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Sports Stadiums Throw Taxpayers for a Loss

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Psalm 51:17
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« on: March 12, 2015, 07:33:31 pm »

Sports Stadiums Throw Taxpayers for a Loss
3/12/15
http://townhall.com/columnists/stevechapman/2015/03/12/sports-stadiums-throw-taxpayers-for-a-loss-n1969301?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=

Since 1995, Los Angeles has been an anomaly: a huge city with lots of sports fans that has exactly as much professional football as Billings, Montana. This week, Angelenos got a bit of good news: They still aren't getting an NFL franchise.

A corporation called AEG announced Monday that it was giving up on its effort, endorsed by Mayor Eric Garcetti, to build a new football stadium as part of a renovated downtown convention center. So one of the groups vying to induce a team to move from some other city -- St. Louis, Oakland, San Diego -- is out.

This is good news because attracting a team would probably mean piling a burden on local taxpayers to enrich owners who are already wealthy. Local taxpayers would have been on the hook for $350 million in debt to finance the new arena, on top of the $322 million left to be paid on the current convention center. And taxpayers elsewhere would have been effectively sharing the load, because the bonds used to get the money would have been exempt from federal taxes.

But Southern Californians are not free of the threat of having to pay for a professional football team that most of them will never go to see. (When the Rams were still in Los Angeles, before decamping for Missouri, they had the worst attendance in the league.) Inglewood is planning a facility that would house an NFL franchise, and Carson is hoping to build an arena to be shared by two of them, the Chargers and the Raiders.

St. Louis and Missouri have countered by proposing to build the Rams a new stadium, which could involve $350 million in state bonds. You could almost forget that the Edward Jones Dome is just 20 years old and was built, with public help, to lure the team.

University of Chicago economist Allen Sanderson has a better idea: Pay the Rams to keep playing there. "It would be far preferable for the mayor of St. Louis to write a check to the Rams' owner for, say, $100 million and let it go at that, essentially a bribe to stay put and shut up," he told me.

This is a second-best option, he admits. He has a sensible preference that local governments and the feds provide no money at all. NFL teams are rich entities, and there is no reason their owners shouldn't pay for their own playgrounds.

No reason, that is, except that they can usually get cities to offer them money to come or stay. The Miami Marlins got public assistance in building a gaudy retractable-roof ballpark, most of whose costs were paid by local governments.

While the public was spending more, the Marlins' owners were spending less, slashing their team payroll by more than half. This year, it's the second-lowest in baseball.

The only justice is that the mayor responsible for the funding was removed from office in a recall election. His successor, who opposed the deal, has refused to attend a Marlins game.

But none of that makes taxpayers whole. So it's better if the federal government discourages such extravagance by not furnishing tax breaks. How many Americans would volunteer to help Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones build a $1.2 billion stadium for the NFL team that ranks as most disliked by fans? Even most Texans probably wouldn't go for that.

But all of us are getting to do it whether we want to or not. Bloomberg Business reported in 2012, "Over the life of the $17 billion of exempt debt issued to build stadiums since 1986, the last of which matures in 2047, taxpayer subsidies to bondholders will total $4 billion."

State and city bonds were originally intended to finance projects like roads, bridges, schools and other projects that serve the public. But they have been expanded to borrow money for all sorts of projects that serve to enrich private corporations.

The expense is always justified as an ingenious way to create jobs and prosperity. But economists Dennis Coates and Brad Humphreys surveyed the research on the impact of teams and stadiums on local economies and found "no substantial evidence of increased jobs, income or tax revenues."

Team owners, however, can always find some city or state willing to fleece taxpayers in the fallacious hope that prosperity will follow. It's a play fake that never fails.
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« Reply #1 on: March 13, 2015, 03:27:46 pm »

These professional/collegiate sports leagues are nothing but slave labor! Why do you think only the higher levels like the team owners are the only ones raking in the million$?

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/former-nba-player-working-mcdonalds-163907853.html
A former NBA player was working at McDonald's 9 years after being a first-round draft pick
3/13/15

(AP) Things looked brighter for David Harrison when Larry Bird and the Indiana Pacers made him the 29th pick in the 2004 NBA draft. David Harrison was a first-round pick in the 2004 NBA draft by the Indiana Pacers. Nine years later, things had gotten so bad financially that he had to take a job working at McDonald's.

