This is where the NFL and it's owners think they are smart.. but if they continue to take advantage of their fans.. the sport will stop growing, and start getting replaced like baseball did. The fan experience goes from staying in a cool downtown, taking the train to the beautiful campus and walking into a historic stadium.. to driving out to a massive commercial super expensive stadium out in a an abandoned industrial park in Indiana. Good way to have fewer kids grow up bears fans
The Gary Bears. It’s official.
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We’ve talked about this before here. The capital outlays almost never are worth it and essentially became a giveaway to billionaire team owners at the cost of social services like fire departments and libraries and less money for schools.
Even the argument that it helps property values because a city has major league sports options don’t survive an actual economic cost analysis.
Of course the team could save money and people demonize taxes like they’re used for insane things, but they pave roads, pay for schools, police and fire departments, libraries, programs for the elderly and so much more.
I’m old enough to remember when the ultra rich felt it was their duty to pay taxes AND build great things that benefitted humanity like universities and hospitals.
So respectfully, I’ll disagree on Fuck Illinois (even as a relatively new Minnesotan) and be thankful the Rams have an owner who at least doesn’t burden taxpayers with his own enrichment. Crazy that *THAT’S* the bar, but here we are.
How will those services be when the team leaves and the state loses all tax revenue? How about all the people that work for the team if they relocate too where's the taxes from them going to go? And the people who work in the stadium?
Illinois made a choice and it will hurt the people in the end.
The saddest part of your whole argument is the fact that the Bears were going to pay fully for their stadium they weren't burdening the tax payer. All the state and local government was going to pay for was the infrastructure.
No welfare for billionaires. Period. If that means a city loses its team so be it.
There was no welfare the team was building the stadium itself. The city didn't want to upgrade it's streets or utilities.
Thats not what I saw reported, but happy to be corrected. Kicking in for infrastructure upgrades is a different thing.
The NFL has enough money to build its own stadiums is my broader point.
Yeah the Illinois site was the stadium fully paid for by the bears the infrastructure was the city and state. Haven't looked into the Indiana site. I agree though about teams paying for the stadium.
PLus the state loses the taxes on the players, the concession stands, and tourism.
This is going to cost the state big time.
Chicago is a mess. Not hard to see why if you really want to look into it.
Totally agree with tax payers NOT funding these billionaires for stadiums, but infrastructure..... Yeah, that's one of the important things taxpayer $ SHOULD go towards.
Totally agree with tax payers NOT funding these billionaires for stadiums, but infrastructure..... Yeah, that's one of the important things taxpayer $ SHOULD go towards.
In almost every instance, even when it’s just infrastructure improvements, the tax abatements and capital out;aye far exceed any tax revenues, so it’s either likely to be a wash or a slight gain for the Chicago.
Again, there have been EXHAUSTIVE analyses that get granular far beyond the scope of this forum. Some were posted before when talking about other stadium issues.
The net result including everything from payroll taxes of employees to the tax on hot dogs, from player salary taxes to hotel taxes…the net result is a COST to the city. It’s only big single events like Super Bowls, Final Fours, huge concerts that are huge gains expressly because none of them necessitated the building of the infrastructure.
The accounting is tedious, but known. It’s why Kansas City, MO and Chicago are letting the teams move…it’s not worth it to keep them and every city that’s gone overboard to lure a team can attest to that…ask St Louis…
$150M plus all the other tax revenues?
Depends on what the infrastructure is going to cost and to maintain.
I am thinking it should be less than the present value of future receipts but then again with all the corruption in construction and politicians overseeing the process....
I have to just look at the cost overruns for the high speed rail system that California has been trying to put in.
So you could be right. But man $150M plus all the other revenues that they lose.
Government is so corrupt. (And that is the extent of the political statement I have to say about this.)
All one has to do is look at California and Texas to see that corruption isn’t a Democratic or Republican issue…it’s an asshole issue and there are corrupt assholes at every stop along the way from left to right.
Is that political? Or is it just a very negative interpretation of Adam Smith? I dunno…
That’s the rub, isn’t it? Just where does all the promised $$ go?
Why did it cost so much in the first place?
Al Davis did a number on Oakland more than once.
Side note: when Obama care was being debated/planned, I saw a rep from the medical industry and a rep from the insurance industry having a discussion to try to come to terms where both parties felt their interests were being served.
Early in the discussion one said the government involvement should be kept to a minimum because of corruption. The other participant nodded and they moved into something worth discussing.
I said to myself, “wait, what? He just called the government corrupt and they don’t even bother discussing it. It’s a given!”