Prickly City by Scott Stantis for May 17, 2024

They’ll OK it, only $1 billion.

Sure, that’s way it done. A temporary increase in sales tax that never goes away.

They don’t put that stuff up for a vote.

It’s decided behind closed doors and then announced, along with a claim of what a financial benefit it will be to the community and how many jobs it is expected to create.

I guess I kinda think if a rich guy wants a stadium built, he ought to, y’kknow, build it. Arlington, Texas, which is really more a suburb of Fort Worth than Dallas, got the Cowboys because they got their taxpayers to pay a big share of the bill for that monstrosity there. I wonder if those taxpayers got their money’s worth from the three big stadiums, one of which was a mistake from the start (an open-air ballfield for use in the Texas summer).

It’s interesting that modern capitalists believe Government shouldn’t interfere in the marketplace. Except when the Government is handing public money to a single profit-making corporation.

Talk about the long con, pro sports.

The people who vote “yes” should be the ones paying for that nonsense.

Never forgave Pat Bowlen. Threatened to move the Broncos if the city did not pay for a new stadium. He paid zilch. Residents got screwed. I love football and I am a Broncos fan, but I would have happily waved bye-bye if he carried through on his threat.

Pro sports teams only make money for their owners. Claims of them being beneficial, creating decent paying jobs, etc. have been disproved.

After the people vote it down they will confiscate public money and build it anyway.

It’s beginning to look like the days of city/county/state owned mega stadiums for the major league sports teams are going to be a thing of the past – hopefully. Rather than taxing the poor citizens that most can’t afford to attend, the billionaire team owners/groups can build their own dang stadiums!

KC voters voted NO on the proposal to build a new stadium for the Chiefs and Royals. The owners are rich, they want a new stadium let them pay for it

I quit watching baseball when Houston did this. Funny, I never miss it.

I’m done spending my time on major sports.

A Stadium for WHAT? We’re in a little bitty desert town—-population 1,200.

I’m curious to see and hear public reactions to requested levies for continued, or additional, funding for their local public schools systems; curious to plumb the depth of dissatisfaction, if any, with the status quo.

So the question is, is she laughing at the idea of Prickly City having a sports stadium; is she laughing at the idea that taxpayers would SUPPORT the idea if it were put to a vote after an honest accounting of the costs…….. or is she laughing at the idea that their local government would ever actually allow the public’s INPUT on such a decision?

Adding injury to the insult, team owners selling naming rights for those stadiums. At least the Browns took their name back*, after Direct Energy was caught in a billing scandal. Of course that didn’t affect the Gerrymandered districts from voting GOP congress for their part in it. ………………..*The name we had to fight to get back, after Modell moved the team to Baltimore.

As much money as MLB and the NFL make, they should pay at least 50% of the costs of building new stadiums. Owners pay 40%. The other 10% could be from the city, county, and state.Same goes for the NBA, NHL and any other sport needing an arena.

In Chicago, the Bears want a new stadium. The White Sox want a new stadium. The soccer team wants a new stadium. There are rosy projections that even though there will be a billion dollar public subsidy for the Bears, no new taxes will be required. (Not actually even true, since this would extend taxes that are scheduled to expire, and if history is any guide, hopelessly optimistic.)

If you watch on TV, which most of us do because the tickets/parking/concessions are ruinously expensive now, what difference does the stadium make to us, anyway?