An honest look at the public financing for sports stadiums WITHOUT the home-field advantage
The public financing of sports stadiums is an epidemic that stretches across the country. Take the current catastrophe in Miami, where Major League Baseball’s Miami Marlins became one of the worst teams in the league by getting rid of several star players immediately after opening a new stadium paid for by the public. Or the 2015 situation in San Diego where voters rejected public financing to support a new stadium for the National Football League’s Chargers, “forcing” the Chargers to relocate back to their original hometown in Los Angeles. “The strategy is the city only gets the team and credibility if they build the millionaire or billionaire team owner a new stadium,” says deMause. “The strategy is to sell the dream that the stadium will help the team compete
By Rodric J. Hurdle- Bradford
on the field, which will lead to a better local economy. But more often than not, that does not happen.” Jeff Capell, chairman of the Ohio-based organization No More Stadium Taxes, experienced the same “bait and switch” situation in Hamilton County, home of the Cincinnati Reds. The Reds have not won a World Series since 1990, and have only appeared in the playoffs four times since then, playing in a total of only 16 playoff games.
If you are a city that plans to throw $100 million on a stadium
to make a team owner happy, realize that you are only doing it to make a team owner happy.
American Consequences | 69
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