With all these pending moves and stadium funding I'm always fuzzy on funding.
In most cases teams want some or all funding to come from the taxpayers. How does this work?
Once the stadium is completed do the teams pay enormous property taxes?
100s of jobs are created from new stadium?
Who gets the bulk of the proceeds from events held their not associated with the team (like say for example a Milli Vanilli concert)?
In Chicago, only the White Sox got funding, and this was as a result of their bluff to move the team to FL. The city kicked in money, and the state of IL pays them if attendance drops below a certain level (which it seems to every year)
The Bears paid for most of their remodeling themselves even though they don't own Soldier Field, and the Cubs are paying for 100% of the Wrigley Field upgrades, although they did seek funding from the city.
All ticket proceeds from the Milli Vanilli and MC Hammer concerts go to Juice. Juice we will be cutting you a check for $13.73 next week.
I think most of the times, cities have development authorities that are involved in these huge projects.
And many times, the money is coming from taxes on hotels. So they sell it as a tax on visitors. And bonds. Depending on the project.
Very complex just by reading rockstars post about Chicago.
So the Cubs would be like, you spending a bunch of money upgrading an apartment you rent.
Bears were like "we need money" and when the city said "no" they were like "fuck it we have money and will just pay for it ourselves."
White Sox were like "our stadium is in the hood, nobody comes here, please send money." The city said "yeah you're in the hood, we'll mail you a check just because you're not the Cubs."
Most stadium deals only benefit the team owner. The cities think that the revenue generated by the team simply being there will pay back their money stolen form the taxpayers. The real truth is only a few businesses benefit from the home games while the entire population of the city pays the bill. The teams usually pay only a small amount of rent for the stadium and are allowed to walk away from their contracts when ever they want! I don't understand the fixation with pro-sports teams. They are not the revenue panacea cities promote them to be. I find through research that the main reason these expensive stadiums are built is the ego of the politicians involved and the fact it is OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY being used to build the eyesore.
^^^^ Good points Tiredtraveler.
I remember this debate in a sociology class in college. Give a large city an option: would they rather, give tax breaks to a car factory that would employ 5,000 people or lure in a pro sports team by building an arena costing the tax payers some money. Most cities would be lured in by the sports arena, justifying it by saying "if we build this arena, companies xyz and zzy would certainly come here because they want to be in a large city that has sports teams so they can entertain their guests when they are in town, and also would want to sponsor the arena for extra publicity.
BTW the teams usually get all of the gate and the concessions for every game plus a large piece of the gate & concessions for any other events at the facility year round.
The idea is that the stadium and associated events bring money to the city. Its debatable, but the concept isn't rocket science. For example, Miami is going to host the SB in 2020. They'll be a bunch of people in town, spending money at hotels, restaurants, rental cars, nearby attractions, etc. The theory is that its in the city's best interest to invest in the stadium and then get the money back on tourism.
It's debatable, at least in Miami's case, in that the SB timing is pretty well in season and hotels, restaurants, attractions, etc are already operating at near capacity anyway. So, while the SB may be why a lot of folks come, without it there would just be a different set of folks. It devolves into an argument with little more speculation than fact, even after the event.
The stadium owners aren't paying cities cut's of ticket sales for events, be it sporting events, concerts, monster truck rallies, etc. They idea is that they're benefiting indirectly from the tourism. As others said, usually they use a hotel tax to get the money, so they try to say "it pays for itself". Taking another local example: If you look at the Homestead racetrack, it's pretty clear that it's brought significant money to that area and the surrounding areas. Again, you can argue the validity of the concepts. Some cities say they lose money on that stuff, kinda like Brazil's massive loss on hosting the Olympics.
Billionaire owners of teams extort cities to build them new and bigger stadiums by threatening to leave. So the cities build the stadiums and give the teams reduced property taxes. The teams raise the ticket prices so most residents cannot afford to attend the games. The billionaire owners laugh because people are so stupid.
I don't know the details but on glthe surface it looks to me the billionaire owners just get richer from it and joe shmock gets left holding the bag.
About 3 years ago upgrades to Dolphins stadium were put up to a vote and it did not pass and subsequently the owner did the upgrades himself.
Gillette Stadium in Foxboro Ma was funded 100% privately. Completed before the due date of course since no Government involved.
So Pro Player Field has a roof now, Papi ??
Blow me dickbreath.
Never done time, dickbreath, never will. Go fuck your catfish.
Well, I'm living next to a city where this has been very contentious, and it still is.
You can read about the ongoing issues here: fieldofschemes.com
There is a book behind that site. It runs over $1Gig per year, tax payer support for these stadiums.
A Stanford professor has analyzed it, and almost always it is a bad deal for the populace.
One of the most outrageous was in Texas, where they set up a Sports Authority, something with some of the power of government, but without the voter oversight. Quasi Governmental Entity, is what they are called. They imposed a Utility Excise Tax, a highly regressive tax, paid by everyone from Cab Drivers to Convenience Store Workers. And they used Eminent Domain!
When it was all over, a guy named Bush walked away with $159 million in his pocket.
All laid out here, and still the subject of ongoing litigation: amazon.com
I say that the best thing to do is just turn all these stadiums over for the exclusive use of my Christian Eating Lions.
SJG
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"... Pro Player Field has a roof now, Papi ? ..."
I think there's a roof now covering the stands but not the field.
Just seems crazy to me that some of these NFL teams want to use a lot of tax dollars to pay for a stadium that only gets used 10-13 games a year (2 pre season, 8 regular season and up to 3 playoff games).
So bum - The lnwealth of MA paid a $1,000,000 to rebuild rt.1 and the town of Foxboro taxes every ticket. Major revenue stream for a small town.
Almost always these stadiums are a net negative for the public coffers, and the business boost is minimal.
The 49er's stadium in Santa Clara, CA, cost $1.3Gig. The team is paying for it, but the city was extended for a completely unnecessary liability. What it amounts to is a leveraged Mafia buy out of a City, because Santa Clara is one of very few places which owns its own electric power utility.
There is still extreme infighting over how to decide expense issues, because the team is supposed to pay the public safety and other collateral costs. It is already in court.
And then there is political fighting because the city Administration is scapegoating the team over traffic issues, when in fact the real issue is the Real Estate Developers who have taken over the City and are running a construction binge. This will probably result in a blow out, like the one in the 1980s in Texas, over building of glass box office space, causing the new S and L's to fail.
The stadium has certainly been a political negative, and this is why the mayor resigned the day after the Super Bowl.
Really all it has done is promote a real estate and construction bubble. The business benefit and the city coffers benefit has been negative, and it is all now in court.
And it is tied to attempts to build something like their own Las Vegas, on a golf course across the street from the stadium. It only benefits the most unscrupulous sort of Real Estate Speculators, and just like with the 49er's itself, it benefits the Mafia.
There have been a couple of baseball stadium plans in San Jose. So far we have been able to derail them. The Latino community has always been a big part of these oppositions.
SJG
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Juice gets it all.
It's how he finds his clubbing and poker runs.