I know that U-T San Diego sports columnist Nick Canepa is the world’s biggest cheerleader for a new Chargers stadium, at a paper whose stated mission is to be a cheerleader for a new Chargers stadium, so I’m not going to make a big deal about yesterday’s column that consists entirely of interviewing a former Chargers exec about how a new Chargers stadium is totally doable. But I can’t let this pass without comment:
Pete Rozelle-trained, Steeg says things such as: “Saying you’re an NFL town has a lot of cache to it.”
Presumably Pete Rozelle never taught Steeg the difference between cache and cachet. Or, more likely, the U-T doesn’t allow any copy editors who know the difference to get in the way of its cheerleading.
Only thing incorrect about this is that Kevin Acee is by FAR a bigger cheerleader than Canepa.
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2015/mar/10/stadium-downtown-populous-acee/
Regarding “Saying you’re an NFL town has a lot of cache to it.”, maybe what was really meant is “Saying you’re and NFL town sends a lot of cash to the NFL.”
Perhaps he needs to read this article:
http://www.publicceo.com/2015/03/how-san-diego-loses-so-much-money-subsidizing-the-qualcomm-stadium/
If a new stadium is built, assuming these condition continue, the 1.3 million for the lawsuit RE: disabled access would go away. We would essentially be tearing down a renovation @ Qualcomm that the city will pay for another 10 years. The author did respond to my “substitution effect” message regarding the notion “the stadium makes all kinds of profit” and confirmed that he absolutely agrees that the substitution effect is in full play (as we would expect).
One more thing – I did mention the Ripple effect (as talked about in the book “Public Dollars Private Stadiums”), but he didn’t directly respond about that.
Ironically, the plan downtown makes more sense if you are of the mind that “people that go to the stadium will go out to bars etc. after the game”. The site in Mission Valley has a strip mall and a ton of condos around it. If there ever was a situation where someone would go out around the stadium after the game it’s more unlikely in the Mission Valley location.
Trying to build spinoff development from football games is especially pointless: Nobody’s going to open a restaurant just to capture fans who only show up ten times a year, then want to get in their cars and head home after a long day of tailgating and football. An arena downtown makes a little bit of sense, maybe possibly; football, none at all.
@Neil
The arena makes no sense either way. I’m interested to see how they try to take the taxpayer out of the decision – or at least minimize their power.
Downtown arenas are their own special kind of math.
If they’re in use 120 nights a year, they won’t make enough money to pay their bond debt. On the other hand, if they’re busy 200 nights a year, they’ll pay their bond debt, but then other businesses will leave because they’ll quickly realize their old patrons got tired of $25 parking pretty quickly, which will leave these downtowns absolutely empty 165 nights/year.
The only way an arena can work is to be busy about 300+ nights a year. How many of those are there? Besides, any arena that’s busy 300+ nights a year would likely not want the government involved in any way.
@Mike
Good call on the parking bit. People have a hard enough time finding parking as it is down there (regardless of cost). Since traffic is already dicey I can only imagine what it would look like with that much more crammed into downtown.
Although I understand why this website exists, it’s too bad you don’t turn your attention to the $92 billion in subsidies received by American corporations like Boeing, Enron and GM, industrial farming corporations and Wal Mart. Those ripoffs make the money spent on stadiums look like child’s play.
Edward: Agreed, but for that we have this:
http://clawback.org/
@ Edward Moretti
You want us to throw away $billions on a new stadium because money is wasted elsewhere? This is the typical stadium apologist argument. Next you will complain about the downtown library or claim that you shouldn’t have to pay taxes for schools because you don’t have children.
I got a kick out of your VOSD posts.
voiceofsandiego.org/topics/land-use/the-chargers-beef-with-qualcomm/
“The City is acting like a slumlord towards the Chargers and every other organization that uses the stadium.
One look at this video shows us exactly how bad the stadium is falling into disrepair… Did you see the video of the “luxury boxes”? They look like concrete jail cells.”
Slumlords don’t usually spend $15+ million a year subsidizing a for profit business.
San Diego needs to run the Spanos welfare queens out of San Diego county. Hopefully Deano will decide he can’t wait around for a 2016 election and just leave next Jan/Feb.
I’m sure our conman Foulconer will try his best to circumvent a vote. He’s another “rob from the poor, give to the rich” pol like Susan Golding.