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[Dre3001]

Sometimes it takes a complete disaster for people to wake up and sense what is really going on. Taxpayers should never have to pay for billionaires hobbies.

Anyone who follows baseball should be aware of the Miami Marlins situation and how Jeffrey Loria swindled south florida taxpayers out of millions of dollars.

Basically the owner of the Marlins Jeffrey Loria had traditionally kept an extremely low payroll and fielded a poor team for years in Miami. Any semblance of talent on the team was traded before they were due a big paycheck and as a result fans became fed up with the team. His excuse for years had been that since the Marlins shared a stadium with an NFL team, he was unable to attract talent and also blamed it for poor attendance.

He made fake promises claiming that with a new stadium, attendance would increase and as a result he would pump money into the team to keep talent and bring in quality free agents. The taxpayers bought his lies and publicly funded a new $625 million dollar stadium that they will be paying for over the next 30 years. Soon as the stadium was built the owner brought in top free agents and things were looking up. Halfway through the season however, the team wasn't performing as planned and the owner sold everyone and went back to fielding an extremely poor team with a low payroll.

As a result other cities in Florida took notice and have basically told the other owners of all major franchises they can build their own stadiums with no public funding whatsoever.

Recently the new Orlando City MLS team was trying to secure public funding for their stadium but the city of Orlando backed out of an agreement with the team. As a result, the owner ponied up his own cash and privately funded the entire stadium project.

 

[Azuran]

The sad thing about that fan... She's at a Glendale city council meeting voicing her displeasure with the council... And she doesn't even live in Glendale.

She is also a founder of a coyotes PAC ...

Youtube comment of all things telling it like it is:

Here's where she lost me and where I don't really care about her passionate plea. "... I reside in North Phoenix..." Well, good for you. And I'm sure the Coyotes enjoy you buying season tickets, a jersey, food and drinks, and whatever other little misc costs associated with being at the game. That's a drop in the bucket compared to the 225 Million dollars Glendale residents are paying in taxes just to go to this arena. One that over the past five years has been consistently at the bottom of the league in attendance at home not going above even 85% and the year after going to a conference FINAL was 29th in the league at only 81.3%.

So please, go and tell that mayor how to spend the tax dollars of the people he serves (that you are not a part of and are not paying even paying 1% of the costs assuming you're the most expensive ticket season ticket holder [a generous 12000 a year]) for a team that is failing in being an attraction, is a poorly run organization that doesn't draw and is hemorrhaging money (which if the league is doing a split profit scheme means the profitable teams (less than a third) are also paying for this failed experiment). Or better yet, MOVE. MOVE to glendale and pay the taxes they do to support this team you are so passionate for, that once they get bored of this arena (which could be well before the remaining 13 years) will say give us another new arena, or FU we're out here and let the stadium rot and the people still pay and the coyotes won't lose a second of sleep. All while this city continues to lose money (lets be honest, the coyotes aren't coming out of this until the next few years, if ever) at the tune of thus far 7M a year. Oh but I'm sure she has that in her piocket to spend to support the team she loves. No? shocking.

Disgusting how sport owners can get away with stuff like that with taxpayers having little say in the matter.

 

[DopeyFish]

I have no idea about the Arizona situation, but this was in the comments:



Anyone more familiar with the situation know if this is spin, or if Oliver was overly critical?

Essentially... The city of Glendale discovered their attorney was close friends with the coyotes owner. Their attorney is the one who brought the current ownership group to the table... And according to former council members, he likely helped kill the original deal with another investor to bring his friends offer into favor.

Right before the deal was signed, he tendered his resignation and shortly after he was hired by the coyotes.

Now the city is trying to terminate the lease based on Arizona revised statute 38-511, when the state or any subdivision can terminate contracts upwards of 3 years later if they discover anyone was hired by the opposite party if they had a big part in any part of the process and if their work with the opposite party has anything to do with their previous work on the contract.

The whole deal and process of acquiring that deal was pure slime.

