There seem to be baseball fans here. If you are taxpayers, how do you feel about paying part of the cost of sports stadiums?

Seems like rich guys are eager to buy teams, but when it comes stadium building time, they won't do it without public money. Probably for the same reason dogs lick themselves down below - because they can.

Here in Minneapolis, Carl Pohlad, Twins owner, 90 years old, worth 2,800,000,000 dollars, will not put up more than 135 million for his 600 million dollar stadium. He'll get his money back in three years.

Ball fans, this is your MLB.

Read Jim Bouton's book on stadium finance. It's terriffic.

Only the airlines and military contractors get more unnecessary help from government.

Fix these goddamn potholes in the road before you go spending my tax dollars on a goddamn stadium.

Up here in Seattle, we have two stadiums, right next to one another. Now the team is threatening a move, and...well, I'm sure you know the rest of the story. More public funds, in the form of 'incentives', to subsidize private profit. I'm not anti-capitalist, but what passes for 'capitalism' in this country could just as easily be called something else.

caffeine head wrote:There seem to be baseball fans here. If you are taxpayers, how do you feel about paying part of the cost of sports stadiums?

Well, I don't care for it at all.

Thanks for asking!

Hey, if you ever want to see a bunch of tax tightwads in action, then spend a little time in Idaho. These fuckers would rather see Stephen Hawking roll through traffic than spend a few bucks on a curb cut.

steve wrote:Read Jim Bouton's book on stadium finance. It's terriffic.

Only the airlines and military contractors get more unnecessary help from government.

I didn't know about that book. I've been a Bouton fan for many moons. Got it on order now.

The stadium thing happened so fast. I remember when they built Camden Yards and how cool everybody thought it was. The teams all had to have a new stadium beacause it would be the savior of baseball where interest was waning. They were right.
Here in Houston, we have always had a winning ballclub. The Astros have been perennially one of the top teams in their division for as long as I can remember. Always competitive, even when shitty. The Astrodome was a giant symmetrical meatlocker but it was home. I never gave a shit about the turf or the roof, freezing my balls off, crummy sightlines....Hmmm, nevermind, the Dome sucked. The point is, I didn't know it sucked until I was being reminded on every broadcast. I had been to other parks around the country and enjoyed the experience but I didn't mind going to the Dome.
The new place is a fucking circus. It's so Texas it hurts. Completely over the top and lame. Enron field.
The team and the media they own just hammered the thing. The city was hijacked into paying for lots of it. And visitors. Rental car tax. Hotel tax. Like anybody vacations in Houston. It could be worse, though. Seattle payed a lot more(their stadium is much nicer.)
Sorry, this is pointless rambling. I stop. New ballparks, NOT CRAP. Manipulating the city into paying for it, CRAP.

steve wrote:Read Jim Bouton's book on stadium finance. It's terriffic.

Only the airlines and military contractors get more unnecessary help from government.

Maybe because while people are in a stadium, watching baseball or soccer, they don't think about protesting against the Government's or the Mayor's policies. To entertain people is the key for a "quiet" political system, not only in the US but everywhere. Roman emperors had understood this 2000 years ago.

The other point is that the American Professional Sport teams aren't tied to one city. If the city of San Francisco doesn't give enough money to the Giants, they could move to Portland and become the Portland Giants. Teams use this to threaten the municipalities and obtain more public money.
In Europe, soccer teams are "cities" teams.

Maybe the citizens of Miami and Minneapolis could hold bake sales?

Not a bad idea. I could bake some lemon squares.