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| Tax-payers have been footing the bill for filthy rich sports leagues for decades. It's time to put that practice to an end. |
The American tax-payer has been getting screwed for too long. Tax-payer funded stadiums is like trickle-up economics. Corrupt and inept city councils across America take the poor and the middle-class’s hard earned tax money and give it to billionaires who build stadiums that the poor and middle class can’t afford to go to. It’s about damn time that the American tax-payer take a stand and tell these billionaire owners to fuck themselves and pay for their own damn stadiums.
Before I suggest my solutions to this problem, I must first dispel the one big misconception about tax-payer funded stadiums. The misconception is that tax-payer funded stadiums will pay for themselves because the new stadiums will jump start the local economy. A poll of the top economists in the country conducted by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business revealed that 34 of the 35 economists poll thought that theory was bullshit. Economists overwhelmingly believe that the costs of a tax-payer funded stadium far outweighs the benefits. There is absolutely no evidence that tax-payer funded stadiums create jobs or raise incomes for residents of a city.
Despite President Obama, Senators Cory Booker (D-New Jersey), and James Lankford (R-Oklahoma) either calling for or sponsoring legislation that would ban tax-payer funded stadiums, this practice is continuing with no end in sight. Why? The answers are quite simple. Politicians have never turned down a fat envelope stuffed with money. Unfortunately, many voters are simply not interested in the intricacies of city planning. I bet the practice of tax-payer funded stadiums would end as soon as people took more of an interest in city planning and voted a few politicians out of office. Because it if there's one thing politicians love more than receiving envelopes of money from billionaires, is getting reelected. Another reason politicians support tax-payer funded stadiums, is because they give something for politicians to boast about and pose in front of for photo ops. Politicians seem to believe that these stadiums are like the old factories that America used to have. The only problem is that these stadiums aren't like old factories. They don't employ as many people and the vast majority of people working in these stadiums are minimum wage seasonal employees. Another problem is that stadiums aren't opened on normal five days a week schedules. NFL teams only play 8 home games. MLB teams have the most home games a season with 81. Stadiums also can't hold concerts or other events on a regular basis because the logistics of that are impossible to work around. As a result, most stadiums are empty for a large portion of the year.
Tax-payer funded stadiums have devastated local municipalities. The Detroit City Council forked over $324 million dollars over to the Ilitch Family so they could build an arena to house not one, but two mediocre teams. Meanwhile, Detroit Public Schools are so dilapidated and riddled with mold that many aren't even suited to house animals let alone children and teachers. Schools are infested with rodents, computer classes have no access to the internet, and water drips from pipes and onto children that are trying to get their school work done. The Detroit City Council saw no room in the budget to fix failing schools, but found over a quarter of a billion dollars to give to the Ilitch's. According to Forbes the Ilitch Family’s net worth is over $5.4 billion.
In some cases, tax-payer funded stadiums can lead to public health disasters. Cincinnati, Ohio was forced sell a public hospital in order to pay off the debt that was incurred when they built a stadium for the Cincinnati Bengals. It's a horrifying thought, but did anyone in the city of Cincinnati die of a medical emergency in the years after this because there was no available hospital in the area? In 2017, owner Mike Brown’s net worth was estimated to be $1.8 billion.
So, what are the solutions? What can be done to put tax-payer funded stadiums six feet under? I have a few solutions. A couple are creative and possibly insane and one might be the solution we need.
1. Give tax-payers a piece of the stadium's profits. The state of Alaska has a permanent fund that pays citizens a portion of the profits for the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System. The same method could be applied to tax-payer funded stadiums. If tax-payers are forced to foot the bill for a massive sports stadium, then they should be entitled to a portion of the profits. The amount of money that is paid to the citizens doesn't really matter. The principle of this situation is what matters. Both residents and non-residents that work and pay taxes in a municipality that has a tax-payer funded stadium would be entitled to a portion of the profits generated from the stadium. Non-residents that pay taxes in the city would get a lesser share because they don't live in the municipality. What's right is right. The only problem with this plan is these money grubbing billionaire owners would rather burn down their stadiums then give even a morsel of the profits away to the people that helped fund that very stadium. This solution while creative will eventually lead to the team's ownership taking the team elsewhere.
2. Give citizens an ownership stake in the team. This is similar to the first solution I proposed, but it is more radical because it involves giving citizens direct involvement in the team. This plan would be similar to how the Green Bay Packers ownership is set up. This plan would involve citizens voting on a person every 4 years on Election Day in November. This representative would have a vested interest in the team's performance because he would be voted out of office if the team does not perform up to the standards of the citizens. This representative also would not be able to be recalled in an election because sports fans are fickle motherfuckers that will attempt a recall vote whenever a team has a down period. The only time this representative will be eligible to be recalled is if he is implicated in some sort of crime. This solution is creative, but a team's ownership would do everything they could to prevent citizens from taking even a sliver of the teams's ownership from them. This solution will also result in the team picking up and leaving.
3. The most realistic and boring solution is a Congressional law that bans tax-payer money from being used to fund any stadiums. The reason why this must be done at the federal level instead of the state level is because if a local municipality refuses to give tax-payer money to a professional sports team then that sports team will leave and go to a city that will roll out the red carpet and give them a better deal. A federal ban on tax-payer stadiums will ensure that no team will be able to leave their respective hometowns. The only way this could backfire is if every team simply leaves the United States and goes to a foreign country, which could very well happen given what greedy whores these billionaire owners are, but this is a risk we need to take.
The issue of tax-payer funded stadiums have led to sports to become resentful of the teams that they are supposed to be rooting for. It has also further eroded the people's trust in their local representatives. Banning tax-payer funded stadiums would be a great first step in restoring trust and softening this resentment. A fan should be able to go to the game and not have it in the back of his/her mind that his/her had-earned money was used to build the stadium that charges them $10 for a beer. Banning tax-payer funded stadiums will make attending games a little more fun and that's what sports are all about.
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