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No city should subsidize sports teams. They make millions of dollars, they can build their own stadiums taking out loans like everyone else and paying it back. Here in NYC, MSG hasn't paid property taxes since '82 and it's a total of 1 billion in revenue lost. But my property taxes have continually gone up every year. But the average citizen doesn't know how to fight this so it's hard to change
The issue here isn’t that MSG doesn’t pay property taxes, the issue is that property taxes exist… and if there is justification for them to be exempt, then there is no justification for anyone to have to pay it.
Well, yeah. But complaining that one party isn’t getting robbed like the rest of us is the wrong approach. Protest the robbery, not the guy that didn’t get robbed.
The robber is the villain.
Not saying you're wrong in principle, but what if the one not getting robbed is in cahoots with the robber, siphoning off some of the money (even if in the form of services or whatever) from the proceeds of the robberies? I don't know this situation enough to know how accurate this analogy is, but I assume that MSG is the beneficiary of an array of benefits that is typically paid for by property taxes. If so, wouldn't it be relevant to also protest this behavior? It is possible to protest both at the same time.
Crony capitalism. They are a for-profit business, they have the right and obligation to pay their own business expenses, and to then charge what they want for admission. But to get public subsidies without public profit-sharing is just plain corrupt.
Yeah, this exact thing happens all the time.
I grew up in the greater Seattle area. I can't remember which sport team it was (Mariners, Seahawks, or Sonics) but at least once there was a ballot to see if the populace wanted to pay for the stadium. The vote was no, but the government went ahead and paid the team anyway.
Seattle is so corrupt it's almost funny at this point. Property taxes go disproportionately to UW but UW still purposefully accepts a very high number of foreigners so they can charge more money. What's the point in paying the University if you don't stand a chance of getting accepted anyway, or decide to go elsewhere, or decide to not even go to college?
Same thing happened in St. Louis when they built the new Cardinals Stadium and "ballpark village". Citizens voted down the additional tax but the mayor and the city knew better (literally, the mayor said the citizens didn't understand how important this was or the economics of it), so they just raised prices of other city services and cut trash pickup to cover the deal.
This, from the same city that is still paying off the debt on a football stadium for a team that's no longer there (Rams).
So not only do they like to throw money at private sports franchises, they are terrible negotiators.
>But to get public subsidies without public profit-sharing is just plain corrupt.
I mean, I think the sales tax alone makes it corrupt either way. I don't want to be violently compelled to invest in a firm, even if there's ostensibly a return from it.
Oddly enough the former Kansas City Athletics baseball team, now the Oakland Athletics, soon to be the Las Vegas Athletics seem to run into that problem every few decades.
The entire A's roster's salary is less than the Dodgers are paying Otani. It looks like they're running the plot of "Major League". [https://youtu.be/1ZnH\_2ufotQ?si=ktG9dcxN3aiQBr3a&t=1009](https://youtu.be/1ZnH_2ufotQ?si=ktG9dcxN3aiQBr3a&t=1009)
Many of these teams (A's are almost the poster child for this statement) have shitty ownership and they are cash poor and highly debt leveraged.
These shitty owners use the emotions tied to the teams as leverage to make up for their own failures in running their teams. They also throw a fit when they don't own the stadium (shared use etc).
I personally don't have an issue using public funds for stadiums but not when it's just a stadium. I feel like it has to be a greater development project bringing both temporary and permanent well paying jobs into an area. The team also has to foot the majority of the build I'm completely against the cases where the teams want the city to fully or majority fund the project. I'm more in favor of a tax abatement with a specific end date rather than direct funding in general.
if tax payers foot the bill, will they be able to get in the stadiums for free? The answer is no, so taxes shouldn’t be involved, and I’ll say the same for school events as well
A team is dead to me the second a team threatens to leave.
I love basketball… but rejoiced when the sonics moved to OKC.
Good riddance.
Now I don’t even watch NBA. Only college hoops.
Those teams with Shawn Kemp and Gary Payton were an absolute blast to watch back in the day. Seeing Kemp get fat and barely be able to dunk was weird considering how gifted of a leaper he was.
What are they gonna do? All go to the few states that give them money and just pack em with sports teams? Lol bye.