Harrison, probably best known for his role as a rookie in the "The Malice at The Palace" brawl involving Ron Artest and other members of the Pacers, recently spoke about his life and struggles after basketball with Marc J. Spears of Yahoo Sports.

Harrison played four years for Indiana and made slightly more than $4.4 million. However, the 7-footer struggled in the NBA, and after averaging just 5.9 points and 3.5 rebounds per game in his first two seasons, his playing time dropped.

He says things hit rock bottom in the NBA in his fourth season when the Pacers switch coaches and hired Jim O'Brien. Harrison called it "the worst time" of his life, and alleges O'Brien was verbally abusive and did not want Harrison to succeed.

Harrison admits that he eventually turned to smoking marijuana every day, including both before and after practices, a recreation that had previously just been an off-season habit.

O'Brien denies that he was abusive toward Harrison but did admit to Spears that when he was first hired by the Pacers he was told "not to expect very much from [Harrison]," and that he "was not a guy you can depend on."

After Harrison's rookie contract expired in 2008, he was just 25 years old and his NBA career was over. He spent three seasons playing in China and eight games playing in the NBA's developmental league. He last played in 2012, a stint with the Dallas Mavericks' summer league team.

A year later, his credit card was rejected while trying buy his son a Happy Meal at a McDonald's. The manager recognized Harrison and helped him get a job.

"People were showing up trying to take my car," Harrison told Yahoo. "My house was in foreclosure. I didn't have any income. I just had everything going out. I have child support to one son. I have a really big family and I have to take care of them, even through I'm not playing in the NBA. I needed money."

But that job lasted just three weeks as customers kept recognizing the former player and it was becoming a distraction.  Harrison says he now makes some money trading stocks but that he can't find a job. He is 16 credits short of a degree from the University of Colorado but says he can't afford to go back to finish.

At 32, Harrison says he has given up on his basketball career but is confident things will turn around off the court.

"I am confident in my intelligence," Harrison told Spears. "I am confident in myself and I have the ability to succeed. I don't have much hope to play basketball again. But to support my family and myself, I have a lot of hope in that."
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« Reply #2 on: September 27, 2016, 10:35:33 am »

Thanks to our bro Christian40 for this!

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« Reply #3 on: November 11, 2016, 07:52:11 am »

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/more-sports/trump-could-shape-future-of-our-sports/ar-AAk7Xky?li=BBgET5V&ocid=spartandhp
Trump could shape future of our sports
11/10/16

President-elect Donald J. Trump, who will arrive at the White House with more experience in the business of sports than any of his predecessors, could exercise his power to shape the future of American athletics.

A three-sport high school star who in the 1960s drew interest from the Red Sox, Trump will take to Washington an insider’s knowledge of operating sports teams and events — wisdom he could tap to address some of the thorniest issues facing professional and amateur athletics.

Brain injuries in sports? In the runup to his stunning victory Tuesday over Hillary Clinton, Trump mocked its severity, differing sharply from the Obama administration.

Online sports gambling? A past thumbs-up from the president-to-be, a departure from much of current federal law.

The embattled fantasy sports industry? Worth saving, he indicated on the stump.

The multibillion-dollar question of how the government regulates telecommunications in sports? Trump could make a difference.

He has friends in high places in sports, some of whom supported his campaign with cash — a combined $400,000 from NFL owners Bob McNair, Woody Johnson, and Edward Glazer — while others such as Robert Kraft, Bill Belichick, and Tom Brady gave him informal endorsements.

“He is obviously a big sports fan and is close to a lot of owners,’’ Smith College sports economist Andrew Zimbalist said. “I suspect he will be keeping an eye out on how they are doing and will give them an ear on issues they want to talk about. In that regard, I think there will be some positive reinforcement for the sports industry.’’

Trump could appease some of his NFL friends by softening his campaign rhetoric, as many candidates have done after winning the presidency. Or he could continue hammering the NFL over the quality of its competition and belittle the league for its efforts to reduce brain injuries.

