Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 296 posts

Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums

#111

Post by ahallock »

wongarsu wrote: post #40
ajross wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would one propose to make it illegal for an elected government to finance construction of a public building? I mean, yeah, sports stadiums are wasteful. But how would you draft that such that it wouldn't eliminate libraries and museums? I mean, I agree with you in spirit but at the end of the day the whole point of a democratic government is that it's empowered to work to better our collective lives. And that has…

Sure, allow the government to construct sports stadiums. The government can then make it free for any sports team to use (though preferential treatment of any one team has to be prevented), and since it's a public building any revenue generated from ticket sales goes towards operating the building, with leftovers going back to the government (just like libaries, museums etc). There's nothing really wrong with that. N…

There is something really wrong with that. The government is taking on concerns outside its core responsibilities. Sports are non-critical entertainment and that's something the government should not be creating. We can discuss regulations, zoning, and other ways government could be involved, but a lot of people don't use these stadiums, and I'm sure they'd prefer their tax money and gov resources be spent on more crucial infrastructure.

Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums

#112

Post by ironmagma »

mathattack wrote: post #89

I cringe when I see SF bringing the Warriors to town. Why not use the space for housing? It’s not like Cincinnati where you need Sports attractions to draw people to the area. Having a Sports Team May help local restaurants, but I would think so would more houses. When there are so many homeless people, the housing stock is more important than a stadium.

Apparently, San Franciscans think housing inhibits quality of life. Talking to a few people for here it’s as though the most important thing about the city is having a nice sunlight during the day, and being able to see some of the sky without looking upwards, not unimportant things like poverty or having properly funded service workers.

Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums

#113

Post by cmorgan31 »

logifail wrote: post #90
cmorgan31 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t quantify love or sentiment unless you accept brand loyalty and subjective measures. It seems like a silly thing to request but perhaps that is your point. If these were ballot initiatives for funding similar to public transport you would see a bit more rejections from anyone outside of the city centers. If we go by popular vote you will likely see most cities vote to keep their teams because we’ve all been…

>> If we go by popular vote you will likely see most cities vote to keep their teams Source? >> because we’ve all been raised to think of them as ours despite owning nothing. Not sure why there should be a connection between public funding for teams and teams staying in any particular city. If all cities stopped public funding for privately-owned sports teams, the teams would still need a place to call "home". The ow…

I’m not implicitly agreeing that a connection should exist, but I’m also not going to pretend it doesn’t. Sports are a huge part of American culture and is one of the least contentious elements. I don’t have a source which empirically states “most cities would vote for the team” other than brand loyalty statistics which don’t correlate perfectly to this conversation. I’m attempting to discuss the less tangible aspect of this arrangement and why it is a bit of a radical variable in anyone trying to address this lopsided agreement. If you discount sentiment you aren’t even attempting to see why sports teams appeal to people and why they haven’t revolted at the thought of subsidizing them. I am not speaking in favor of subsidizing them or maintaining a status quo but instead I am trying to help quantify a city’s love of a team. I won’t even broach the topic of college stadiums and athletic fees but it might be one area that does have research on this topic.

Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums

#114

Post by tylersmith »

skellera wrote: post #105
tylersmith wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those people wouldn't lose health coverage if they had enough value to afford it from their own labor. If they don't make enough to afford health care then who benefits from them being healthy/alive? I don't find the fact that they'll whine and burn things down a convincing reason to subsidize their lives. Eventually they'll burn out and without healthcare they'll stop being a problem.

You’re entitled to your opinion but maybe try to state it in a less inflammatory way. You seem to have lived a privileged life if you cannot see the value in helping those who cannot afford it. The cost of healthcare in the US prices those people out. I hope you are never in a position to require help to get out of a bad situation. As someone who used the various programs to pull myself out of a bad situation to now…

> You seem to have lived a privileged life if you cannot see the value in helping those who cannot afford it.

I was asking what that value is and afaict you are not answering it. But I'm sincerely asking, how does each individual tax payer benefit from you making a good living now such that they should have been forced to pay for you?

I was very much in a bad situation with my health while not having insurance. I couldn't get up off the floor for nearly a year due to spinal issues. I worked until I could afford to resolve the issue. Nobody else had any benefit from me surviving. Should they have had to pay for me to get surgery sooner?

Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums

#115

Post by seanmcdirmid »

rnd0 wrote: post #68
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember the Seattle vote back in the mid-90s, we clearly rejected it but they went ahead with it anyways.

I lived there then; as I remember it was put to the ballot two or three times -and when it kept getting voted down they basically just said "screw it" and built it anyway.

They passed a hotel occupancy tax by council vote alone to build it if I remember correctly...and the tax is still going on today. I'm far from a anti-tax conservative, but I feel like this is the wrong thing to be taxing for.

Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums

#116

Post by Retric »

kippinitreal wrote: post #109
mathattack wrote: post #89

I cringe when I see SF bringing the Warriors to town. Why not use the space for housing? It’s not like Cincinnati where you need Sports attractions to draw people to the area. Having a Sports Team May help local restaurants, but I would think so would more houses. When there are so many homeless people, the housing stock is more important than a stadium.

FWIW the Chase Center is 100% privately financed. SF is actually benefitting from private investment into public transportation to/from the arena. Public housing is great, but it’s not like the city chose this instead of that.

Zoning is up to the city so it chose this. SF does not need public housing, even 1 million dollar condos in a high rise would help.

Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums

#118

Post by AceyMan »

existencebox wrote: post #16
ams6110 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But how would you draft that such that it wouldn't eliminate libraries and museums Maybe we should. These days, public libraries are little more than homeless shelters. I haven't been to one in at least 5 years for that reason, and printed books are largely irrelevant in today's world anyway. Museums could be operated by private non-profits and foundations. No need to have taxpayers directly finance their construct…

This is such an absurd comment I have to counter it. The library near me is wonderful, and my wife regularly goes there just because of how peaceful it is and how broad their e-book collection is for her bus rides. I'm in a normal no-name township, nothing particularly wealthy. Same goes for the library where I grew up, and from visits back, it's in about the same state. Volunteer work there was integral to my growin…

Countering anecdotal experience:

I live in a wealthy (high COL, at least) area, and I see what the GP referred to.

Housing here is very expensive, ergo, living spaces are small, so I tried to go to the library to get some "real studying" done on my own time — every time the city library was slap full (all booths and chairs occupied) with 95% homeless folk.

I love and appreciate city run libraries but IME they are directly suffering from the lack of social support and affordable housing to that portion of the population.

(me: lives in West Los Angeles/Beach Cities area)

Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums

#119

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ajross wrote: post #10
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How would one propose to make it illegal for an elected government to finance construction of a public building? State constitutional amendments requiring a referendum.

Well, sure. That works if these things are unpopular. They're not. That's the problem. Lost in the discussion of how many hundreds of million dollars St. Louis lost in its relationship with the Rams is the fact that the city loved that team and the stadium construction was a huge deal and a big political victory. The underlying flaw in the reasoning here is that it's all based on a personal feeling that "My governmen…

> That works if these things are unpopular. They're not.

I don’t have a comprehensive statistic, but almost every time I read about stadium subsidies being put to a vote (or a poll), the funding is rejected [1][2][3][4].

[1] http://www.golocalprov.com/politics/golocal-statewide-poll-j...

[2] https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2016/07/28/poll-finds-...

[3] https://www.ktnv.com/news/political/ktnvrasmussen-poll-voter...

[4] https://amp.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/voter-revolt-on-stadiums...

Post reply on HN