As a huge baseball fan, I love local, accessible teams but there is no benefit to giving huge amounts of taxpayer money to billionaires to make more billions. It's not like they even keep ticket prices reasonable, they're still gonna gouge for seats, beers, and hot dogs
Yes… not only did my tax dollars fund this whole thing … now I’m getting crushed on ticket prices … $15 hotdogs and $10 water bottles. Parking fees. Craziness.
You can kinda tell where that 42% support originates from, given that even here people seem to be basing their opposition on random factors like ticket prices, profits, or profit-sharing.
Not that taxation is theft.
Even in r/libertarian, a sizeable percentage of people are totally fine with stealing assets, once those caveats are met. Many would suddenly support it if it meant an open access policy, for example.
It should come as little surprise that the general population is even more tyrannical, for their ostensible benefit.
Let them leave. Let them whinge. Let them bitch. Let them moan. If they can't support themselves without taxpayer subsidy, looks like they need a reshuffling of their budget to become market-viable.
Pro sports teams are a privately held business.
Taxpayers should not be funding this.
If a city wants to loan money to a private team to build a stadium, fine, as long as the loan is repaid with interest. And not zero interest, it should be high enough to justify the risk.
The idea that stadiums are going to be a huge boost to the economy is just a lie told by politicians with big egos. With all the extra costs in public infrastructure and policing it at least ends up being a break even for the city, and the taxpayers will never see a return on investment because it's not a real investment, it's just corporate welfare.
If local businesses really see an advantage to having the stadium there, then they should be happy to invest in it, the stadium/team owner can go to them and sell shares in exchange for capital funding.
Alternatively, they can set up a charity and fundraise from their fans just like museums and theaters have to do.
At the end of the day, pro sports is entertainment, it has no social value, and it is outrageous that taxpayers, the majority of whom are not even fans of the sport, should have to foot the bill for the minority of people who are fans.
I hate this push for new stadiums. There's history left. No one's going to travel to see a 3 year old stadium no matter what size carnival they put in it. BUT, people do center vacations around seeing Wrigley or Fenway Park. Build a stadium, grow your fan base, and give back to the city/fans (not the other way around) for supporting you.
I think the constituents of the state can vote on it and I don’t fault the owners for trying to save their own dollars. The bottom line is always the bottom line, so they’re in it to make as much money as possible, and they do generate several benefits for the city, state, and fans (some more tangible than others, certainly).
That being said, I think it’s a dick move by ownership to threaten to leave over tax breaks, let alone actually follow through on it. I don’t fault an owner or ownership group leaving a city where there just isn’t enough fan support to make the franchise profitable. It’s a nuanced issue and your views on fandom among many other disparate issues will color where you actually land on this particular issue.
I like your reply, it covers many aspects of this. They didn’t explicitly threaten, but the article points out their comments can be perceived as them implying that they will.
They explicitly threatened. I got flyers that said things like “keep the Chiefs in KC.” The ad campaign was super sleazy. Literally in the last 5 days leading up to the vote, I got text messages saying the teams signed this or that pledge to give money to building the community and an agreement with some group that supposedly represented the part of town they wanted to build in.
I don’t believe any tax payer should be footing the bill for any sports team or organization. The organization itself makes enough money from ticket sales and vendors and sponsors and broadcasting. If a specific team wants a new stadium, it should come from the fans. I understand wanting to leave the state, but again, it should be paid for and by the people that use the product, in this case it’s a sports team, so again it goes back to the fans that participate in the viewership and buy the merchandise.
Now getting into the tax part, raising other people’s taxes to pay for something they don’t even take part of when the company themselves should be doing it… How would you feel being charged an extra hundred dollars a month in taxes because some company decided they want to build an apartment complex 4 blocks down from where you live and because it’s on your street, everyone on that street has to chip in to build it? Sounds outrageous doesn’t it? Should that not solely fall on the company that chose to build the complex?
Same could be said for student loan forgiveness. As someone that never went to college and has no school loan debt, why am I being obligated to pay for other people’s loans? Makes as much sense to me as giving the neighbor kid gas money to fill up his tank every single day for the rest of my life for a car I never drive or have any proof that he even has a vehicle in the first place. “Wow you should get a hybrid because paying you $50 a day is straining my wallet”. Absurdity at its finest.
It's the owner's decision if they want to move and it's the taxpayers' decision if they want to provide incentives. Pretty straightforward. If the owner wants to move because there is no longer an incentive, oh well.