Amid flagging NFL television ratings, Trump thundered on the campaign trail, “Who the hell wants to watch these crummy games?’’

He bemoaned the league’s recent protocols aimed at reducing violence.

“Football has become soft like our country has become soft,’’ he said.

When a woman was revived after fainting at a campaign event, Trump praised her as being tougher than NFL players with head injuries.

“Concussion, uh-oh! You got a little ding on the head. No, no, you can’t play for the rest of the season,’’ Trump told his audience, referring to NFL players.

Asked to comment on Trump’s criticism, NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said, “It’s always good when elected officials watch your sport.’’

When the PGA Tour announced last summer that it was ending its long affiliation with the Trump-owned Doral Country Club in Florida and moving its annual World Golf Championship to Mexico City in 2017, tour officials said the move was based solely on sponsorship issues and not related to Trump advocating strict immigration limits on Mexicans and Muslims.

But Trump was not pleased. He said of the move to Mexico City, “I hope they have kidnapping insurance.’’

Trump could be the first commander in chief to own golf clubs around the world and hold a contentious view of the world’s most prestigious golf tour. A tour spokesman declined further comment.

The PGA’s move comes as the NFL and NBA eye the Chinese market and Major League Baseball yearns to increase its presence in Cuba. With Trump having taken his golf business international — he owns courses from Ireland and Scotland to Dubai — he is not expected to interfere with such global ambitions, despite his hard-line on trading with foreign countries.

Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred told reporters in Arizona that he senses no resistance to the league’s aspirations for Cuba.

In general, Manfred said of Trump’s possible impact on the sport, “We’re not concerned.’’

MLB has been expanding its footprint in Mexico and many in the game were disturbed by Trump’s disparaging remarks about Mexicans. But Manfred counseled patience.

“I think we’re all familiar with things he said about Mexico,’’ Manfred said. “I think we need to wait and see what actually happens.’’

Trump won the election despite many sports executives financially supporting Clinton. Her backers included NBA commissioner Adam Silver, Sox chairman Tom Werner, Sox president Sam Kennedy, and NFL ownJers Steve Tisch and Jeff Lurie.

Their opposition to Trump makes it less likely they will be sharing any of his White House athletic opportunities, including time on the putting green. Over the years, presidents also have equipped the property with a swimming pool, bowling alley, tennis court, and basketball court.

At 70, Trump is considered a highly competitive golfer. The Globe reported in March that he has a 3.0 handicap index, that he made the first hole-in-one at his newest public course near New York City, and that he has won many golf trophies.

However, Rick Reilly, a sportswriter who has golfed with Trump, was quoted as saying Trump rates an “11 on a scale of 1 to 10’’ in terms of cheating.

Trump would not be the first president to cheat at golf. Nor will he be the first to have owned a sports franchise — the New Jersey Generals of the now-defunct United States Football League in the 1980s. George W. Bush was part owner of the Texas Rangers before he became president.

But Trump’s experience runs deeper. In addition to making quarterback Doug Flutie the highest paid football player at the time he owned the Generals, Trump went on to promote boxing matches, including Mike Tyson’s heavyweight championship bout against Michael Spinks in 1988, then the richest fight in history.

He later sponsored an American version of the Tour de France cycling race, called the Tour de Trump, and more significantly developed his large inventory of golf courses as well as Atlantic City casinos.

Trump indicated before the presidential campaign that he supported online gambling and has endorsed the fantasy sports industry.

It remains to be seen whether he will take an interest in shaping the future of telecommunications in sports. Some sports leagues could benefit from the next president helping to clear the way for more consumers to rent single channels or buy specific sports events on a la carte basis rather than having to buy a full package of channels from cable companies.
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« Reply #4 on: September 25, 2017, 05:33:03 pm »

http://redstatewatcher.com/article.asp?id=96577
$1 Billion Federal Subsidies To The NFL Exposed!

9/25/17

The NFL has received a $1 billion in federal subsidies for the building of 22 new stadiums since 1997.