From the city buying parking rights they already owned, to the bonds they issued (which destroyed their ratings), to the council member who got his seat by campaigning against the coyotes and on one of his first meetings he just outright agrees to the awful deal.

The deal, by the way, is the city paying the team $15 million a year. The coyotes cannot survive without that money and they are the only NHL team that has that kind of deal. They are paying $15 million for the coyotes to manage the arena... the industry average is around $1.5 to $2 million. The audit of the coyotes showed they had only used $9 million of the AMF to actually manage the arena...

The whole lead up to the deal was just rotten. The coyotes and the NHL deserve everything for taking that small suburb to task.

 

[gutter_trash]

I remember the night when NHL GAF all painfully tuned in to Glendale's hearings about the future of the Coyotes .. LOL good times.

 

[Link]

Sometimes it takes a complete disaster for people to wake up and sense what is really going on. Taxpayers should never have to pay for billionaires hobbies.

Anyone who follows baseball should be aware of the Miami Marlins situation and how Jeffrey Loria swindled south florida taxpayers out of millions of dollars.

Basically the owner of the Marlins Jeffrey Loria had traditionally kept an extremely low payroll and fielded a poor team for years in Miami. Any semblance of talent on the team was traded before they were due a big paycheck and as a result fans became fed up with the team. His excuse for years had been that since the Marlins shared a stadium with an NFL team, he was unable to attract talent and also blamed it for poor attendance.

He made fake promises claiming that with a new stadium, attendance would increase and as a result he would pump money into the team to keep talent and bring in quality free agents. The taxpayers bought his lies and publicly funded a new $625 million dollar stadium that they will be paying for over the next 30 years. Soon as the stadium was built the owner brought in top free agents and things were looking up. Halfway through the season however, the team wasn't performing as planned and the owner sold everyone and went back to fielding an extremely poor team with a low payroll.

As a result other cities in Florida took notice and have basically told the other owners of all major franchises they can build their own stadiums with no public funding whatsoever.

Recently the new Orlando City MLS team was trying to secure public funding for their stadium but the city of Orlando backed out of an agreement with the team. As a result, the owner ponied up his own cash and privately funded the entire stadium project.

You forgot the part about Loria claiming the team was having trouble turning a profit, but refused to release the team's finances. Turns out they were actually making over $30 million in profits a year, and when that fact came to light after the stadium had already been funded, we got Samson's famous "A deal's a deal" reply when he was questioned about it.

Truly disgusting all around.

 

[TarpitCarnivore]

I remember the night when NHL GAF all painfully tuned in to Glendale's hearings about the future of the Coyotes .. LOL good times.

I need to find NHL Gaf!

You forgot the part about Loria claiming the team was having trouble turning a profit, but refused to release the team's finances. Turns out they were actually making over $30 million in profits a year, and when that fact came to light after the stadium had already been funded, we got Samson's famous "A deal's a deal" reply when he was questioned about it.

Truly disgusting all around.

Loria is the reason I want a salary floor in baseball.

 

[SummitAve]

Yeah my city has been held hostage multiple times over the decades by billionaires threatening to move a sport team if the city doesn't pony up at least 50% of the costs. It's all done so that billionaire can continue making stupid amounts of money, and price out the majority of the public who contributed with premium ticket and concession costs. Im a sports fan though, and these stadiums have revitalized entire downtown neighborhoods that were once blocks of vacant business and crime so I'm ultimately for the building and funding of them if the need is really there.

 

[Armadilo]

Just like the Olympics and World Cups, Right ? just have to look at Brazil

 

[gutter_trash]

Just like the Olympics and World Cups, Right ? just have to look at Brazil

http://www.npr.org/sections/paralle...gacy-includes-550m-stadium-turned-parking-lot

Brazil's World Cup Legacy Includes $550M Stadium-Turned-Parking Lot

 

[Violence Jack]

Here in Atlanta we're getting two new stadiums in the next 2 years, and I'm about 99% sure that the new owners of the Hawks are going to strong arm Atlanta into building a new arena or they are going to threaten to move as well. I call bullshit about improving the areas around the stadiums as well. They can add a complex to the Braves stadium, but they still don't have a viable plan in place to address the already horrible traffic situation around there.