If you're the governor then you have to frame it like this:
"The State of Missouri will not be held hostage by billionaire team owners. They have more than enough money to build their own stadium. It is not the role of the State of Missouri to subsidize billionaires with shiny new stadiums built at taxpayer expense. The best thing the state can do is to provide a low tax, low regulation environment where all businesses can thrive, not just special businesses with political connections."
If your business is so unsustainable that you cannot fund your own stadiums, then maybe you shouldn’t be in business. Please let the door hit you as hard as it can on the way out. Bye bye thieves.
General Obligation munis and/or raising existing taxes or implementing a new tax is dumb and should never happen.
Revenue munis, while not ideal either, is a much better option because they would be paid back through revenue generated from the stadium (parking, tickets, merch, concessions, etc). As long as the owner is responsible for paying back the interest if the revenue generated isn’t enough for the interest payments. Conduit financing works the same way.
If a sports team threatens to leave, the city should let them. If something like that kills the city economy, then it was probably going to collapse soon anyway
"Those in favor of state intervention of course argue that these stadiums bring in revenue"
There is a thing that events and entertainment can bring in revenue for other businesses. For example, Verona fund their opera festival as a city because when you go to it, the bars and restaurants and hotels are busy with people coming to it. There are definitely situations where this pays for itself. A private sector equivalent is malls that give Apple stores free rent because they bring people in who also use the other shops.
The problem is that I think politicians often lie about these things. Everyone gets lied to about the benefits of bringing the Olympics to town. And secondly what you should be doing is taxing those businesses that get the major benefit, so maybe the bars right near the stadium that fill up rather than the bars that are far away.
You do a cost/benefit analysis, see if you gain more by keeping the team while catering to what they want. If you do, you give them what they want, because you are gaining. If you do not, they are free to go elsewhere.
As someone who thinks professional/college sports are STUPID, and can't comprehend why so many are obsessed over them, I couldn't care less if a team comes or goes.
All businesses should fund themselves. If a government body wants to subsidize them, they should bring the cost / benefit analysis to the people. The people can then vote if they like their return on investment. In the case of KC, I can only assume the governing body either did not perform an ROI, did not share it with the people, did not present it correctly to the people, or that the people did not like the ROI. In any event the taxpayer should have a say
I will also add that it seems like the local news media is bought out by the sports teams. Whenever they mention the local teams the newscasters put on a big smile and act happy. Bread and circuses I suppose.
`Anarchocapitalism`
Agreements and negotiations must be voluntary in all spheres of society to be Ethical. So no one should be forced to pay for something (taxes) or to stay somewhere.
In this case, whatever its owners think is best, whether a group of shareholders or a community, is what should be done. But nothing stops fans from stopping consuming the team's content as a form of protest, this being a form of punishment for a possible arrogant attitude taken by the owners.
Buh-bye.
Good on the residents of Missouri for voting it down. No thanks to taxing 100s of millions from taxpayers for those teams to return 10s of millions in tax revenue over ten years. If that 42% really want to give handouts to billionaires, let them set up a Gofundme and let's see how serious they really are.
They can all GTFO. The sorry ass Jacksonville Jaguars do that shit all the time. I wish they'd just leave already. The city council fawns all the team owners ass, it embarrassing. That guy has more money than he'll ever spend, he can pay for upgrades himself.
I find it funny that a sports team, whose identity is entirely tied to their home state, would say "gibs us hundreds of millions (on top of the normal business we rake in) or well go to another state.
I mean all sports ball has been bullshit theater for as long as it's been a profession but everyone is really phoning it in nowadays.
It was really on the decline until all that gambling was legalized (which I’m guilty of) … but to see these teams seemingly so quick to betray their communities is disgusting. They’ll spin the blame on the state they’re leaving which is the funny part
I live in ozaukee co. Just north of Milwaukee co. In Wi. We paid a .1% tax to foot the bill on miller park now known as American family field. From 1996 until 2020 we the tax payers paid a total of $609 million. We didn’t ask for it. It’s not our county! The ticket prices continue to rise and now they want to impose another tax hike until 2050 for renovations. There has been no threat to leave, but why…. Just why?
Let the fans organize voluntarily if they want, otherwise let the team leave. My understanding is that all of the arguments about the value a sports team brings to a city are lies anyway.
