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NYT: The N.F.L. and the Business of Ripping Out the Heart of Oakland


No Excuses

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With the Sunday Ticket, does it really matter where your team plays?

I guess it will to the relatively few fans who actually attend the games, but by and large, the fanbases of NFL teams watch on TV, and I'd also lay a buck that the overall number of Raiders fans who don't live in Oakland (or close enough to even go to a home game)  outnumber the ones who do.

 

Aside from infrastructure, (roads mostly)  i don't think municipalities should lay out for a sports team. 
But, i'd gamble another buck that those who do have politicians who will get rich on the deal.

 

~Bang

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12 minutes ago, AsburySkinsFan said:

Ding ding ding!!!

Winner winner chicken dinner!!!

 

I'm not crying. I'm proud of Oakland. I wish every city said no.

 

And that sports car analogy is beyond stupid.

 

Once again, these cities are not buying anything. They are giving money to billionaires. And they are doing it at tremendous cost to their constituents.

 

The problem is that most municipalities don't have the PR muscle of the NFL, nor do they have an Amen Corner in the local sports media that recognizes that their very jobs depend on the city spending hundreds of millions it does not have on parking lots for Robert Kraft and Co. And Kraft and Co. can then give them access to luxury boxes during the playoffs.

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31 minutes ago, Vilandil Tasardur said:

Maybe they should, but then, why are we sitting here crying about the NFL "ripping out their heart"?

 

Because the situation you all are advocating for is a complete race to the bottom. It's the sort of selfish mentality that has pretty much eroded any level of trust between the private sector and large segments of the population.

 

Fleecing the public through corporate welfare is basically a given at this point. And with sports, owners have a great bargaining chip. Too many dorks around the country would gladly have a shiny football team rather than good public services.

 

People in Oakland did have their hearts ripped out. But they should also take pride in the fact that their priorities are in the right place.

 

It's a shame that the shiny new stadium in Las Vegas won't make up for the failing public school system in Clark County, and really all across Nevada.

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When I was in Pittsburgh during law school, the city suddenly faced a real problem: it had created so many tax-free "enterprise zones" and given so much land away to non-profits and such that despite the fact that it had a "thriving" downtown, it collected practically $0 in taxes from it. So every time it had a police officer directing traffic in front of the old Civic Arena, it was losing money. I'm trying to find the article, but they gist of it was that a random block any neighborhood featuring a pizzeria and a news stand generated more in B&O taxes than the entirety of the central business district. And about ten years later, the city went bankrupt despite the fact that it was actually gaining population and businesses and such.

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5 hours ago, Lombardi's_kid_brother said:

 

Verizon Center is fascinating because of it's private dollars though. I would argue that the city building a Verizon Center is largely a choosing of winners and losers: This neighborhood gets a shot in the arm; this one does not.

 

I also don't think he really understands how a professional league operates. Cities aren't bidding to buy these teams. They are bidding to spend oodles of taxpayer money for the honor of being "major league."

 

I do like to think we are at the saturation point, but who knows? The saga of the stadiums in Atlanta and the Rangers' stadium is Arlington is just depressing.

Oh FFS don't get me started. The Cobb County Braves and their new stadium are going to be a major traffic PIA for me. In spite of inadequate public transportation nearby, it was railroaded through local govt. via a backroom deal and presented to the community as a fait accompli. I don't know that anyone in the general public knows the true cost. YAY for democracy! ?

 

If not outlawed, I'd love to see all of these projects be required to be passed by referendum during major election years. At the very least the voters would have a say, there'd be some level of transparency and more often than not I think they'd fail. If the owners couldn't get the taxpayers anywhere to give them a sweetheart deal, they'd just be forced to build where the fans are or where other market forces dictate. A tragic outcome, I know but I think they'd somehow manage to squeak by. 

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3 hours ago, Vilandil Tasardur said:

Edit: I think sports cars are over priced. I'd never drop 40+k on a vehicle when a 22k vehicle can get me to and from work just fine. If everyone thought the way I did, no one would sell those cars. But not everyone does. Some people want the sports car, damn the cost. All the power to them. I won't make what I perceive to be a bad deal, but I won't begrudge the dealer for finding someone who will, nor will I project that it's an equally bad deal for someone who may love driving a sports car.

 

However, the buyer of the sports car is not using taxpayer dollars to mortgage the car. You're making an extreme false equivalency. 

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15 hours ago, The Sisko said:

Oh FFS don't get me started. The Cobb County Braves and their new stadium are going to be a major traffic PIA for me. In spite of inadequate public transportation nearby, it was railroaded through local govt. via a backroom deal and presented to the community as a fait accompli. I don't know that anyone in the general public knows the true cost. YAY for democracy! ?

 

If not outlawed, I'd love to see all of these projects be required to be passed by referendum during major election years. At the very least the voters would have a say, there'd be some level of transparency and more often than not I think they'd fail. If the owners couldn't get the taxpayers anywhere to give them a sweetheart deal, they'd just be forced to build where the fans are or where other market forces dictate. A tragic outcome, I know but I think they'd somehow manage to squeak by. 

 

I actually had mistakenly thought we were done for a while. With a few rare exceptions, seemingly every stadium and arena in all 4 leagues has been built since the 1990s.

 

But apparently, we need to replace these monstrosities every 20 years or so.

 

I'm actually waiting for Angelos to demand a new stadium. Maybe that will be the moment when everyone wakes up.

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  • 2 weeks later...

This kind of stuff is what really angers me about the whole stadium process. Who in their right mind on a city council thought they could see this much money from 17 spring league games? 

 

http://www.vocativ.com/421529/stadium-economist-not-an-economist-mark-bonn/

 

The study claims that in exchange for spending $81 million to refurbish their spring training facilities, including over $61 million combined in public funds from the city and state, Dunedin would reap close to $71 million when all was said and done. A 2009 study of Bonn’s was also used by the New York Yankees when the team sought $27 million in taxpayer dollars from Tampa to bolster Steinbrenner field. Using Bonn’s math, the Yankees promised those public dollars spent would yield $162 million, even though they hosted a grand total of 17 spring training games in 2016.

One problem with the Dunedin study is that—in addition to the fact that Bonn is not an economist—

 

They obviously had doubts, but still agreed to dole out the money anyway. 

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It makes no sense that colleges can go decades in the same location, improve, expand, modernize, etc. 

Without building an entirely new structure. 

Yet pro teams consistently feel the need to build a new stadium. 

Foxboro needed a new stadium...they built it where the parking lot was. The roads still suck around that place. 

Hell, the Red Sox NEED a new stadium...but somehow they manage just fine. 

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Ricketts family is putting $600 mil of their own money into the friendly confines. Even improving the trough bathrooms that they had. They even had to fight the city of Chicago to spend their own money on the improvements. It actually looks pretty nice compared to a few years ago. These updates are to be completed by 2018 and are similar updates the Packers did to Lambeau Field, which was totally garbage before.

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59 minutes ago, Kosher Ham said:

It makes no sense that colleges can go decades in the same location, improve, expand, modernize, etc. 

Without building an entirely new structure. 

Yet pro teams consistently feel the need to build a new stadium. 

Foxboro needed a new stadium...they built it where the parking lot was. The roads still suck around that place. 

Hell, the Red Sox NEED a new stadium...but somehow they manage just fine. 

For historic teams like the Red Sox and Cubs those fields and stadiums are national treasures truly unique places. RFK doesn't fit that same measure nor do 90% of field houses across sports. How many complaints are there yearly about FedEx Field? Every year fans demand more.

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