major League Baseball stadiums”
was just remembered for a day? I thought even presidents of NFL teams had longer memories than that??
OK, the quote is so misplaced it isn’t funny. Yeah, Fenway Park, Wrigley Field and Band of America symmetric football stadium little to no charm. Sure, those fit together just like Kanye West fit with The Who, Pink Floyd and Paul McCartney at the 12-12-12 concert.
I thought one of the hallmarks of the Carolina Panther’s stadium was that it was largely privately financed/built, an oddity in sports. It sounds like Richardson must have been taken to task by the rest of the owners and won’t make that mistake again.
Come on, this is clearly worth the cost. Who would want to miss that one playoff game that the Panthers have, once every ten years?
Off topic, but regionally relevant: Neil got quoted on the AJC website in an article about the Atlanta stadium deal.
http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/repair-costs-aging-dome-disputed/nWNLk/
ChefJoe:
No different than the Dolphins renos. Joe Robbie stadium (as it was and still should be called) was financed privately.
“… a 30yr 1% restaurant tax hike would be more than enough to pay for the stadium…”
Yes, spot the fallacies there?
First of all, that statement assumes that every customer in every restaurant will not only pay the extra 1%, but that that extra cost won’t reduce the number of times they eat in restaurants over the course of the tax’s term (endless studies of price point and demand show that that simply isn’t true over the long term).
The second one, more subtle, is that the tax will be paid by “restaurant goers”, not fans, and not taxpayers. I’ve yet to meet a taxpayer who didn’t go to restaurants at one point or another… and unlike hotel/rental car taxes, politicians can’t even begin to suggest that these will be paid by out of towners alone (it’s not true in the case of tourist taxes either, but they say it anyway).
Finally, assessing additional taxes on restaurants is really no different than assessing taxes on tickets to the sports venue to be built. It either reduces the amount the business owner can charge (meaning he is effectively paying the tax himself) for his meals/tickets, or it reduces the number of patrons coming through the door.
Can anyone think of a good reason why restaurant owners across the state should pay for a stadium that they may not ever visit? Put another way, why not impose a 1% tax on hospital bills or school fees to pay for a stadium? Or a 5% tax on professional athletes who ply their trade in Carolina?
At least the last one makes some sense…
A tax on players in North Carolina would be worthless as all of them can live in Rock Hill, SC.
This stupid idea is enabled by the supposedly conservative Thom Tillis, NC House Speaker, saying he’s against a state “subsidy” but might support “state incentives.” That’s the same bloody thing for a billionaire owner.
The team is worth $1 billion. They can’t simply put the team up on mortgage to finance their own fix-ups?
Actually Dennis, many counties and states do levy special taxes on professional athletes. It doesn’t matter where they live. While they are “working” in one state or another, they pay taxes there.
It would be a long, long way from worthless, given that the average NFL payroll is north of $100m and can be divided into 16 “game checks” for income tax purposes.
John Bladen wrote: “Can anyone think of a good reason why restaurant owners across the state should pay for a stadium that they may not ever visit?”
Not only that, but any subsidy essentially helps the subsidized in the battle for discretionary income. So restaurant owners are taxed to help their competition. Nobody ever seems to talk about the fairness issue, but it may be the biggest beef I have with the concept of subsidies. If you’re not paying to fix the roof on my restaurant, you shouldn’t be paying to put a roof on that stadium across town.
And that explains one of the reasons LeBron James left Cleveland, in Florida there’s no state sales tax. Tiger Woods admitted California’s taxes are too high and he’s now in Florida. But there are ways to skirt some of the taxes, South Carolina property taxes are usually much lower than in Charlotte, for example. If Richardson has the clout to even dare ask for $62.5 million from NC and $125 from Charlotte there’s no chance there’s any courage to add special taxes on athletes.
It’s not inconceivable that the Panthers will play the extortion game again and look to build just below the border in South Carolina if the state is stupid enough to deal with the NFL.
There is no possible way that LeBron cares about state sales taxes — at his level of income, any sales tax is just a rounding error. State income taxes might be an influence, but even then there are so many other factors (property taxes, housing costs, etc.) that it’s not going to be the main consideration.
We wrote the book on extracting stadium cash from the public. They are suckers and we are happy to relieve them of it. I’ll let you in on a secret: when we hold our annual owner’s meetings, we put a picture of P.T. Barnum on the wall and salute it before we begin our business.