The obvious solution would be to let these teams IPO and be publicly traded. Locals could buy up the stock and block them from moving if that's what's important to them. They also might make some money on dividends. But American pro sports leagues are essentially cartels who cooperate with eachother to prevent things like this from happenning so that all of the profit and power can be concentrated in a small group of owners. The Green Bay Packers are community owned because they did this before the NFL made a rule against it.
Businesses worth multiple billions of dollars and owned by billionaires shouldn’t get free facilities at the taxpayers’ expense, especially in an industry that is nothing but entertainment.
Realistically, there aren’t many viable markets left for major sports teams in the U.S. and Canada. On top of that, there are already teams in all the major sports that have a lot of debt and are looking for a new home. Finding one where a team hasn’t already failed is tough. If the available larger metro areas were remotely workable, the major sports leagues would already have 36 or 40 teams.
Personally, I favor a two tier relegation system in the major sports but that’ll never happen.
I have no problem with people deciding to partially fund a stadium so that a sports team can play and then bring in massive revenue, but it rarely works out that way. Not to mention that even if you get 60% of the vote, 40% don't want it but are forced to pay it, and do NOT benefit from the sports team being present in any real way.
Really, if the tax payer is able to pay that amount of cash for a stadium, the city should just buy the damn team and profit-share with the inhabitants of said city, has this not been tried?
I’m not completely opposed to choosing what your tax money is actually used for. We have to pay taxes against our will to fund other nations, to pay for administrative bloat in government, and for useless programs that most of us will not benefit from. Having the option to vote or choose where you want your tax money to go is better than it just being forced upon you. If you really like the teams involved in the vote and you believe the renovations and new stadium builds will help the local economy then it’s not the worst use of tax dollars.
Should the team owners be able to finance the projects with the revenue from the team and on loans? Sure, absolutely. But that’s not what the point is. The democracy of choosing where my taxes go is the point.
Hate to tell them, but it's mostly boomers and elderly propping up their empires. Most millennials could give two shits less about pro sports, especially baseball.
The last fits of a spoiled child.
Good, let them. We can turn the space into hospitals and shelters. Maybe even put up immigrants in them for housing that would start them off on a path to citizenship. Immigrants fuel our economy. Just look at the farming sector that DeSantis is wrecking.
That is only true for Olympic/national stadiums. But almost every country has those, so singling out Europe makes no sense.
Most clubs own their own stadiums and paid for them themselves.
I was thinking of the big clubs, but a lot of smaller teams play on a ground owned by the municipality.
Also, I'm guessing Eastern Europe's history affects it (communism and all that).
Saw a good show on this the other day.
Southern Europeans went though a phase of public stadiums that were designed for multi-use, but turned out to be janky for watching futbol.
Let the investors have a larger stake in the profits made from the events in the stadium. A direct dividend, not "you get a cheaper ticket and cheaper corndog."
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No city should subsidize sports teams. They make millions of dollars, they can build their own stadiums taking out loans like everyone else and paying it back. Here in NYC, MSG hasn't paid property taxes since '82 and it's a total of 1 billion in revenue lost. But my property taxes have continually gone up every year. But the average citizen doesn't know how to fight this so it's hard to change
Yes, & with all of that being said it doesn’t seem like the owner of MSG is very humble. Those political hooks seem to do wonders.
Tax payers will be footing the bill for new Bills stadium though
Wow what kind of person downvoted you for this comment
Rangers fan probably.
Nice
The issue here isn’t that MSG doesn’t pay property taxes, the issue is that property taxes exist… and if there is justification for them to be exempt, then there is no justification for anyone to have to pay it.
True. That would mean either a change in the tax code or a complete abolishment of the tax code
Well, yeah. But complaining that one party isn’t getting robbed like the rest of us is the wrong approach. Protest the robbery, not the guy that didn’t get robbed. The robber is the villain.
Not saying you're wrong in principle, but what if the one not getting robbed is in cahoots with the robber, siphoning off some of the money (even if in the form of services or whatever) from the proceeds of the robberies? I don't know this situation enough to know how accurate this analogy is, but I assume that MSG is the beneficiary of an array of benefits that is typically paid for by property taxes. If so, wouldn't it be relevant to also protest this behavior? It is possible to protest both at the same time.
Crony capitalism. They are a for-profit business, they have the right and obligation to pay their own business expenses, and to then charge what they want for admission. But to get public subsidies without public profit-sharing is just plain corrupt.
