Chicago and the White Sox in serious discussions for a new baseball only stadium downtown.
- Thread starter lucas80
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I hadn't been on the "sell the team" bandwagon but it's time. The larussa hire set the org back years and they're going to have to do a full rebuild again. And unfortunately we have another former player running the day to day bc Jerry doesn't want outsiders telling him how to run his organization. It's sad.
Jerry wants people that are happy to have the job because they're unemployable anywhere else. That way, he controls them
Cities paying for sports teams with tax money is stupid, but if a city wants to do that, I don't have an issue with it. It is for the people who live there to decide. Under no circumstances do I support state tax dollars going to a franchise though. People outside the city barely get any benefit at all from the team.
I do think that if tax dollars are used for a stadium then residents of the area that is taxed (whether it is city or state) should get free tickets to games. You want to use public money? Fine, then the public needs to see a benefit from it beyond the owner having a new stadium he is getting richer from.
The problem is that for almost all cities, they city isn’t making an up or down vote. It’s the city council or some other entity that decides to give out the money. Therefore, it isn’t very easy for voters to reject. In Minneapolis, a decade plus ago, voters rejected the new Vikings stadium and then the city council still found some way to give them the money.
If you look at Des Moines, the Krause guy wants the city / county / state to pay for a new soccer stadium where he pays next to nothing. When he first made his ask to the city, the city manager laughed at how much money he asked for. They still haven’t reached terms but I feel like the city ends up giving and giving in negotiations and will ultimately just give the guy the money. This isn’t for MLS but a minor league team that doesn’t play that many home games. If congress ever passed something where cities had to have a citizen vote for sports stadium money over $xx to give out the money, I imagine this would stop quickly.
But what if I don't like baseball? I want equal value of the free tickets in some type of payment! (This is what would happen should the free tickets proposal were to happen).
Ok, so here is a more modern one. I live in KC. The ineptitude that the Royals owners have tried to enact their plan has been crazy. Comes off as entitled, bitter toward the city that supports them, and takes zero account into businesses they have to close under eminent domain. Me personally, I shop more at local business they want to close with their stadium plan when compared to how many games I attend. I probably go to 2-3 Royals games a year. Gets boring when the product sucks. I have expendable cash. I went to 2 of their world series games and probably 10 games a year when competitive.
The idea of downtown stadiums seem glamorous and are probably an economic boon for the local bars. When there is a big concert downtown at nearby T mobile arena, I choose a restaurant or bar out in the suburbs. Rather spend my dollar at a place that is easy and accessible with parking.
Voted down proposal was a 3/8 cents sales tax in Kansas City. Now if you look at that in a place that didn't have state accredited schools, couldn't plow roads, or fix potholes then you have to ask yourself does helping these billionaires really make sense.
The Hunt family who owns the Chiefs are worth 28 billion. Jerry Reinsdorf is worth 2.1 billion. Do you think they need tax breaks. Then they hold a city hostage and threaten to move. I say let them.
Stadiums as Public Investments | Econofact
Local governments have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in public subsidies for professional sports facilities over the past 70 years. What explains this?
There is no market that the Sox can move to that would replace Chicago, he has no leverage on the state. I guess you could find a suburb to play off the city but even the Bears failed at that
And you would be entitled to them. This is why having your stadium built on the taxpayer dime is stupid. Maybe there's a concert there or something you can cash in your free tickets for. Or at the very least get a significant discount on them. Of course that would mean that they would just jack ticket prices up to the point where the discounted price is whatever they wanted to be charging for them in the first place.
I think it was last week Jerry had said that if he went outside of the organization it would have taken that person at least a year to fully understand the state of the organization which would ultimately delay the return to winning baseball by at least a year... Promoting Getz has us ahead of schedule compared to an outside hire!
Ok, so here is a more modern one. I live in KC. The ineptitude that the Royals owners have tried to enact their plan has been crazy. Comes off as entitled, bitter toward the city that supports them, and takes zero account into businesses they have to close under eminent domain. Me personally, I shop more at local business they want to close with their stadium plan when compared to how many games I attend. I probably go to 2-3 Royals games a year. Gets boring when the product sucks. I have expendable cash. I went to 2 of their world series games and probably 10 games a year when competitive.
The idea of downtown stadiums seem glamorous and are probably an economic boon for the local bars. When there is a big concert downtown at nearby T mobile arena, I choose a restaurant or bar out in the suburbs. Rather spend my dollar at a place that is easy and accessible with parking.
Voted down proposal was a 3/8 cents sales tax in Kansas City. Now if you look at that in a place that didn't have state accredited schools, couldn't plow roads, or fix potholes then you have to ask yourself does helping these billionaires really make sense.
The Hunt family who owns the Chiefs are worth 28 billion. Jerry Reinsdorf is worth 2.1 billion. Do you think they need tax breaks. Then they hold a city hostage and threaten to move. I say let them.
Stadiums as Public Investments | Econofact
Local governments have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in public subsidies for professional sports facilities over the past 70 years. What explains this?econofact.org
Yep, let them move. I am proud to point out that Tampa residents successfully fought off efforts by city and county elected officials to build a baseball stadium for the mlb team.
We were aided by the fact that St Pete and Pinellas County politicians were all too happy to build the Devil Rays a new stadium.
We heard the threats about moving to either Montreal, Nashville, Charlotte or Portland. Our reply was that we would help them load up the moving trucks.
I haven’t been following since it ceased to be a Tampa problem but I thought it was a done deal. They’ll be back over here looking for a billion plus if Pinellas finds a spine and tells them to build their own stadium.
From what I remember, the Rays do very well with local tv viewers but few attend in person. The tv money keeps them here even though they might have better crowds in another city. That is if another city were to build a palace for the team.
Charlotte's minor league team didn't like playing close to uptown in old Griffith stadium(which, as I understand it, was built by the old Griffith family. So they got a ball park built across the state line in South Carolina with state and local help. Easy to get into and out of and plenty of parking. Later they needed an uptown park again. And again with state and local help, but parking is a pain in the butt. Or so I've been told, since it happened after I left.
They also got an NBA team, and to do that, the city built a nice facility with plenty of parking. It hosted an NBA team for 10 years, a WNBA team, and the ACC basketball tournament almost every year, as well as a few NCAA tournament games. But the owner, of the then Hornets, got a little handsy with the female help, and moved the team to New Orleans. So, to get a new team, the city had to succumb to the wishes of yet another billionaire and build another facility uptown with the usual parking problems.
They also got an NBA team, and to do that, the city built a nice facility with plenty of parking. It hosted an NBA team for 10 years, a WNBA team, and the ACC basketball tournament almost every year, as well as a few NCAA tournament games. But the owner, of the then Hornets, got a little handsy with the female help, and moved the team to New Orleans. So, to get a new team, the city had to succumb to the wishes of yet another billionaire and build another facility uptown with the usual parking problems.
