The city of Tempe is under investigation by the Arizona Attorney General’s Office for hiring a political consultant to “monitor and geolocate opponents” of the ultimately failed Coyotes arena referendum via their social media posts, which is 1) creepy, 2) possibly a violation of open meetings law if city officials met with the consultant in secret to discuss their creepy findings, and 3) possibly a violation of laws against using public money to influence an election. “The first question you have to ask yourself is, why are you paying to do research on critics of the government or potential critics of the government?” says former state assistant attorney general and current Arizona Citizens Clean Elections Commission Tom Collins, who clearly has a very rose-colored view of what questions elected officials ask themselves before doing favors for their political allies.
Arizona Diamondbacks CEO Derrick Hall says the team’s success in the postseason should help them get public stadium money, because “it’s helping the businesses — the restaurants, the bars around us. I think city officials are proud of that. They’ll see how important it is for the economy for us to be here.” I guess that probably qualifies as a cherry-picking fallacy, though it could also be argument by anecdote, or even salience bias or bikeshedding, man there sure are a lot of different ways for humans to be stupid.
A county commissioner in Orange County, Florida decided to study the economic impact of sports stadiums by flying to Minneapolis and meeting with execs of the Vikings, Timberwolves, and Twins, and they all said stadiums are great for the economy! Then she flew home and wrote an op-ed for the local paper reporting that, and also noting that “I had never walked into such a large indoor stadium filled with giant screens and a whole lot of purple seats.” You’d think that by now newspapers would have learned not to just hand over their op-ed pages to whatever elected official feels really strongly about something, but I guess this did get me to link to The Apopka Voice for the first time ever, so joke’s on me!
In non-sports subsidy news, Texas Instruments is racking up $2.36 billion in tax breaks from Sherman, Texas over 35 years, and while that’s impressive, it’s still only around $1 billion in present value. Up your game, TI, or how will you ever show your face at the next billionaires’ party?
15 comments on “Friday roundup: Tempe faces probe for spying on arena opponents, WI trims Brewers subsidy ask to mere $557m, plus new adventures in logical fallacies”
A land use commission in Evanston, IL voted down a request from Northwestern to host concerts in a renovated football stadium.
I cannot imagine another town in the B1G being so openly hostile to the university like that.
I can’t read that article. What are they worried about? The noise, “the rock n roll element” coming to their town?
Most complaints are about noise and traffic. Concerts would be at night, and maybe weeknights, while football games are limited to Saturday morning or afternoon. One village alderman is questioning groundwater diversion and how that will affect the sewers and the North Shore Channel. A lot of it is also typical town vs gown animosity with NU occupying valuable land, but not paying property taxes.
NU originally sought approval for 15 concerts, but reduced the ask to 6, so many are skeptical they “need” any. The stadium was also originally named Dyche Stadium in honor of a former Evanston mayor, but changed (in violation of a university resolution in 1926) to Ryan Field when the CEO of Aon gave a lot of money. That is probably leading many to not trust any promises made by the university now.
Well, that and the fact that NU has been applying it’s “educational” property tax exemption to commercial buildings it has purchased which have nothing to do with it’s education business.
Given the way they have been playing their cards, it should be no wonder that the city/taxpayers aren’t keen to cooperate with them any longer.
What are the odds that OC, FL county commissioner is charging taxpayers for her trip to Minnesota?
As for Arizona, how much does the stadium sitting empty 275 days a year help neighboring businesses? Good thing they are able to host, at most, 7 extra games this year. That might put the city in the black.
It cost the neighboring businesses a Guns N’ Roses show, though:
It is always funny to me when a team doesn’t prepare for making the playoffs and forces another event out of the building. The Nuggets made the playoffs one year, forcing out the WWE, and Vince McMahon had a fit.
The substitution effect writ LARGE!
Well, a certain branch of the republican faith does always talk about the ‘great replacement’…. maybe this is what they mean?
Why does a leagues home and away schedule take precedence over a contract to use the stadium for a concert on a certain date? Chase Field is owned by Maricopa County, not the Diamondbacks so the Couny should decide who gets to use the stadium. The Cardinals evicted the AIAA state high school championship from State Farm Stadium paid for with Maricopa County tax dollars that should have been spent on AZDPS. Instead AZDPS is funded by a $32 license plate surcharge, so Arizonans are paying for Bidwell’s playpen.
It’s a good question… having some tiny degree of familiarity with this sort of thing, it tends to have to do with ‘primary’ tenancy.
When setting available dates, some venue booker/renter has to ‘go first’. In the case of the DB, the stadium was effectively built for them (though not by them… which is another matter entirely). As the primary tenant, they would get to schedule games/dates first. In many shared arenas, either the hockey or basketball team will be permitted to choose their own dates (in conjunction with the league schedulers of course) first and the secondary tenant has to work around those dates. This was also an issue for shared football/baseball stadia in years past, but very few of those facilities still exist/are in use by both football/baseball teams.
Often, long periods of what could be available time are blocked off for potential playoff games (again, mainly true for basketball and hockey – sports in which the majority of the teams in a league make the playoffs… insert MLB/NFL playoff expansion jokes here). Whether the “tenant” in these cases actually pays anything to keep those dates available I don’t know (but I would bet “NO”), but you will see this on arena schedules for many buildings across North America.
I agree it’s stupid. But like public stadium funding in general, “it is”.
As for Bidwill, yeah, parables of frogs and scorpions seem apt.
If the former UoP stadium was funded/built to host college or state high school games, then those organization should have equal rights to schedule their games there as (another) Failson’s Follies do.