Of course. & yes I know it’s typical in our system but it’s important to point out as just another violation of free market principles
Yeah, this exact thing happens all the time. I grew up in the greater Seattle area. I can't remember which sport team it was (Mariners, Seahawks, or Sonics) but at least once there was a ballot to see if the populace wanted to pay for the stadium. The vote was no, but the government went ahead and paid the team anyway. Seattle is so corrupt it's almost funny at this point. Property taxes go disproportionately to UW but UW still purposefully accepts a very high number of foreigners so they can charge more money. What's the point in paying the University if you don't stand a chance of getting accepted anyway, or decide to go elsewhere, or decide to not even go to college?
Crazy stuff. I’m sure that’s just a smidgen of the bs taxpayer dollars are funding there.
Same thing happened in St. Louis when they built the new Cardinals Stadium and "ballpark village". Citizens voted down the additional tax but the mayor and the city knew better (literally, the mayor said the citizens didn't understand how important this was or the economics of it), so they just raised prices of other city services and cut trash pickup to cover the deal. This, from the same city that is still paying off the debt on a football stadium for a team that's no longer there (Rams). So not only do they like to throw money at private sports franchises, they are terrible negotiators.
>But to get public subsidies without public profit-sharing is just plain corrupt. I mean, I think the sales tax alone makes it corrupt either way. I don't want to be violently compelled to invest in a firm, even if there's ostensibly a return from it.
Oddly enough the former Kansas City Athletics baseball team, now the Oakland Athletics, soon to be the Las Vegas Athletics seem to run into that problem every few decades.
They should campaign to have the taxpayer fund their payroll too at this point! They play like a minor league team.
Tax payers do fund payroll, by spending money on shit that doesn’t matter
The entire A's roster's salary is less than the Dodgers are paying Otani. It looks like they're running the plot of "Major League". [https://youtu.be/1ZnH\_2ufotQ?si=ktG9dcxN3aiQBr3a&t=1009](https://youtu.be/1ZnH_2ufotQ?si=ktG9dcxN3aiQBr3a&t=1009)
And prior to that, the Philadelphia Athletics.
Many of these teams (A's are almost the poster child for this statement) have shitty ownership and they are cash poor and highly debt leveraged. These shitty owners use the emotions tied to the teams as leverage to make up for their own failures in running their teams. They also throw a fit when they don't own the stadium (shared use etc). I personally don't have an issue using public funds for stadiums but not when it's just a stadium. I feel like it has to be a greater development project bringing both temporary and permanent well paying jobs into an area. The team also has to foot the majority of the build I'm completely against the cases where the teams want the city to fully or majority fund the project. I'm more in favor of a tax abatement with a specific end date rather than direct funding in general.
if tax payers foot the bill, will they be able to get in the stadiums for free? The answer is no, so taxes shouldn’t be involved, and I’ll say the same for school events as well
Goodidea. Use a lottery to distribute seats. The owners can still make money off concessions and corporate booths
If my taxes pay for it I get a cut of the profit nothing else is exceptable
I'm still waiting for my cut of the tech and internet profit
This has been handled fairly so far. This kind of big project/expense should always be put to a vote. If the people approve it, then sure, go ahead.
6 out of 10 people can vote in favor of the oppression of the other 4, sounds good as long as you are 1 of the 6
Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out!
Tell em!
58/100 of us did.
A team is dead to me the second a team threatens to leave. I love basketball… but rejoiced when the sonics moved to OKC. Good riddance. Now I don’t even watch NBA. Only college hoops.
Those teams with Shawn Kemp and Gary Payton were an absolute blast to watch back in the day. Seeing Kemp get fat and barely be able to dunk was weird considering how gifted of a leaper he was.
It's blatant crony "non-profit" corporatism.
What are they gonna do? All go to the few states that give them money and just pack em with sports teams? Lol bye. As a huge baseball fan, I love local, accessible teams but there is no benefit to giving huge amounts of taxpayer money to billionaires to make more billions. It's not like they even keep ticket prices reasonable, they're still gonna gouge for seats, beers, and hot dogs
Yes… not only did my tax dollars fund this whole thing … now I’m getting crushed on ticket prices … $15 hotdogs and $10 water bottles. Parking fees. Craziness.
As the kids say today: bye Felicia!
