Jon Oliver did a bit tonight about the use of public funds for stadiums
 

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This should be fun.

He's an annoying douchebag

Your opinion counts most, since it's the minority.

That backs his opinion up with data and facts?

Douchebag or not, he's right.

To be fair, I'll bet he does dick amount of research.

He's probably heavily involved in the joke writing, though

Without actually watching the video:

If the public votes for it, then so be it. :shrug:

Because this shit is like crack to people, that's why.

And he's not proposing legislation to stop this kind of thing from happening. He's just telling people it's a really bad ****ing idea.

I cannot stand Jon Stewart anymore, but this guy isn't slamming one side only. He points out how bad both sides are and touches on issues main stream media would never talk about. It's a great show.

I think that if the city and the tax payer have to help pay for the stadium....that a percentage of the profits get put BACK into the city.

As an example, I believe Jackson County gets all of the parking $ from the Truman Sports Complex.

He's exactly right and his comments are exactly why the state of California has refused to build stadiums for billionaires. Some of the recent deals are crushing local municipalities and it's definitely welfare for billionaires, which is absolutely absurd.

Want a stadium in which the owner receives 100% of the concessions, parking, luxury box and ticket sales?

Build it yourself.

I was kind of hoping that he would tackle the fact that teams are playing their home games in other ****ing countries....but, meh, I think he did quite well.
I'll be honest, I didn't know it was this bad.

No, I believe this is wrong. Part of their lease agreement is that Jackson County is on the tab for keeping the parking lots maintained. The actual fees paid for parking goes in the revenue coffers of the Chiefs and the Royals. The tenant teams have sweet deals.

Exactly how I see him. Bill Mahr, Stewart, Limbaugh, et al can go **** themselves with their slanted views but Oliver works both sides of the street...

Finally some other people are finally getting annoyed by this liberal funny whine comedy

Huh? What? If anybody "works both sides of the street" out of those, it's Bill Maher, not Oliver

Funny how he mentions nobody saying "hey let's go hang out around the stadium" yet we have a dipshit group here that says exactly that.

Mahr is a pure far left smarmy old prick. Not sure how you don't see that but to each their own...

I greatly enjoy Bill Mahar's program on HBO. His interview segment is often very, very good and his special guests are often very entertaining. He doesn't hide behind his massively left leanings and he's had some very good people on his panels over the years that lean far right.

The highlights to me are the comedians (Martin Short, Judd Apatow and others) and guys like Bill Nye and especially Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

I realize that some people view it as a "political" program but I just view it as entertainment.

If you watched his interview with Snowden you'd know that he is absolutely on top of things.

I have to admit I don't watch the show. My opinion is formed from interviews I've seen. I have an instant turn off reaction to any personality I view as politically or religiously extreme be they left or right. Obviously you are more keenly attuned, appreciate the input.

So taxpayers pay for profit driven stadiums yet receive no return on the investment other than "jobs"..Its been proven that these buildings dont provide that much boost to the economy. If there were no football team...those people would spend the $200 somewhere else...and likely not in such a consolidated manner.

They can argue construction...but there is a crumbling infrastructure that the money could be used for...thus producing "jobs". That allocation of funds benefits the society as a whole...not just NFL fans and their handful of billionaire owners.

His point was few people patronize the businesses around stadiums. That's pretty accurate when it comes to suburban venues like Camarohead, probably less so for stadiums like Wrigley. In the aggregate, there are way more of the former than the latter.

What I learned in this thread: Nobody knows how to spell Bill Mahur's last name.

If you want to own a football team..whose industry generates billions annually...buy your own stadium. Its not society's responsibility to fund your place of business....just like it's not my responsibility to fund a new Home Depot.

The owner's know that the fanbase is ignorant...so they threaten to move teams to put pressure on the politicians to cave. This is a case of the rich exploiting the poor and misinformed. No politician wants to be labeled "the guy that ran the Chiefs out of Missouri"...It's a sweet racket. It's taxpayer cash for nothing..

You're special.

