There were a bunch of stadium and arena subsidies up for vote yesterday — let’s see how they did:
- In Albuquerque, a ballot measure to spend $50 million in city tax money on a new $70 million stadium for the USL’s New Mexico United was resoundingly defeated, 65-35%. This even as Mayor Tim Keller, who’d loudly proclaimed his support for the subsidy, was handily re-elected, and voters passed all the other proposed bond measures on the ballot.
- In Denver, a proposal to spend $160 million building a new rodeo arena was going down to defeat 59-41% as of last night. Four other bond measures, for housing, transportation, parks, and other city facilities, all passed with more than 60% of the vote.
- In Augusta, plans to spend $235 million on a new arena to host, they’re not sure, maybe minor-league hockey or something were voted down 65-35%.
None of these outcomes are a huge shock, as the Albuquerque and Denver plans, at least, were polling terribly in the run-up to Election Day. Still, the proponents of the funding measures put a ton of money into backing them, all apparently for nought. (We’ll have to wait for final reports on campaign spending to see if the 100-to-1 rule still holds, where sports subsidy measures only win voter approval if advocates outspend opponents by more than 100-to-1.) But it is at least somewhat notable that bond measures for other things passed with ease, so this isn’t just opposition to government spending overall: As a spokesperson for the Denver neighborhood coalition that opposed the arena said last night, “In a time when housing is scarce for the working class, at a time when health care is inaccessible and inequitable and expensive, at a time when we have one of the worst homeless crises in a century, the city chose to pursue the arena. It was a slap in the face to the people who rejected it.”
It’s probably too much to call this a sea change — there have been lots of sports subsidies that have gone down to defeat at the polls only to be resurrected later, and execs from Augusta’s venues authority have already vowed to find other funding for their arena plans. But it’s still a whole bunch of no’s from voters asked to provide huge sums of tax dollars for minor sports facilities, while saying yes to the government building other stuff, so if you want to take that as data points that people think the business of sports is not the government’s business, you go right ahead and do that.
Utterly amazing that here in “No tax money for sports teams!” Oakland nearly $1 BILLION (+) in public subsidies are proposed for the A’s, and ONLY $150 MILLION of that amount would be subject to a public vote. Kudos to those municipalities around the country that gave their citizens the right to chose how to spend their tax money.
Pretty sure you wouldn’t be complaining if the A’s was heading over to San Jose. Sheeeesh
LOL! $an Jo$e, or $anta Clara County, would never propose spending $1 billion in taxes on a sports team. I wouldn’t even support that! Then again, the A’s wouldn’t have asked for that down here ;) (see our rich corporate support and disposable incomes for details)
BTW, do YOU support throwing tax money at sports teams without the public having a say?
Right, we see all the teams lining up to move to San Jose. Seattle? Who needs em when you can have the San Jose Super Sonics. And fyi, not sure if ya got the memo, but the government spends all our money Willy nilly.
As I think the entire history of this site shows, not entirely willy-nilly: It helps if either Willy or Nilly has a lot of zeroes at the end of their net worth.
LOL! Your hilarious MC!! Kind of hard to get more sports teams to $J when your held hostage by MLB territorial restrictions and already have established NFL, NBA in the region (another subject for another day). BTW, A few million here and there for solid public safety/infrastructure/services that benefits ALL?… or $1 BILLION + for a sports venture? I think we all know which one classifies as “Willy nilly.” And if the electorate has no problem spending tax dollars “Willy nilly,” then they should be the one’s to decide: don’t you agree?
Well, it looks like SJ is just up sh*ts creek with no ladder. What’s the big issue when you have the niners right next door…correct? Isn’t Santa Clara doing great with the niners in town? Any one in SJ root for the Giants. How can we get SJ the big three? Should we move the entire city of San Jose? How much would that cost?
“See our rich corporate support and disposable income for details.”
Whoa! No black or white or racial inequalities via this statement.
Perhaps FoS should run a story about the Atlanta Braves. Their move from downtown Atlanta to Cobb County. How the intersection of money and race play a part.
As a long-time FoS reader and a Denver resident, it felt great to actually vote against that arena project!
Keep up the great work Neil!!