It’s too cold to type an intro! I miss the Earth before we broke it. But anyway:
- It’s Super Bowl week, so we get articles on how Atlanta spent a lot of money on sports stadiums and NFL stadiums cost a lot of public dollars and the Los Angeles Rams‘ new stadium will be “transformative,” and Roger Goodell is “hopeful” the Oakland Raiders will decide “soon” where they’ll play this fall, none of which really provide in the way of much new information, but the Atlanta one has some good quotes from economist J.C. Bradbury, at least.
- And if you thought you could avoid the Super Bowl just by not living in the city hosting it and studiously ignoring the NFL — okay, maybe that’s only me — know that an unspecified amount of your federal tax dollars will be going to provide security help for the event, including flyovers by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Defense Department aircraft. Somebody tell the feds that the Atlanta stadium has a roof, so should already be safe from blimp attacks.
- Some D.C. officials don’t want Washington’s NFL team to move to the RFK stadium site, and some do. Also, audio clip of me for some reason!
- Newballpark.org blogger Marine Layer has calculated that the cost of building a gondola to any new Oakland A’s ballpark at Howard Terminal will amount to $12.60 per each round-trip ride, which either means fans are going to have a huge extra cost or local government is going to end up subsidizing the rides, neither of which is a great solution.
- Tottenham Hotspur stadium opening date update: nope, nothing yet.
- Nashville S.C. will begin play in the MLS in 2020, initially making the Tennessee Titans‘ stadium their home, because NFL stadiums are totally fine for hosting MLS matches so long as they’re not standing in the way of an owner trying to demand a soccer-only stadium.
- The Detroit Pistons still can’t get anyone to go to their new arena, though one local sportswriter says the building has been a success because a 13-year-old won a figure skating championship there, and how can you put a price on that?
- The Texas Rangers owners’ decision to install fake turf at their new stadium that they built to replace their old stadium because the old one didn’t have air conditioning may be unpopular, but rest assured that it’ll be fine because “technology and data are changing baseball — and the world around us — at an unbelievably fast rate.” I am not sure Tug McGraw would be assuaged.
Stossel: Super Bowl of Welfare
https://reason.com/reasontv/2019/01/29/stossel-super-bowl-of-welfare
If only the Pistons had access to a suburban arena where their fans are (were)….
Still, since the only solution to a professional sports franchise that people aren’t interested in buying tickets to see is a brand new taxpayers funded arena/stadium, I guess Detroit’s course is clear:
Time to build a new arena.
There’s some land out in Auburn Hills that might be coming up for sale in the near future.
Meanwhile, back in a world many of us thought lost (where business owners pay for their own factories or shop space):
www.washingtonpost.com/sports/the-rams-5-billion-stadium-is-bigger-than-disneyland-it-might-be-perfect-for-la/2019/01/26/7c393898-20c3-11e9-8e21-59a09ff1e2a1_story.html
Linked to in the very first item above!
Sorry… read the link but did not click on it, obviously… Feel free to just delete if (ok when…) I do that again…
I could have sworn that Kroenkeville was going to set Inglewood back $100M in tax concessions — but the WaPo article is mute on that topic so I must be wrong. I could have also sworn that both Mr. AND Mrs. Ann Walton applied for the loans to build Kroenkeville — but the WaPo article made a point to state that it’s _his money so I must be wrong.
https://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-stadium-tax-break-20150113-story.html
I predict that all off the shiny new Atlanta stadiums will be declared obsolete and replaced (at taxpayer expense) before the current debts are even paid off. The argument that tourists are paying for it all is a poor one. I’m pretty sure that if allowed, people could come up with better ways to spend $2.4 billion than replacing three ~20 year old sports venues.
In other news, the City of Phoenix has sent a letter, to the petitioners, that they will not accept them concerning the city’s recently approved Suns arena renovation vote.
https://twitter.com/user/status/1091418824358846464
https://twitter.com/user/status/109141933873572659
https://twitter.com/user/status/1091421464203390977
That did not take long.
Anti-arena group drops referendum on Phoenix Suns arena funding
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2019/02/05/common-sense-phoenix-drops-referendum-phoenix-suns-talking-stick-resort-arena-funding/2772188002/
If artificial grass is unpopular because it is fake turf, then isn’t air conditioning fake climate?
Pistons still can’t fill seats…
Missing the playoffs 8 out of the last 9 seasons will do that…
Hang on, wait up “…including flyovers by U.S. Customs and Border Protection…” Are they going to shoot at counterfeit t-shirt hawkers from the sky?
They’re going to protect the sky border. From Daleks, presumably?
Why hosting the Super Bowl isn’t worth it
https://www.businessinsider.com/super-bowl-nfl-football-hosting-cost-worth-host-cities-2019-2
Will anyone attempt to trigger their “state of the art” clause and say “we want fake coconut shell grass too?”
People don’t want to go to watch a team that changes unpredictably and seems to have no direction. They promote Tobias as the guy, then oh he’s gone. Drummond and Reggie Jackson have been the subject of trade rumors for at least three years. Marcus is gone for Avery Bradley who gets traded half a season in. The only consistent players have been the subject of trade rumors so I’m sure fans have absolutely no clue who they’ll be going to see on any given night. That doesn’t tend to make them want to spend their hard earned money.
You would think, and yet people still go see the Knicks.