So sweet of a racket, I wouldn't be surprised if the NFL keeps L.A. vacant just for the extortion benefits. Otherwise, after all these years, you'd think that somebody would have moved there. As a standing threat, look at all the influence L.A. has had through the years.

Haha man are you in for quite the shocker when you figure out about special zone taxing, which is raised to fund that new Home Depot.

Cities compete to have a major sports team play there. It increases the quality of life in that city and can spur other kinds of revenue and development. If a city decides it's not worth the money to maintain modern facilities, they can let their teams walk. There will never be any shortage of cities that want major professional sports.

Must be why there is one pro sports city in the top 10 rankings in quality of life.

I said professional sports improve the quality of life where they exist. Nowhere did I say that you can't have quality of life without one. Basic reading comprehension there, isn't it.

Actually, you made a baseless claim. If they made a real difference, there would be more pro sports cities near the top of the list.

There is no hard data that suggests they improve quality of life, just bullshit platitudes to support the funding of stadia.

The only way to stop the owners from extorting cities is to make a federal law prohibiting tax dollars from being used to subsidize sports teams. It won't happen, but that's the solution

I don't think that the NFL can stop Stan Kroenke and his privately financed stadium for the Rams but the Raiders and Chargers should look elsewhere, especially elsewhere than Carson.

Blech.

The Bismark Raiders has a nice ring to it

Or stop going to games. Let them play in empty stadiums.

Right, then they'll find another city who WILL fund a new stadium with tax money and move there. Thus continues the cycle.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but as I see it, the only way to to stop this is by cutting off tax money. Teams will be apt to stay where they are if there is no financial incentive to move

Unfortunately, this happens in cities like Cincinnati, despite the fact the city is on the hook for $8 million per year to the Bengals.

This is why cities like San Diego refuse to build a $1 billion dollar stadium for owners like the Spanos family, who's barely worth barely a billion dollars themselves, despite owning an NFL team.

I think I've mentioned this before but what owners like Mark Davis and the Spanos family should do is sell 49% or 51% of their franchise to another owner, with the NFL requiring both to invest a least $500 million from that sale to build their own stadiums.

That's actually a really interesting point....you take LA out of the equation and where are they going to threaten to move...Portland....Milwaukee...San Antonio? There arent many markets available....

I agree with him, but the problem is for every city that might be willing to put their foot down, there are others without a team lining up willing to fork over the money to get one. Plus politicians don't want to deal with the fallout at the polls of a team leaving under their watch.

New York doesn't have a team. Move one there.

Orlando, Sacramento, Portland and Hartford are all larger TV markets than KC, Cincy, Buffalo and Jacksonville.

Green Bay owns Milwaukee, so...

They do? Portland's MSA has 520K people, Kansas City's has 2.3 million. Hartford's MSA has 273K and is at least a couple hours from Boston or New York. Orlando, Sacramento and Portland's MSA are virtually the same size as KC, give or take 100-200k people.

I guess this is where you come along to tell me exactly what is defined as a TV market, but I would think any Boston or New Yorkers would be largely indifferent about any Hartford team

I'd like to see how you've "proven" that stadiums don't add much to the local economy while I show you what China town in Washington DC looked like before they built the Verizon Center...

When you are a city, you need to make sacrifices to give your residents something to be proud of. A sports team, especially a successful one is a great thing for any city. It serves as a symbol. Something more than money. It produces solidarity for the city and brings people together.

But don't kid yourself, it does bring in a large amount of money to the city. How can it not? People stay at hotels, they buy gas, they go out to eat before or after the game, buy beer. Lots of people that go to Chiefs games are from Oklahoma, Iowa, Central Missouri, Wichita, Nebraska who would never come to Kansas City as often as they do otherwise.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: It's shocking that you attended college and have a degree.

Kay.

I didn't prove anything...it was a study on the impact of publicly funded stadiums and the local community. It was a few years ago so dont have a link..