I’m guessing the AIAA and other organizations haven’t bought as many politicians as their fellow tenant has.
I live in Orange County, FL and didn’t know that paper existed. Who knew?
It’s interesting that the commissioner said she “gained a greater appreciation for the value of sports while visiting Minneapolis,” as if OCFL/Orlando itself doesn’t have a history of throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at sports teams and venues (for little return, I might add).
I’m also not sure what relevance that trip would have locally, seeing as no team, league, or committee is seeking to set up shop here, and the last person to propose a new sports venue in OC was so unserious that he broke into song during his presentation to the county. No, seriously, that really did happen.
Was it ‘climb every mountain…. ford every stream…”? Or maybe “High Hopes”???
“The Monorail Song” by Lyle Lanley
Gonna guess the 55k residents of Apopka knew. Just sayin’.
I can’t wait to hear Coyotes fans defend the city of Tempe for stalking the opponents.
A land use commission in Evanston, IL voted down a request from Northwestern to host concerts in a renovated football stadium.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/business/2023/10/12/23913671/evanston-commission-rejects-northwestern-plan-for-ryan-field-concerts
I cannot imagine another town in the B1G being so openly hostile to the university like that.
I can’t read that article. What are they worried about? The noise, “the rock n roll element” coming to their town?
Most complaints are about noise and traffic. Concerts would be at night, and maybe weeknights, while football games are limited to Saturday morning or afternoon. One village alderman is questioning groundwater diversion and how that will affect the sewers and the North Shore Channel. A lot of it is also typical town vs gown animosity with NU occupying valuable land, but not paying property taxes.
NU originally sought approval for 15 concerts, but reduced the ask to 6, so many are skeptical they “need” any. The stadium was also originally named Dyche Stadium in honor of a former Evanston mayor, but changed (in violation of a university resolution in 1926) to Ryan Field when the CEO of Aon gave a lot of money. That is probably leading many to not trust any promises made by the university now.
Well, that and the fact that NU has been applying it’s “educational” property tax exemption to commercial buildings it has purchased which have nothing to do with it’s education business.
Given the way they have been playing their cards, it should be no wonder that the city/taxpayers aren’t keen to cooperate with them any longer.
What are the odds that OC, FL county commissioner is charging taxpayers for her trip to Minnesota?
As for Arizona, how much does the stadium sitting empty 275 days a year help neighboring businesses? Good thing they are able to host, at most, 7 extra games this year. That might put the city in the black.
It cost the neighboring businesses a Guns N’ Roses show, though:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/music/2023/10/10/guns-n-roses-change-arizona-concert-venue/71127435007/
It is always funny to me when a team doesn’t prepare for making the playoffs and forces another event out of the building. The Nuggets made the playoffs one year, forcing out the WWE, and Vince McMahon had a fit.
The substitution effect writ LARGE!
Well, a certain branch of the republican faith does always talk about the ‘great replacement’…. maybe this is what they mean?
Why does a leagues home and away schedule take precedence over a contract to use the stadium for a concert on a certain date? Chase Field is owned by Maricopa County, not the Diamondbacks so the Couny should decide who gets to use the stadium. The Cardinals evicted the AIAA state high school championship from State Farm Stadium paid for with Maricopa County tax dollars that should have been spent on AZDPS. Instead AZDPS is funded by a $32 license plate surcharge, so Arizonans are paying for Bidwell’s playpen.
It’s a good question… having some tiny degree of familiarity with this sort of thing, it tends to have to do with ‘primary’ tenancy.
When setting available dates, some venue booker/renter has to ‘go first’. In the case of the DB, the stadium was effectively built for them (though not by them… which is another matter entirely). As the primary tenant, they would get to schedule games/dates first. In many shared arenas, either the hockey or basketball team will be permitted to choose their own dates (in conjunction with the league schedulers of course) first and the secondary tenant has to work around those dates. This was also an issue for shared football/baseball stadia in years past, but very few of those facilities still exist/are in use by both football/baseball teams.
Often, long periods of what could be available time are blocked off for potential playoff games (again, mainly true for basketball and hockey – sports in which the majority of the teams in a league make the playoffs… insert MLB/NFL playoff expansion jokes here). Whether the “tenant” in these cases actually pays anything to keep those dates available I don’t know (but I would bet “NO”), but you will see this on arena schedules for many buildings across North America.
I agree it’s stupid. But like public stadium funding in general, “it is”.
As for Bidwill, yeah, parables of frogs and scorpions seem apt.
If the former UoP stadium was funded/built to host college or state high school games, then those organization should have equal rights to schedule their games there as (another) Failson’s Follies do.
I’m guessing the AIAA and other organizations haven’t bought as many politicians as their fellow tenant has.
I live in Orange County, FL and didn’t know that paper existed. Who knew?
It’s interesting that the commissioner said she “gained a greater appreciation for the value of sports while visiting Minneapolis,” as if OCFL/Orlando itself doesn’t have a history of throwing hundreds of millions of dollars at sports teams and venues (for little return, I might add).
I’m also not sure what relevance that trip would have locally, seeing as no team, league, or committee is seeking to set up shop here, and the last person to propose a new sports venue in OC was so unserious that he broke into song during his presentation to the county. No, seriously, that really did happen.
Was it ‘climb every mountain…. ford every stream…”? Or maybe “High Hopes”???
“The Monorail Song” by Lyle Lanley
Gonna guess the 55k residents of Apopka knew. Just sayin’.
I can’t wait to hear Coyotes fans defend the city of Tempe for stalking the opponents.