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Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums

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Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums

#241

Post by sgt101 »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #154
drugme wrote: post #152

Elected officials have been played by team owners and sports leagues. The article conveniently neglects to mention one of the more notable examples of a certain very well known official getting "played" in this fashion (for the benefit of a certain hugely unnecessary sports arena on the edge of downtown Brooklyn): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Bloomberg

Not even sure it's correct to say elected officials are being played. Quite often they're sitting on the same side of the negotiating table as the team owner without no one there to represent the public. In most cases with a few notable exceptions, the elected officials are as rah-rah for a new stadium as the team owner. Which is why in so many jurisdictions they no longer allow the public to vote on stadium funding.…

I suspect that democracy is actually a driver here. I think that it's possible that the calculation is that "fans" will vote for a representative who backs the stadium where as most other voters will not care about the issue, and will switch off when it's raised as it's a "sports" thing. If you don't back the stadium then your opponent's will and you'll be out! Also I guess this falls into the "any publicity is good" bucket - so you back the stadium and the rich folks driving it will ensure that you are at events where the TV cameras are running and your face is on the screen.

Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums

#242

Post by sgt101 »

onetimemanytime wrote: post #238
rexpop wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very few Americans own land, and very few would benefit from such a land value rise.

He who owns a home, owns land (unless some other arrangement is made??)

It's very different. If you own a home next to the stadium you will likely loose out because every match day is a hell day for you (gridlock, noise, pollution) and the construction traffic will also be horrible. The money you will get for your house will likely be less than the money you will get before the stadium comes. On the other hand if you own a few "lots" or a strip of land near the stadium then you will make much money - a simple play is to turn the tumbleweed into parking, and sure as eggs are eggs you'll get $20 + per car sized space per match, which is a lot more than little or nothing! More investment and you could put cheap 5+1 development there, the retail can be focused on food and fan shops, the apartment will appeal to incomers.

Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums

#243

Post by snapdangle »

sgt101 wrote: post #241
Mountain_Skies wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even sure it's correct to say elected officials are being played. Quite often they're sitting on the same side of the negotiating table as the team owner without no one there to represent the public. In most cases with a few notable exceptions, the elected officials are as rah-rah for a new stadium as the team owner. Which is why in so many jurisdictions they no longer allow the public to vote on stadium funding.…

I suspect that democracy is actually a driver here. I think that it's possible that the calculation is that "fans" will vote for a representative who backs the stadium where as most other voters will not care about the issue, and will switch off when it's raised as it's a "sports" thing. If you don't back the stadium then your opponent's will and you'll be out! Also I guess this falls into the "any publicity is good"…

Sorry, but that seems a bit confused. If there are not enough votes for a stadium, then there will not be enough votes to throw out a candidate for "not backing" a stadium.

Not allowing people a voice in the question and then blaming democracy for it? You can't blame an abstract system of government for sports owners making sweatheart deals that ignore public sentiment.

Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums

#244

Post by sgt101 »

jm4 wrote: post #162
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.

You think people are homeless because there is not enough housing available in the city? How many homes do you think you could build on the same plot of land as a basketball arena? Several hundred? Maybe a thousand condos? That’s like spitting in the ocean. And then what? Give them away to the homeless? It’s not like they’re going to pay for them just because you made a few more available. Housing is expensive in big…

Also housing is expensive because there are not enough appropriate houses.

Even in SF with the legendary homeless problems there 1000 people off the streets would make a gigantic impact.

But what about building a giant homeless shelter instead of a stadium? Or.. how about having homeless dorms in the stadium? May be just trying would help?

Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums

#245

Post by snapdangle »

flattone wrote: post #195
hedora wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. They can pass them to their kids, and it won’t trigger reassessment. > 60% of houses like that in the LA area are rented out for tax arbitrage reasons by the kids that inherited them. They can buy multiple houses rent them out, and then let the kids live in them when they grow up. Also, businesses can own multiple properties and sell them without reassessment (there is a well-known loophole involving shell comp…

Yeah I don't understand aggression toward long time residents. Like... On what basis is anyone wanting to move I to an area and opposed to... Exactly what's good about the area. More population density in SF sounds like a deal breaker to me. It's already not worth any money to me to move between SF and mtv. Tried it for years. It's terrible already .