I found the part interesting that if people dont spend at the stadium..that expendable money still goes back into the economy. People still eat out and do things...but it isn't a consolidated purge that goes into the hands of a few. 70,000 people dropping $150-200 at one place...

I agree that a team can give a city like KC an identity...it's hard to put a monetary value on civic pride. Does anyone really think "Chargers" or "49ers" when talking about San Diego or San Fransisco? I dont...I think weather, beach and tech industry. Forcing tax payers to fund a stadium in those environments..where tourism isn't dependent on their professional sports is a rip-off.

Glendale AZ is losing 25 million a year on the coyotes.

It was $9m last year. The problem is that the arena sits empty too much. Suns have their own arena and it is too far out for most concerts.

It was supposed to go in Scottsdale (Scottsdale Rd. and McDowell), but they balked at the $180M financing. And the rednecks.

University of Phoenix Stadium was supposed to go downtown, as voted for. But somehow it didn't. Which is a bummer.

It isn't just the stadium, it's dealing with the tenants.

yes, data and facts are very annoying, when one is talking out ones ass

they should seel it to the city, I would love all cities to have a decent ownership in the team, but this would probably blow up badly, when they do a sell off to raise money, or a buy lease back deal, yeah well **** that idea

.

The NFL doesn't allow cities (other than Green Bay) to own the city. Mike Brown, son of Paul Brown, the original owner of the Bengals, will never sell. They'll keep it in the family as long as they have heirs.

The issue isn't with the Bengals organization, which has been very good for the past several years and was very good when Carson Palmer was healthy and youthful, it's with the fans.

Much like St. Louis, it's more of a "Baseball Town" and they just don't have the area's interest like the Chiefs or Vikings or Packers, other smaller markets that have found a way to succeed, despite population.

I believe that the NFL is going to finally allow a team in LA so that they can have a nice shiny new stadium in SoCal to host Super Bowls in.

If Kroenke wants to build a $2 billion dollar stadium in Inglewood, the NFL won't stop him. Otherwise, it's not going to happen.

The Carson plan site is literally on top of a toxic waste site and the environmental reports will take years.

Sure, but they lose the biggest card they have to threaten cities with.

Yeah, we are probably quoting different calculations.

Leadership is dysfunctional and the location is awful. The whole thing is, and has been, a disaster. And Glendale is stuck with it. Suckers. But I gotta believe they ended up out there as Glendale is closer to the retirement communities. Those communities are East Coast. Tons from Chicago.

It's also closer to PIR, where the NASCAR rednecks live.

They should be a case study in how NOT to bring a franchise to your town. IF the Coyotes leave, there is nothing to do with that building.

True Detective style

Not really. Outside of St. Louis, there aren't any NFC teams threatening to move. But the AFC still has Jacksonville, Oakland, the Chargers, etc.

It's all folly, anyway. In another 20 years, giant stadiums will be irrelevant as virtual reality tickets will be all the rage.

That's going to be sweet and I've never thought of that before. Like in every section there's going to be a super HD camera broadcasting in 4k resolution for 100$ a pop for whomever wants to watch at home.

Would work for a couple weeks until people start streaming them to others like they do now. ROFL:LOL:

Once the United States decides to catch up to the rest of the world in terms of internet speed, it'll be a reality sooner than you can imagine.

That sure doesnt apply to me then. Sporting events cause me to spend and consume way more than I would otherwise. For example, KU played at the Sprint Center a few weeks ago. I shelled out $250 more than I would have on a typical Friday Night. In fact, I went to the Tuesday game to when I usually just go to the gym and dont spurn the economy whatsoever. But on Friday after, I went to some local bars at P and L, and then spent $110 for a dinner at Antons. Adding it up, I wouldnt have spent that money at all had it not been for that event.

While you believe that sports define your city, most other Americans would disagree.

As a matter of fact, 90% of the people I've met in the last 30 years outside of Kansas City don't even realize that there's a Kansas City, Missouri and a Kansas City, Kansas, let alone, know about the Chiefs or the Royals.

As usual, your views are vehemently myopic.

BWillie,

How common do you think your experience is?