 

[slightconfuse]

Remember when they tried to build a stadium on the west side of Manhattan that didn't go well. Kind of glad we didn't get the Olympics.

A stadium in LA seems like madness from a traffic perspective

 

[EatinOlives]

http://www.npr.org/sections/paralle...gacy-includes-550m-stadium-turned-parking-lot

Brazil's World Cup Legacy Includes $550M Stadium-Turned-Parking Lot

How dare you link to NPR! Don't you know they're only good for Jeopardy trivia and artsy fartsy worthlessness?!??!

 

[Faddy]

Yes, increasingly so. Clubs even point out that in USA, the cities pay for it.

Everton threatened to move out of Liverpool to a neighbouring borough because they were offered a peppercorn rent on a field to build on, taxpayers and a hypermarket would build infrastructure, naming rights would be sold. A small part would be paid for by the club. It was ultimately rejected by the UK government as unsuitable.

Last month, it was announced that West Ham would have a £700m+ stadium given to them, they will pay £15m of a £272m conversion to make it suitable for their needs.

But West Ham won't own the stadium although they have terms which is very generous. They were also in a very favourable position to negotiate since the Stadium would have sat empty without a tenant because it is probably the fifth or sixth best stadium in London for hosting large events.

 

[GhostWriter24]

The +4 increase to happiness never seems worth the +2 gold maintenance to me.

So worth it.

 

[Sanjay]

Wow I had no idea American Stadiums were funded by the gov, that's pretty insane, big clubs can afford their own stadiums and the lesser clubs, just build smaller stadiums with less features. Most UK stadiums are funded by the clubs.

 

[Sheroking]

I don't believe cities should pay for stadiums. Waste of money.

Situational, I think.

Here in Edmonton, there was a big, long debate about whether public money should go into a new downtown arena. Ultimately I was very for the project, not just because I'm an Oilers fan, but because downtown development was entirely stagnant and what was being proposed was a district, not just a building.

The funding model is unique and ultimately guaranteed to be profitable to the City of Edmonton, and is already the biggest driver of downtown development in the cities history. It's being payed for with a "CRL", an idea where the local government helps fund the development of a project and the investment is returned by the increased property taxes of an area over an amount of years. The CRL's initial projection showed a billion dollar return in 10 years on a project that cost the city $200M, and an additional $125M being loaned on the understanding that a special ticket tax would directly repay that over 5 years.

So not only is the City going to make hundreds of millions in the relative short term because they co-funded the building with Darryl Katz, their downtown is adding a community rink, countless stores, a shopping district, three new towers, student housing and two new hotels, who will be two of the four best in the City all before 2020.

So, like I said, situational. I think it matters what the funding model is, what the plan is, and where the arena is. Also what the team is to the community.

 

[Hyperactivity]

Wow I had no idea American Stadiums were funded by the gov, that's pretty insane, big clubs can afford their own stadiums and the lesser clubs, just build smaller stadiums with less features. Most UK stadiums are funded by the clubs.

Yeah, and they threaten to move. Milwaukee Bucks right now will be bought from the current owners and sold to the highest bidder in either Las Vegas, which doesn't have a team, or Seattle, which has been desperate for a basketball team since the Supersonics moved to Oklahoma City and became the Thunder, if a new stadium doesn't start construction this year.

The Bucks are actually seeking funding from the whole state of Wisconsin, not just Milwaukee.

I feel like there should be an organization of mayors across the country to prevent this shit. The Los Angeles mayor could be in it and say no to any teams threatening to come to L.A, maybe the other cities could help it gets its own team in return, something like that.

 

[U2NUMB]

After over 10 years and 3 ownerships using the LA card the Vikings got us to pony up... now we have this massive thing being built... I believe its at a Billion dollars. So we know the LA threat very well here..

And I wont be able to afford to go to it for years..... but I will be helping pay for it you betcha.

