So apparently North Carolinians aren’t the only ones who hate giving tax money to the local NFL team for renovations to their privately built and owned stadium:
About 73 percent of likely Miami-Dade voters oppose a plan to give the Miami Dolphins a tax subsidy for stadium improvements, according to a new poll obtained by The Miami Herald that indicates the issue is a political killer for politicians to support.
“This is toxic to the Legislature, the county commission and the executive,” said Dario Moreno, a political science professor at Florida International University who conducted the 1,000 voter survey for a private client.
“There’s not one group of likely voter who supports this idea,” Moreno said. “Even in County Commission District 1, where the stadium is, people are overwhelmingly opposed.”
Also, the Dolphins stadium subsidy is opposed by both Democrats and Republicans, opposed in each of the county’s 13 commission districts, and most of the Miami-Dade state legislative delegation. And a majority of those polled (61%) not only oppose the deal, they strongly oppose it.
Of course, popular opposition is no guarantee that legislators will vote against a project, so unless the Dolphins have to go before a public vote — oh wait.
Yep, this is almost certainly going nowhere, for this year at least. Looks like the Loria Hangover has claimed a victim after all.
Let me make clear up front, giving public money to billionaire sports owners is very wrong, even evil. Nevertheless, it is somewhat ironic that the Miami Dolphins are going under the bus because of the Miami Marlins shenanigans. To wit, the Dolphins assured that there were no local TV blackouts during the 2012 regular season by buying up whatever amount of tickets needed to get to the 85% non-premium seat threshold. As the Dolphins averaged about 75% capacity for home games, that probably means quite a few tickets had to be bought by the owner at 34 cents on the dollar. Compare this to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers ownership, who allowed 6 blackouts to happen during the 2012 season and ‘enjoyed’ about 83% capacity for the season. For less than $1 million, all 6 regular season blackouts could have been prevented. So, what is my point? That probably just about all owners are evil – just some or more evil than others. And if you compare the Miami Marlins owner to the TB Bucs owners, you would have a photo finish of determine who is the more evil!
I guess the irony is that the Dolphins were complicit in the Loria shenanigans by “evicting” them from Dolphins Stadium to feed the Marlins’ move threat. Now, their own proposal goes nowhere thanks to the Loria hangover. I love it.
I think what’s going to happen is that they are going to use the fact that the NFL would like to hold Super Bowl 51 or 52 in Miami along with the fact that the WWE has contacted Miami with the wish to hold Wrestlemania 31 or 32 in Miami thanks to the huge success of Wrestlemania 28 to say “If you fund this, we get 2 mammoth events, and if you don’t, we won’t!”, ignoring the fact that the WWE doesn’t give a crap if the stadium is renovated (they’ve held many events in old arenas and stadiums, and will continue to do so), that the NFL would probably place another Super Bowl there anyway, and they will keep getting the major college football bowl games no matter what.
Here’s hoping that they don’t get this dough anytime soon.
We’re used to this sort of opposition. It’s always there at the start. But the NFL Owners Public Extortion Committee (NFL-OPEC) always has a plan in place and we work it to perfection.
First we buy off select local politicians. Then the campaign of fear and doubt and Los Angeles begins. The local marks always help us out by peddling some idiotic job creation fantasy. We leave it up to them to push the idea that spending hundreds of millions of state money to create a couple thousand temporary construction jobs is a bright way to boost the economy, lol.
No, we prefer simply to talk about the glory of the game and how much it means to everyone and how sad it would be if your team moved to Los Angeles where the concrete footings for the new stadium might be poured any day now, goodness gracious. We’ve only been peddling that one for 19 frickin’ years, haha. Rubes. God we love ’em!
The whole process takes time but we are patient. NFL billionaires always are, especially when an orgy of suckling at the public teat is the eventual end game. And we always win and the taxpayers always lose. Take it to the bank, suckers!