This also boggles my mind. The only ones allowed a say in what happens to a city are.. the people just moving to it? Aka the same ones who are responsible for a majority of the current issues?

Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums

#246

Post by fnordsensei »

ironmagma wrote: post #112
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.

Also, if you've bought a home, increased supply might mean that your "investment" (because homes now seem to be primarily investments rather than a place to live) becomes less valuable.

No, if you've bought a home, you want ever increasing prices. But people forget that during the first half of life, you generally try to move somewhere bigger each time you move. If prices increase 10% on average, your $500k property is now worth around $550. Yay!

However, the house you want to buy, that cost $1m when you bought your current property, now costs $1.1m. So actually, you lost $50k for the standard of living you're looking for, rather than gained it.

If prices decreased 10%, you would seem to have lost $50k, until you want to move somewhere bigger and therefore can cash in the proportionally bigger "discount".

Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums

#247

Post by snapdangle »

slg wrote: post #234
rossjudson wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please say "false equivalence" to yourself, as many times as you can. You're going to compare a public park to a stadium? Go to a stadium without a ticket, and see for yourself just how "public" it is. Really, really large numbers of people use public parks. Small, small numbers of people (by percentage, in large metro regions) ever see the inside of a stadium. While I understand that there are many that enjoy profes…

You are missing basically the whole point of my comment. You don't have to enter a stadium or even pay a cent to a sports team to get utility from it. You can watch a game on free over-the-air TV or you can enjoy the communal aspects that other comments in this thread have mentioned. The business is generating positive externalities and therefore it might be appropriate to subsidize it. Also, you might not want your…

> Also, you might not want your tax dollars going to support professional sports, but many people do. That was my other point. We live in a democracy and the people generally are in favor of sports.

So let the taxpayers vote! If a majority wants to waste their money, then let them. But even then it is an absolute waste no matter your arguments because these are commercial entities backed by obscenely wealthy interests _that can afford to build them themselves_.

Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums

#248

Post by snapdangle »

slg wrote: post #237
ken wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One big difference is that artists pay to use a venue for a performance. Sports teams get the city to pay to build the stadium, and keep the profits. When I go to the theatre or the symphony or the ballet or the opera, the programs and the placards in the lobby always make it clear that most of their funding comes from donations from big companies (in Seattle: always Boeing and Microsoft) and private donors. If we're…

Do you think there is a conspiracy to keep local art off TV? Or maybe the reason that you don't see the Seattle Pops on TV more is because broadcasters can't make money since people won't watch them? Sports are popular. That always seems to be a shock to people in the type of circles that frequent HN, but it is the underlying fact that allows sports teams to get these subsidizes in the first place.

Nobody at a concert is going to wait through commercial breaks, for starters.

Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums

#249

Post by masonic »

tylersmith wrote: post #58
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…

You're getting heavily downvoted but at least here in san jose what you're saying is true. Many libraries are now literal homeless shelters. My wife is a librarian and her libarary just became a shelter despite the constant problems that are the homeless. She has to clean human shit off the childrens' computers but they keep inviting this mess in.

Plus, San Jose allows porn to be viewed on the public computers without even privacy screens.

Re: Taxpayers Should Never Subsidize Stadiums

#250

Post by ferongr »

L_Rahman wrote: post #200
almost_usual wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is like beating a dead horse. People move to SF, complain there isn’t enough housing, do this for a few years and either leave or realize it’s not going to change. It is the way it is, it’s not changing in a year a or two. This is a generational thing that will take at least a decade if not longer to change. The End. Don’t believe me? Check this comment in five years. Call it NIMBY call it whatever you want but…

Their actions have a moral cost and the people who pay those costs aren't the tech transplants, they're literally every other kind of person who slowly finds themselves unable to live in a place that is just as much their home as the owners of property. Schoolteachers, firefighters, garbage truck drivers, restaurant workers, people who lost their job, people in temporary unemployment and in need of retraining. I unde…

Morality is a spook. There are no "moral costs".
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