Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Government Funding for Athletic Stadiums

When watching many sporting events throughout the week, one may notice all
of the beautiful stadiums and facilites that these games or contests are
being played at. Some of these venues are historic and have a lot if
history in them, such as Fenway Park for the Boston Red Sox, Wrigley Field
for the Chicago Cubs, Lambeau Field, home of the Green Bay Packers, Soldier
Field, home of the Chicago Bears, Madison Square Garden for the New York
Knicks, and many others that can be thought of as well. There are also many
new and very modern and state of the art venues that teams compete at now a
days as well. Some examples include Nationals Park, home of the Washington
Nationals, the University of Phoenix Stadium, which plays host to the
Arizona Cardinals, and Cisco Field, home of the Oakland Athletics, as well
as many other teams and universities that are in the planning or building
stages for new stadiums as well, like the new Yankee Stadium and City Bank
Park, which will play host to the New York Mets next season. The
debate that is heating up about these stadiums is whether or not the
cities in which they are built should have to provide funding to build
the stadiums or should the teams themselves have to pay for all of the
building.

If a professional athletic team is going to put their name on a
stadium and call it theirs, doesn't it only seem fair that they then
pay for all of the funding needed to build the stadium? I can
understand a city paying a team, or giving them incentives, to come
and build their stadiums in a certain city, if it is what the citizens
of that city want, but to pay for a large quanitity of the total cost
of the new stadium is just crazy. There are many other things that
the tax payers of that city can be using their money for besides
helping to fund millions of dollars in a stadium, that many of the
citizens may never go to a single game at. For instance, the city of
Arlington, Texas has paid over $325 million for the building of the $1
billion dollar stadium (Star-Telegram.com), and the city of New York
has paid over $350 million of the $1.3 billion project which is due to
be completed by next season. (WORLD Magazine). Should the citizens of
these cities be responsible for paying their tax money and putting it
toward a state of the art stadium as these, or should they be using
all of that revenue for something that is better for the economy in
their city? I don't think that the city shold be responsible at all
for providing funding for these venues. The teams themselves have
enough money and funding coming in that they can afford the expence of
these new stadiums. If at the time that a team wants a new stadium
they can't afford the expense, they should have to wait and save the
proper funds to build a new stadiums. It is crazy to think that these
big teams with millions and billions of dollars in profit and budget
should make these cities pay for their billion dollar stadiums and
venues.

Making a city pay millions and millions of dollars in tax revenue to
go toward a new stadium for a team in the city is a lot to ask of
cities these days with they way the economy is going. The cities
should be able to spend tax revenue in other ways than to be forced to
put it toward the building of a team's stadium. The teams are who is
making the big money off of these stadiums anyway. The teams get
money from the tickets, concessions, programs, and anything else that
can be sold at a sporting event. With all the money that a team can
make from each game, it might only take a few years to save for a new
stadium, instead of wanting go build a new one right away and asking
for the city and its citizens to pay millions of dollars for the
building costs. I think that cities and their citizens should stay
all out of the funding for these stadiums, and the teams should be
held responsible for the funding for their own stadiums. They are the
ones that are going to use them and play games there, so they should
be the ones that have to pay for the building costs of them.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

As much as I like watching Monday Night Football, each team should be held accountable for their own stadium. Our government has spending problems of its own and cannot, should not, be paying a penny for a professional sports team stadium. Government needs to be fiscal.

yoda said...

In reality, the teams are paying for these stadiums. The money they use from the city is like a loan. Over time, the team pays back the city with the money it earns on the ballparks and at the same time the parks help generate revenue for the city. Think about it. On an average night there are around 40.00 people in a baseball park. Not all of these people can afford to drive to the game and pay for parking. They use public transportation like subways or buses. How do you get on the subways or buses? You pay for a ticket. Cha Ching. Huge amounts of revenue for the cities. And also the people that do drive to the games pay for parking in the city which provides more revenue for the city. These stadium deals dont really take the money of the city and say thanks for the cash and you'll never see a penny back. The city benefits greatly from these parks and stadiums because they draw people to the city and are almost like tourist attractions.

Lola said...

I agree! Cities should not be forced to pay for new stadiums, especially if the team already has a suitable stadium. The teams should pay for this they may receive help however from their sponsors, like Minute Maid Park in Houston for the Astros, paid for naming rights which was used to pay for the stadium.

Anonymous said...

I'd have to agree with yoda on this one. Believe it or not, when a city makes a stadium, they aren't depleting their bank accounts. They're adding more money to them. Of course, they do have to spend quite a bit to create the stadium initially, but over time they end up gathering a huge revenue. That's why the government creates these stadiums in the first place.

Anonymous said...

This is a very tough issue. I don't think it's right for teams to force cities into paying for stadiums by saying "pay for a new stadium or we're moving to a new city." However, if a city wants to voluntarily put some money into a stadium as an investment they should have every right to do that. It's really up to the individual teams and cities on a case-by-case basis whether public funding is a good or bad idea.

jumbo hippo said...

I think it's important for cities to pay for the stadium and not just the team. It's kind of what Yoda said but the people who go to to the games might stay at a hotel or eat at a resturant, these things give money back to the state. So, I think it's important for the state to contribute to the funding because it helps local businesses prosper as well as the team.

Anonymous said...

Yoda is completely right. It is a loan...haven't you ever played madden? You take a loan for the stadium and it gets paid back. I can't believe anyone in Omaha would complain. If you owned a restaurant in Omaha, your business booms during the college world series. Big stadiums also hold almost 80,000 people. Tickets are about 60 bucks. 7% of 480,000 dollars is 33,600 dollars, not including on site vending. 33,600 dollars right back to the government every home game...who is complaining now?

yoda let the force be with you =]