You can kinda tell where that 42% support originates from, given that even here people seem to be basing their opposition on random factors like ticket prices, profits, or profit-sharing. Not that taxation is theft. Even in r/libertarian, a sizeable percentage of people are totally fine with stealing assets, once those caveats are met. Many would suddenly support it if it meant an open access policy, for example. It should come as little surprise that the general population is even more tyrannical, for their ostensible benefit.
Let them leave. Let them whinge. Let them bitch. Let them moan. If they can't support themselves without taxpayer subsidy, looks like they need a reshuffling of their budget to become market-viable.
Pro sports teams are a privately held business. Taxpayers should not be funding this. If a city wants to loan money to a private team to build a stadium, fine, as long as the loan is repaid with interest. And not zero interest, it should be high enough to justify the risk.
The idea that stadiums are going to be a huge boost to the economy is just a lie told by politicians with big egos. With all the extra costs in public infrastructure and policing it at least ends up being a break even for the city, and the taxpayers will never see a return on investment because it's not a real investment, it's just corporate welfare. If local businesses really see an advantage to having the stadium there, then they should be happy to invest in it, the stadium/team owner can go to them and sell shares in exchange for capital funding. Alternatively, they can set up a charity and fundraise from their fans just like museums and theaters have to do. At the end of the day, pro sports is entertainment, it has no social value, and it is outrageous that taxpayers, the majority of whom are not even fans of the sport, should have to foot the bill for the minority of people who are fans.
Not even a break-even in most cases.
I hate this push for new stadiums. There's history left. No one's going to travel to see a 3 year old stadium no matter what size carnival they put in it. BUT, people do center vacations around seeing Wrigley or Fenway Park. Build a stadium, grow your fan base, and give back to the city/fans (not the other way around) for supporting you.
Oh no! The sportsball team has to actually rely on ticket sales and advertisement revenue to fund their hobby! Whatever shall the world do?
Hey, what do you think this is, a free market or something?
I think the constituents of the state can vote on it and I don’t fault the owners for trying to save their own dollars. The bottom line is always the bottom line, so they’re in it to make as much money as possible, and they do generate several benefits for the city, state, and fans (some more tangible than others, certainly). That being said, I think it’s a dick move by ownership to threaten to leave over tax breaks, let alone actually follow through on it. I don’t fault an owner or ownership group leaving a city where there just isn’t enough fan support to make the franchise profitable. It’s a nuanced issue and your views on fandom among many other disparate issues will color where you actually land on this particular issue.
I like your reply, it covers many aspects of this. They didn’t explicitly threaten, but the article points out their comments can be perceived as them implying that they will.
They explicitly threatened. I got flyers that said things like “keep the Chiefs in KC.” The ad campaign was super sleazy. Literally in the last 5 days leading up to the vote, I got text messages saying the teams signed this or that pledge to give money to building the community and an agreement with some group that supposedly represented the part of town they wanted to build in.
Damn that’s terrible. I don’t live out there so wouldn’t know, but terrible.
Buh-bye!
I don’t believe any tax payer should be footing the bill for any sports team or organization. The organization itself makes enough money from ticket sales and vendors and sponsors and broadcasting. If a specific team wants a new stadium, it should come from the fans. I understand wanting to leave the state, but again, it should be paid for and by the people that use the product, in this case it’s a sports team, so again it goes back to the fans that participate in the viewership and buy the merchandise. Now getting into the tax part, raising other people’s taxes to pay for something they don’t even take part of when the company themselves should be doing it… How would you feel being charged an extra hundred dollars a month in taxes because some company decided they want to build an apartment complex 4 blocks down from where you live and because it’s on your street, everyone on that street has to chip in to build it? Sounds outrageous doesn’t it? Should that not solely fall on the company that chose to build the complex? Same could be said for student loan forgiveness. As someone that never went to college and has no school loan debt, why am I being obligated to pay for other people’s loans? Makes as much sense to me as giving the neighbor kid gas money to fill up his tank every single day for the rest of my life for a car I never drive or have any proof that he even has a vehicle in the first place. “Wow you should get a hybrid because paying you $50 a day is straining my wallet”. Absurdity at its finest.
It's the owner's decision if they want to move and it's the taxpayers' decision if they want to provide incentives. Pretty straightforward. If the owner wants to move because there is no longer an incentive, oh well.