Eye On The Sparrow @2Chron169

😳 NFL $1B in federal subsidies He's right don't bite the hands that feeds you Your @NFL Not For Long Bye 👋Bye
11:04 AM - Sep 25, 2017
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« Reply #5 on: September 27, 2017, 10:30:00 am »

http://www.dailywire.com/news/21546/bipartisan-effort-strip-nfl-taxpayer-funding-joseph-curl
Bipartisan Effort To Strip NFL Of Taxpayer Funding For Stadiums Is Gaining Steam
9/26/17

In today's highly fractured world, it's not often that lawmakers from the two parties agree on anything — which makes it all the more amazing that a Republican and a Democrat are working together to smack down the National Football League.

Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) have co-sponsored a bill that would strip any taxpayer funding for professional sports teams for building their massive arenas. The proposal, first put forward in June, is gaining steam on Capitol Hill after NFL players began kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality (or something).

“Professional sports teams generate billions of dollars in revenue,” Booker said in a June 13 statement. “There’s no reason why we should give these multimillion-dollar businesses a federal tax break to build new stadiums. It’s not fair to finance these expensive projects on the backs of taxpayers, especially when wealthy teams end up reaping most of the benefits.”

Said Lankford: “The federal government is responsible for a lot of important functions, but financing sports stadiums for multi-million — sometimes billion — dollar franchises is definitely not one of them. Using billions of federal taxpayer dollars for the subsidization of private stadiums when we have real infrastructure needs in our country is not a good way to prioritize a limited amount of funds."

A spokesman from Lankford’s office told The Daily Caller on Sunday that "in the last four weeks interest in the bill has picked up since both members proposed it four months ago."

The two senators said that since 2000, 36 professional sports stadiums have been constructed or revamped under financing provided by federal tax-exempt municipal bonds, costing taxpayers over $3.2 billion. While sports team argue that stadium construction is for the good of the community, the senators say “there is no statistically significant positive correlation between sports facility construction and economic development."

The true cost is more like $7 billion, reported Watchdog.org. "Overall, taxpayers have spent nearly $3 billion on the 16 stadiums that will host NFL games during the season’s opening weekend. And over the past couple of decades, we’ve given NFL teams nearly $7 billion total in aid for their stadiums."

The New England Patriots built the impressive Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, Mass., with $72 million in taxpayer cash. The Pittsburgh Steelers tapped taxpayers for $171.6 million, while the Indianapolis Colts grabbed $619 million in taxpayer subsidies.

"Players on the Baltimore Ravens and Jacksonville Jaguars, all who can potentially benefit from taxpayer dollars at the local, state and federal levels, followed the lead of former San Francisco 49er quarterback Colin Kaepernick Sunday. They kneeled during the national anthem at a game against each other in London. Other teams stayed in their locker rooms for the anthem," the Caller reported.
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« Reply #6 on: October 10, 2017, 04:56:13 pm »

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/economic-benefits-nfl-stadium-boom-vastly-overblown-131446171.html
Economic benefits of NFL stadium boom are 'vastly overblown'
Daniel Roberts
Yahoo Finance September 21, 2017



Perhaps you saw the many mocking social media posts last weekend pointing out the rows and rows of empty seats at the LA Rams and LA Chargers games in Week 2 of the NFL season. Both teams are playing in temporary homes — the Rams in LA Coliseum, a college stadium, and the Chargers in StubHub Center in Carson, Calif., a soccer stadium — until they move into LA Stadium at Hollywood Park, projected to open up in 2020 and cost $2.6 billion.

The Chargers got 25,381 fans at a stadium that holds 27,000, while the Rams only attracted 56,612 to a stadium that holds more than 90,000. As many stories pointed out, the two NFL games combined had a smaller in-person audience than the USC vs. Texas college football game Saturday night at the Coliseum, attended by 85,000 people. (The empty NFL seats were “not a great look,” the AP wrote.)

The reasonable conclusion from the low turnout might be that LA doesn’t have enough NFL fans to support two new teams. And that, in turn, may look like a reminder of how outrageous the trend is of teams relocating and building $2 billion-plus stadiums, and, often, obtaining public money to help build them.