 

[andycapps]

Wow I had no idea American Stadiums were funded by the gov, that's pretty insane, big clubs can afford their own stadiums and the lesser clubs, just build smaller stadiums with less features. Most UK stadiums are funded by the clubs.

It's not always funded by the government. The new Falcons stadium, for example, isn't really funded by the government outside of the existing hotel/motel tax being levied for 20-30% of the cost of the stadium (tax is currently being used for the existing stadium).

The new Braves stadium though? 45% of that is being paid for by the county, the remaining 55% by the Braves. The county is paying for that through hotel/motel tax, more hotel/motel tax, and moving some property tax money around. The Braves one is much more contentious to me than the Falcons deal because of how much Cobb county is putting into it. That said, they will also be getting some major tax revenue out of the major complex that is being built up around it.

 

[SmackCrackleNPop]

Still, if the Nordiques never come back, the new stadium will be empty most of the time. Right now there's only 2 big shows (Madonna & Metallica) planned for it in September and that's it. :/



Exactly.

Metallica doing what they can.

After over 10 years and 3 ownerships using the LA card the Vikings got us to pony up... now we have this massive thing being built... I believe its at a Billion dollars. So we know the LA threat very well here..

That looks pretty good. Does it make the Vikings better?

 

[Sanjay]

Yeah, and they threaten to move.

The response should be, yeah good luck with that.

 

[U2NUMB]

Metallica doing what they can.



That looks pretty good. Does it make the Vikings better?

If it is anything like what happened to the Twins the owners will drop payroll and enjoy more piles of money once they get the new stadium.. at least for a few years until attendance drops.

 

[DopeyFish]

After over 10 years and 3 ownerships using the LA card the Vikings got us to pony up... now we have this massive thing being built... I believe its at a Billion dollars. So we know the LA threat very well here..

And I wont be able to afford to go to it for years..... but I will be helping pay for it you betcha.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3642594/linked/vikingsstadium.jpg
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3642594/linked/vikingsstadium2.jpg

Will that thing even be able to handle heavy snowfall?

Their last stadium sure didn't.

 

[GoldenEye 007]

Recently the new Orlando City MLS team was trying to secure public funding for their stadium but the city of Orlando backed out of an agreement with the team. As a result, the owner ponied up his own cash and privately funded the entire stadium project.

The city didn't back out. The state did. The club refunded the money Orlando offered and financed everything as you described, though.

But yeah, after the Marlins issue, I don't see any major stadium project getting funded for a very long time if the state is to be involved.

 

[ArkhamFantasy]

Alot of people have such a small amount of spending money so sports are the only hobby they have

This leads to the majority of people demanding that they give in to the exortion of these billionaire sports owners who threaten to take thier teams away from them if they dont pay up.

They also lie about how great it is for the local economy and people just assume its true because we dont know any better.

 

[Fbh]

Wow, I had no idea about stuff like this. I don't live in the US but wouldn't be surprised if the same happenes in my country.
Seriously, some of that stuff was so ridiculous it almost sounded made up, that's almost on the same level of wasting tax money as the inflated salaries of politicians (at least over here).


Also lol, that speech at the end was awesome

 

[Quick]

Still, if the Nordiques never come back, the new stadium will be empty most of the time. Right now there's only 2 big shows (Madonna & Metallica) planned for it in September and that's it. :/

There's Remparts games once the season starts, so at least there's that. But the better questions is: will the Remparts draw enough to fill out 18,259 at least semi-consistently? Did they fill out Colisee Pepsi too?

 

[gutter_trash]

Will that thing even be able to handle heavy snowfall?

Their last stadium sure didn't.

looks like the snow will slide off and fall on people below

 

[GoldenEye 007]

Will that thing even be able to handle heavy snowfall?

Their last stadium sure didn't.

To be fair, wasn't the old stadium like 40 years old? And the dome was some weird tarp like structure? I'm sure they took into account snow and ice loads in the design and engineering.

 

[Quick]

I'm guessing the glass ceiling is heated to melt any snow or ice. before it builds up too much.