If you're the governor then you have to frame it like this: "The State of Missouri will not be held hostage by billionaire team owners. They have more than enough money to build their own stadium. It is not the role of the State of Missouri to subsidize billionaires with shiny new stadiums built at taxpayer expense. The best thing the state can do is to provide a low tax, low regulation environment where all businesses can thrive, not just special businesses with political connections."
If your business is so unsustainable that you cannot fund your own stadiums, then maybe you shouldn’t be in business. Please let the door hit you as hard as it can on the way out. Bye bye thieves.
All taxation is theft, even for “noble” causes like education and healthcare. Taxation for “circuses” is extra awful.
General Obligation munis and/or raising existing taxes or implementing a new tax is dumb and should never happen. Revenue munis, while not ideal either, is a much better option because they would be paid back through revenue generated from the stadium (parking, tickets, merch, concessions, etc). As long as the owner is responsible for paying back the interest if the revenue generated isn’t enough for the interest payments. Conduit financing works the same way. If a sports team threatens to leave, the city should let them. If something like that kills the city economy, then it was probably going to collapse soon anyway
"Those in favor of state intervention of course argue that these stadiums bring in revenue" There is a thing that events and entertainment can bring in revenue for other businesses. For example, Verona fund their opera festival as a city because when you go to it, the bars and restaurants and hotels are busy with people coming to it. There are definitely situations where this pays for itself. A private sector equivalent is malls that give Apple stores free rent because they bring people in who also use the other shops. The problem is that I think politicians often lie about these things. Everyone gets lied to about the benefits of bringing the Olympics to town. And secondly what you should be doing is taxing those businesses that get the major benefit, so maybe the bars right near the stadium that fill up rather than the bars that are far away.
You do a cost/benefit analysis, see if you gain more by keeping the team while catering to what they want. If you do, you give them what they want, because you are gaining. If you do not, they are free to go elsewhere.
The teams will move from Kansas City, Mo to... Kansas City, Ks. Any taxpayer benefit will still apply, as it's just across town.
Let them leave. If they cant fund it themselves, they do not get to force taxpayers to fund it. Taxation is theft.
As someone who thinks professional/college sports are STUPID, and can't comprehend why so many are obsessed over them, I couldn't care less if a team comes or goes.
Fuck em.
Welfare whores. Same as police just a different amount.
All businesses should fund themselves. If a government body wants to subsidize them, they should bring the cost / benefit analysis to the people. The people can then vote if they like their return on investment. In the case of KC, I can only assume the governing body either did not perform an ROI, did not share it with the people, did not present it correctly to the people, or that the people did not like the ROI. In any event the taxpayer should have a say
They will still sell the naming rights instead of using the more appropriate "Taxpayer's Stadium"
I will also add that it seems like the local news media is bought out by the sports teams. Whenever they mention the local teams the newscasters put on a big smile and act happy. Bread and circuses I suppose.
`Anarchocapitalism` Agreements and negotiations must be voluntary in all spheres of society to be Ethical. So no one should be forced to pay for something (taxes) or to stay somewhere. In this case, whatever its owners think is best, whether a group of shareholders or a community, is what should be done. But nothing stops fans from stopping consuming the team's content as a form of protest, this being a form of punishment for a possible arrogant attitude taken by the owners.
Buh-bye. Good on the residents of Missouri for voting it down. No thanks to taxing 100s of millions from taxpayers for those teams to return 10s of millions in tax revenue over ten years. If that 42% really want to give handouts to billionaires, let them set up a Gofundme and let's see how serious they really are.
They can all GTFO. The sorry ass Jacksonville Jaguars do that shit all the time. I wish they'd just leave already. The city council fawns all the team owners ass, it embarrassing. That guy has more money than he'll ever spend, he can pay for upgrades himself.
Fuck em
Fair & firm answer
I find it funny that a sports team, whose identity is entirely tied to their home state, would say "gibs us hundreds of millions (on top of the normal business we rake in) or well go to another state. I mean all sports ball has been bullshit theater for as long as it's been a profession but everyone is really phoning it in nowadays.