But it doesn’t really matter if the new LA stadium doesn’t fill up for games. The pricey stadium trend is likely to continue, because cities — which consist of local construction companies to trade unions to bank branches to architecture firms to hotels — see appeal in having an NFL team and stadium.

“Not a very good economic proposition”

It’s about enhancing the culture and image of the city, says Andrew Zimbalist, a sports economist at Smith College in Massachusetts, and author of a wide range of books that strip back the financial impact of sports arenas and major events like the World Cup and Olympics.

“The main reason you want the stadium is because you want the team, and the main reason you want the team is because in United States culture these days, football is particularly prominent,” says Zimbalist. “What a sports team does is provide some coherence to a city’s culture. It provides a common thread that helps people in the community relate to each other. It enhances the city’s identity. People now have a way to relate to each other… A large percentage of the people in the community are experiencing the football team. That’s a very important function of the culture, to me. Now, some people might argue that, ‘Gee, it’s too bad, we need other kinds of culture instead of football culture.'”

It’s an image thing, then. And a recent comment by former San Diego Chargers quarterback turned broadcaster Dan Fouts backs this up. Fouts said it’s “embarrassing” for the Chargers to play in a 27,000-seat stadium, even temporarily. (But if the team can’t even fill the stadium, what’s embarrassing about it?)

Cities want a new NFL team even though the popular claim teams make when they relocate — that the team and stadium will have a positive economic impact on the local economy — is usually “vastly overblown,” Zimbalist says. That’s because the majority of the money that gets spent at and around the stadium is spent by local residents who would be spending their money in the area anyway. As for the players, they are generally unlikely to live in the local community, so they’re not infusing the area near the stadium with any new money.

And the typical NFL stadium, with some exceptions, “is going to be used 10-15 times a year out of 365 days. The rest of the year it’s going to be sitting idle… It’s not a very good economic proposition.”

And yet, cities keep welcoming new teams. In March, the Oakland Raiders got NFL approval to move to Las Vegas, and team owner Mark Davis plans a $1.9 billion stadium. $750 million of that cost will come from a public subsidy already approved by the local Clark County government in Las Vegas. (The San Diego Union-Tribune called it, “peak public stadium financing.”) If the economic impact will be minimal, why grant public money?

Zimbalist uses this analogy: “Cities don’t sit around and say, ‘Should we maintain Central Park [in Manhattan] because it’s going to help our economy?’ That’s not why you have Central Park, you have Central Park for cultural reasons. So a similar argument, I think, can be made for sports teams.”

How the NFL avoids blame for teams moving

When teams like the St. Louis Rams move to LA, or the Oakland Raiders ditching town for Las Vegas, many outraged fans blame the NFL for allowing it to happen.

But it’s important to note that the NFL charges teams a hefty fee to relocate. The fee varies, gets paid out over time in installments, and gets split up equally among the other NFL teams. The Raiders will have to pay $378 million, while the Chargers and Rams have to pay $645 million each.

“So the NFL can say, ‘We’re actually discouraging teams from moving,'” Zimbalist points out. “The NFL has the view that all of the potential markets in the United States belong to the NFL, they are NFL assets. And if the NFL allows the teams to use these assets, they will charge them for it.”

Even with the relocation fee, a new stadium is likely to be extremely lucrative for a team. Apart from ticket sales, which they share with the rest of the league, the stadium owners get to keep all money from sponsorship deals, concessions revenue, and from PSLs, or personal seat licenses, which are fees that fans pay up front for the right to buy tickets for a certain seat at the stadium. Your seat license is like a membership fee you pay each year, on top of the price of your actual tickets.

“Part of the problem with that financing mechanism,” Zimbalist says, “is that if the owner gets money for the seat upfront, before the team ever steps on the field, then the owner has less incentive to put a winning product on the field. This works a little bit against the fans’ interests.” The Atlanta Falcons, playing this season in a brand new $1.6 billion stadium, had already made more than $250 million on PSLs before the season began.

And so, in many cases, with a new NFL stadium, the local economy loses, the fans lose, and the stadium may not fill up for games — but the team owner still wins.
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