It's a nice stadium, but damn does it look expensive.

 

[Asmodai48]

The +4 increase to happiness never seems worth the +2 gold maintenance to me.

Igetthatreference.jpg

 

[Caja 117]

I still dont understand how is it a thing that a facility that operates within the city have all the concession revenues going to just the team.

 

[U2NUMB]

I'm guessing the glass ceiling is heated to melt any snow or ice. before it builds up too much.

It's a nice stadium, but damn does it look expensive.

The biggest issue about that roof has been.. Birds wont see it... that building is going to kill thousands of birds. I am not kidding.. that is the big issue and last I heard they really have no good way to prevent it other than hope a different type of glass helps.

"Plan to reduce bird deaths

Kelm-Helgen told the oversight committee that bird-safe glass on the Vikings stadium would not be compatible with the stadium design; however, she said the MSFA has adopted the Audubon Society's recommendations on lighting for the new stadium to reduce bird deaths. The clear glass for the stadium was ordered in August and will start being installed as soon as this December."

The snow wont be an issue, they have a melt system in place.

 

[Shai-Tan]

Situational, I think.

Here in Edmonton, there was a big, long debate about whether public money should go into a new downtown arena. Ultimately I was very for the project, not just because I'm an Oilers fan, but because downtown development was entirely stagnant and what was being proposed was a district, not just a building.

The funding model is unique and ultimately guaranteed to be profitable to the City of Edmonton, and is already the biggest driver of downtown development in the cities history. It's being payed for with a "CRL", an idea where the local government helps fund the development of a project and the investment is returned by the increased property taxes of an area over an amount of years. The CRL's initial projection showed a billion dollar return in 10 years on a project that cost the city $200M, and an additional $125M being loaned on the understanding that a special ticket tax would directly repay that over 5 years.

So not only is the City going to make hundreds of millions in the relative short term because they co-funded the building with Darryl Katz, their downtown is adding a community rink, countless stores, a shopping district, three new towers, student housing and two new hotels, who will be two of the four best in the City all before 2020.

So, like I said, situational. I think it matters what the funding model is, what the plan is, and where the arena is. Also what the team is to the community.

Making a big development says nothing about return on investment. Also increases in economic activity are measured by dollars brought in from outside the city not dollars spent that would otherwise be spent elsewhere in the city.

 

[andycapps]

The city didn't back out. The state did. The club refunded the money Orlando offered and financed everything as you described, though.

But yeah, after the Marlins issue, I don't see any major stadium project getting funded for a very long time if the state is to be involved.

Leave it to the Marlins to screw it up for everyone in the state, including themselves.

 

[Beelzebufo]

How do they decrease the success local businesses?

If you watch the video, you'll learn that many if not all local businesses around stadiums report less business during games.

If nothing else, your claim that it helps the surrounding area just simply doesn't happen in real life. It's one of those things that makes sense if you don't think about it too much so people keep listing it as a positive despite a complete lack of basis in reality.

 

[Sheroking]

Making a big development says nothing about return on investment. Also increases in economic activity are measured by dollars brought in from outside the city not dollars spent that would otherwise be spent elsewhere in the city.

The CRL guarantees a return on investment. Without the Arena, none of the other district growth even begins to happen (most was rounded up by the Katz Group), so any spike in property taxes in the area means tax dollars being created that would otherwise not exist. The conservative estimate is 5:1 on the initial investment, over a billion dollars in tax revenue created over 10 years to the 200M the public risked.

Economic redistribution towards the downtown core is in and of itself important to the City of Edmonton, which suffers from sprawl. The City has about 850k residents spread out over an area bigger than most major cities in North America, including Vancouver, Boston and Montreal. It was unfortunately built for decades as suburban centres around shopping malls.Also, the Oilers sell out every game. Driving 18k people downtown, through the newest shopping epicenter in the city, is certain to be better for the City than sending them to a dusty corner of the City where nothing but a couple sports bars are.

Even the most ardent critics of public money in this thing have shut the fuck up because all of the numbers here are positive for the City.