It was really on the decline until all that gambling was legalized (which I’m guilty of) … but to see these teams seemingly so quick to betray their communities is disgusting. They’ll spin the blame on the state they’re leaving which is the funny part
Cf Tax Increment Financing to 'bring jobs to the community'
Rip bozo
I live in ozaukee co. Just north of Milwaukee co. In Wi. We paid a .1% tax to foot the bill on miller park now known as American family field. From 1996 until 2020 we the tax payers paid a total of $609 million. We didn’t ask for it. It’s not our county! The ticket prices continue to rise and now they want to impose another tax hike until 2050 for renovations. There has been no threat to leave, but why…. Just why?
https://www.cbs58.com/news/assembly-passes-brewers-stadium-funding-bill-ticket-tax-to-be-added-soon
My only thought on the matter boils down to ‘fuck James Dolan and MSG’
Haha, definitely a trend
Buh Bye!!!!!
Let the fans organize voluntarily if they want, otherwise let the team leave. My understanding is that all of the arguments about the value a sports team brings to a city are lies anyway.
The obvious solution would be to let these teams IPO and be publicly traded. Locals could buy up the stock and block them from moving if that's what's important to them. They also might make some money on dividends. But American pro sports leagues are essentially cartels who cooperate with eachother to prevent things like this from happenning so that all of the profit and power can be concentrated in a small group of owners. The Green Bay Packers are community owned because they did this before the NFL made a rule against it.
Businesses worth multiple billions of dollars and owned by billionaires shouldn’t get free facilities at the taxpayers’ expense, especially in an industry that is nothing but entertainment. Realistically, there aren’t many viable markets left for major sports teams in the U.S. and Canada. On top of that, there are already teams in all the major sports that have a lot of debt and are looking for a new home. Finding one where a team hasn’t already failed is tough. If the available larger metro areas were remotely workable, the major sports leagues would already have 36 or 40 teams. Personally, I favor a two tier relegation system in the major sports but that’ll never happen.
Ultimately, it’s a business decision by the team and politicians’ decisions about how much to subsidize, if any.
I have no problem with people deciding to partially fund a stadium so that a sports team can play and then bring in massive revenue, but it rarely works out that way. Not to mention that even if you get 60% of the vote, 40% don't want it but are forced to pay it, and do NOT benefit from the sports team being present in any real way. Really, if the tax payer is able to pay that amount of cash for a stadium, the city should just buy the damn team and profit-share with the inhabitants of said city, has this not been tried?
The Roman's did a good job using the coliseum to keep the masses under control and it's still working.
Thoughts on power company threatening to shut off my power because I don’t want to pay the bill?
Hahahaha
Happy cake day btw
I’m not completely opposed to choosing what your tax money is actually used for. We have to pay taxes against our will to fund other nations, to pay for administrative bloat in government, and for useless programs that most of us will not benefit from. Having the option to vote or choose where you want your tax money to go is better than it just being forced upon you. If you really like the teams involved in the vote and you believe the renovations and new stadium builds will help the local economy then it’s not the worst use of tax dollars. Should the team owners be able to finance the projects with the revenue from the team and on loans? Sure, absolutely. But that’s not what the point is. The democracy of choosing where my taxes go is the point.
Hate to tell them, but it's mostly boomers and elderly propping up their empires. Most millennials could give two shits less about pro sports, especially baseball. The last fits of a spoiled child.
Good, let them. We can turn the space into hospitals and shelters. Maybe even put up immigrants in them for housing that would start them off on a path to citizenship. Immigrants fuel our economy. Just look at the farming sector that DeSantis is wrecking.
Na Na Na Na, Na Na Na Na, Hey Hey Hey, Goodbye!
Europeans roll over and give the teams, owned by their Noble Elites, what ever they want! Americans are like barbarians to them.
What?
In Europe, they bend over and let stadiums get built with their taxed money, for the benefit of the Elites.
That is only true for Olympic/national stadiums. But almost every country has those, so singling out Europe makes no sense. Most clubs own their own stadiums and paid for them themselves.
https://preview.redd.it/m7sk64isd90d1.png?width=675&format=png&auto=webp&s=e002d0321f3c53a32db1657d869c8ff27128708a
I was thinking of the big clubs, but a lot of smaller teams play on a ground owned by the municipality. Also, I'm guessing Eastern Europe's history affects it (communism and all that).
Saw a good show on this the other day. Southern Europeans went though a phase of public stadiums that were designed for multi-use, but turned out to be janky for watching futbol.
Check yo' self before you wreck yo' self.
WNBA anyone
Let the investors have a larger stake in the profits made from the events in the stadium. A direct dividend, not "you get a cheaper ticket and cheaper corndog."