Misc: John Oliver on Pro Stadium funding.

[cyfan92]

The Vikings wanted a new stadium also to attract a Super Bowl. How much revenue will that be adding to the states pockets? Taxi's, movie's, food, beverage, lodging, jobs, t-shirts, jersey's, airport traffic, media coverage, etc

 

[cowgirl836]

Wrote a paper on public funding of pro sports stadiums a few years ago. Long story short, it adds zero value to local economies. It just shifts the expenditures. So if someone pays $100 to go to a sports bar down by the stadium, they would have spent it elsewhere anyway without the stadium.

Public funding of billionaire-owned stadiums is a total joke but politicians know self-preservation above all and voters will boot them out if they "lose" the Vikings.

that can't be right, I keep getting told the Bucks are going to give us a 3:1 return!*





meanwhile taking hundreds of millions from an organization giving us 24:1 math, it's hard.

 

[abd4cy]

That was pretty good. The taser bit was hard to believe that that actually happened.

The TASER thing is very true. I live out here and it was all over the news.

 

[boone7247]

The Vikings wanted a new stadium also to attract a Super Bowl. How much revenue will that be adding to the states pockets? Taxi's, movie's, food, beverage, lodging, jobs, t-shirts, jersey's, airport traffic, media coverage, etc

Not enough. I believe the estimated boost of total $s is around $500 million, Which probably equates to less than $50 million in tax revenue for the state.

 

[weR138]

It does. And hopefully it will. Hopefully, if LA actually does get a team, it will remove them as the bargaining chip that the NFL has been using them as, and other cities will grow a backbone. I'll freely admit to being a hypocrite on this one, though. I'm a Vikings fan, and am hugely glad that they got a deal done for a new stadium. Granted, it doesn't affect me, because I'm not a Minnesota resident, so it's not my taxes that are paying for it. I recognize all of the data that it's really not as big of an economic boon as the teams claim, and that it's basically extortion by the leagues, and I agree with it. I also know, as a fan, it's hard to let go of your team.

That said, I really hope the model changes.

It's exactly extortion and the funny thing is every time this subject is brought up in the media it's openly described as such. I've heard more than a dozen times some version of, "If the localities don't pony up the money, the team threaten to leave."

 

[weR138]

Stadiums would still get built without public money, probably not as often or as lavishly if the owners had to foot the entire bill, but they'd still get built.

Right, I think the new Baylor stadium was built for 250 million? I heard the Chargers / Raiders stadium project in Carson was ~1.3 billion? Doubling the capacity of Baylor's stadium =/= that 1 billion difference. That's a **** ton of bells and whistles for rich luxury box owners (the owners and their cronies).

 

[MNclone]

Yeah, we have seen a lot of this over the last few years in Minnesota. If the state got anything back in revenue I wouldn't have much heartburn, but the way stadium income is handles favors the ten owners way too much.

 

[kingcy]

Nope. If they are a privately held company they should not have to disclose their financials.

The clauses like the one in the Bengals contract about getting amenities if 14 other stadiums have them is stupid. I agree those aren't needed.

I have a hard time believing that stadiums don't bring much economic benefit. I know people who have Vikings and Chiefs season tickets and if it weren't for going to those games they wouldn't go to either place. And when they go they stay in hotels, go to bars and eat in restaurants.

For football those events happen only 8 to 10 days a years. As a hotel, bar, or restaurant you only have so much capacity to profit off those days. It is hard to do anything different with your setup for only 8 to 10 days a year. Sure they can throw another events in now and then but it not like a stadium is used everyday. Something like a baseball stadium with 80 games a year can bring more value to a business, if the team can draw a good crowd.

An arena that is can be used for basketball and other things really can have the biggest impact because they can and do hold events year round as well as are the cheapest things to build.

 

[Rural]

Can't wait to see LA go from no team for over twenty years to three teams.

 

[3TrueFans]

Can't wait to see LA go from no team for over twenty years to three teams.

Soon every team will be based in LA.

 

[Mr Janny]

Can't wait to see LA go from no team for over twenty years to three teams.

nah, it won't go to three. I could possibly see two with the Raiders and Chargers already discussing a joint stadium venture, but if that happened, St. Louis would back out. That's a big market, but they won't be dumb enough to jam 3 teams in there.

Best case scenario for opponents of public stadium financing would be for the Raiders to move to LA. Oakland is not a desirable city for the NFL, so that would be a lost bargaining chip.

 

[Rural]

The Rams are more likely than the other two, it would be two different stadiums.

 

[jbhtexas]

Not enough. I believe the estimated boost of total $s is around $500 million, Which probably equates to less than $50 million in tax revenue for the state.

In addition, you can do it like Arlington did...build the high end stadium, but then (repeatedly) drop the ball on closing a deal to build enough high-end hotel rooms so that the richer attendees end up staying and spending their money in neighboring cities during events at the stadium...

 

[roundball]

Using tax revenue and selling bonds to finance a sports stadium is such an egregious departure from what government should be doing that it doesn't even matter to me what kind of return they get (they don't anyways). No citizen should have to go without food or shelter, or continually see their kids' teachers struggle to do their jobs because some politicians thought it was more important to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on some palatial palace where people can watch millionaires toss around a leather ball. The principle of it absolutely stinks.

 

[roundball]

Wrote a paper on public funding of pro sports stadiums a few years ago. Long story short, it adds zero value to local economies. It just shifts the expenditures. So if someone pays $100 to go to a sports bar down by the stadium, they would have spent it elsewhere anyway without the stadium.

Public funding of billionaire-owned stadiums is a total joke but politicians know self-preservation above all and voters will boot them out if they "lose" the Vikings.

Sad, and true. Like almost everything in a democracy, it's ultimately our own fault.

 

[StClone]

There are only two scenarios where I see this changing.

No there is a third option: people become enlightened and vote for their own best interest. Privatization of schools, imaginary legal entity (a corportation) having more human legal value than actual people coming together for a common good (a union), lobbyists buying-off your representatives in Government and on. What these all have in common, as seen in the Oliver's bit, is profits for a few and blind belief that its just business.

I am a Viking fan (since 1969) and was hoping MN would have said no to public funding the new stadium. Also, Oliver makes Little Caesar's look bad. Many young families find them a great value and tasty, to which I agree.

 

[mdk2isu]

Right, I think the new Baylor stadium was built for 250 million? I heard the Chargers / Raiders stadium project in Carson was ~1.3 billion? Doubling the capacity of Baylor's stadium =/= that 1 billion difference. That's a **** ton of bells and whistles for rich luxury box owners (the owners and their cronies).

Because the costs to build something in Waco, TX are the same as they are in Los Angeles...