 

[TangoAlphaLima]

I've mentioned this before, but I've noticed that many of my friends (who self identify as liberal) become prototypically conservative when discussing sports, and stadium funding is no exception.

If we're discussing banking, they readily recognize that the intimate relationship between the government and banks is toxic, and the banks get too-friendly treatment as a consequence, often to the detriment of the citizenry. But as soon as sports stadiums come up, the intimate relationship between government and sports teams becomes a necessity to keep the team in town, and any favorable treatment by governments are just a consequence of the demands of a free market.

Please note that I'm not saying you can't hold those views about sports teams, I'm just saying it's a prototypically conservative perspective, which is odd from my otherwise even-more-liberal-than-me friends.

Isn't that accurate, though? I mean, whether you identify as liberal or conservative is irrelevant, you have to admit that the free market is setting the cost of these stadium builds/renovations, right? If L.A. offers the Raiders more than Oakland, they make the move. That's just the free market at work.

I think the problem many people have, myself included, is that the free market is waaaay out of whack here. We value these sports franchises too much, and I say this as a huge sports fan myself. But I just don't understand throwing huge sums of public money at billionaire owners with their millionaire employees.

To be fair, though, I also don't really understand why people spend so much money to attend live sporting events. I'll go to a game from time to time, but to drop thousands of dollars on season tickets just seems so extreme to me. Clearly I'm not your average Joe consumer.

Driving 18k people downtown, through the newest shopping epicenter in the city, is certain to be better for the City than sending them to a dusty corner of the City where nothing but a couple sports bars are.

Isn't this just borrowing from Peter to pay Paul? Sure, Edmonton gets more tax revenue than the incorporated "dusty corner", but it isn't helping the overall metro area. Money is just being spent at one location instead of another; it's just redistribution of money, not new money created.

 

[fatigues_gasolini]

I'm glad the bucks were mentioned. There was a lot of last minute pushback including it in the spending bill. The bucks are a garbage team and I don't see why spending so much money on a new stadium would help.

 

[dionysus]

The CRL guarantees a return on investment. Without the Arena, none of the other district growth even begins to happen (most was rounded up by the Katz Group), so any spike in property taxes in the area means tax dollars being created that would otherwise not exist. The conservative estimate is 5:1 on the initial investment, over a billion dollars in tax revenue created over 10 years to the 200M the public risked.

Economic redistribution towards the downtown core is in and of itself important to the City of Edmonton, which suffers from sprawl. The City has about 850k residents spread out over an area bigger than most major cities in North America, including Vancouver, Boston and Montreal. It was unfortunately built for decades as suburban centres around shopping malls.Also, the Oilers sell out every game. Driving 18k people downtown, through the newest shopping epicenter in the city, is certain to be better for the City than sending them to a dusty corner of the City where nothing but a couple sports bars are.

Even the most ardent critics of public money in this thing have shut the fuck up because all of the numbers here are positive for the City.

You act like every stadium in the world that uses public money doesn't also have the same justifications. The problem is that 5 years down the road when you can evaluate what actually happened it always turns out that property taxes didn't rise as much as expected, the local development never materialized as the price tag inevitably rose and true projections turned out to be worse than the earlier ones, etc. You can't judge a project by the projections used to justify it.

One fundamental question, if it is such a great deal that is guaranteed to make money, why does it need public funding in the first place?

 

[t26]

The alternative is losing a team. If people of Seattle were willing to pay for a new stadium they might still have a team. Many of those horrible deals were voted by taxpayers.

 

[Klotera]

Football stadiums are especially hard to justify. They only draw people to the area 8 times a year.

Baseball stadiums may be a bit easier to make a case for, as they draw people to the area 81 times a year. In cities where most people live in the suburbs, like St. Louis, this is a big key to getting people downtown. Many make a day of it. Though, the Cardinals did mostly pay for the stadium themselves. I believe they may have received loans from the city and county, but not direct funding. They also received a tax break on ticket sales, but that was supposed to be in exchange for developing ballpark village.

 

[Sheroking]

You act like every stadium in the world that uses public money doesn't also have the same justifications. The problem is that 5 years down the road when you can evaluate what actually happened it always turns out that property taxes didn't rise as much as expected, the local development never materialized as the price tag inevitably rose and true projections turned out to be worse than the earlier ones, etc. You can't judge a project by the projections used to justify it.

One fundamental question, if it is such a great deal that is guaranteed to make money, why does it need public funding in the first place?

The CRL estimate was criticized as being too conservative. The numbers aren't fluid, they are certain to be profitable on this in a hurry. There's virtually zero risk at this point. (Though I was wrong and the 1B is over 20 years, not 10).

Also, no other project in history has developed like this one. It's actually the fastest growing district, based on an Arena, in history.

At this point there is no discernible financial downside for the City of Edmonton. It's going to be profitable for the City based on nothing but the CRL and it's doing it while completely revamping a dead downtown core.

 

[Opiate]

Isn't that accurate, though? I mean, whether you identify as liberal or conservative is irrelevant, you have to admit that the free market is setting the cost of these stadium builds/renovations, right? If L.A. offers the Raiders more than Oakland, they make the move. That's just the free market at work.

Well, sure. And banks are simply looking to maximize their profit, so of course they should externalize as much risk as possible while internalizing all profits. That is the best option for them as a business, and so they do it.

In both cases, what these firms are doing makes sense from a purely economic point of view. I believe the objections to both are that a system focused on profit maximization for private firms under all circumstances may not be socially optimal.

 

[The Lone Courier]

This Chargers fan wants a new stadium in San Diego. I would like it if Stan Kroenke pays part of the money to keep them from moving to LA.

It seems like Spanos doesn't. He's put up some many road blocks through the process.

 

[biggersmaller]

After over 10 years and 3 ownerships using the LA card the Vikings got us to pony up... now we have this massive thing being built... I believe its at a Billion dollars. So we know the LA threat very well here..

And I wont be able to afford to go to it for years..... but I will be helping pay for it you betcha.

If the Vikings had anything even approaching a legit fan base here, then I could maybe swallow the absurdity in building this $1 billion gaudy monstrosity. Instead we have a population that routinely opposed public financing in polls, were so uninterested in attending even a 2008 playoff game it was almost blacked out after taking the NFC North title, and when the possibility of a move reared its head due to a potential lack of public funds - the purple faithful turned out in laughable numbers at the Capitol. Truly, the audobon society may have had a better turnout protesting the bird-killing glass.

 

[solomon]

God im still mad about the marlin's stadium here is Miami..

 

[DopeyFish]

The CRL estimate was criticized as being too conservative. The numbers aren't fluid, they are certain to be profitable on this in a hurry. There's virtually zero risk at this point. (Though I was wrong and the 1B is over 20 years, not 10).

Also, no other project in history has developed like this one. It's actually the fastest growing district, based on an Arena, in history.

At this point there is no discernible financial downside for the City of Edmonton. It's going to be profitable for the City based on nothing but the CRL and it's doing it while completely revamping a dead downtown core.

I think it's more on edmonton... they're basically at the point where they don't want to be just a city of buildings.

They're way behind the curve on identity and want to be more than just that place with the big mall. After this project gets done and that huge LRT expansion occurs, Edmonton should be prime for growth.

What they'll need going forward is landmarks. Rogers Place and the Ice District is a good start.

 

[Topper]

I'm glad the bucks were mentioned. There was a lot of last minute pushback including it in the spending bill. The bucks are a garbage team and I don't see why spending so much money on a new stadium would help.

The Bucks currently have an interesting future and are not a "garbage" team. I believe he is wrong on there situation also, the owners aren't threatening to move the team, if they don't build a new stadium I believe the nba gets to vote to sell the team, which would almost certainly happen Seattle wants an nba team back badly.

That being said I enjoy Bradley Center and see no real need to build a new one.

 

[cdyhybrid]

It's a scam run by billionaires preying on the fandom of average people.