Re:Cities should not pay for new stadiums
by TulliusCicero on Tuesday March 15, 2022 @07:08AM
(#30683907)
I’m aware that some movies and games are subsidized, but most people here are probably against those too, especially when it’s big budget efforts. That’s part of why I chose the examples I did — people are more likely to object to subsidies for things that are already hugely successful and profitable on their own, than, say, little indie efforts.
As already the old Romans knew: panem et circenses is what you need to keep your population from uprising - aka, providing them with food and entertainment.
> You may as well argue that the government should be subsidizing new Marvel movies, or Call of Duty, because those are popular forms of entertainment too.
Movies, including blockbusters such as the MCU, are already subsidized. As for games - the European Union subsidizes developers since 2014[1], Germany runs an additional program since 2019 [2].
> For a while, the Olympics were able to basically threaten their way into huge subsidies from even developed countries, but this seems to have mostly gone away now, as everyone collectively woke up from the delusion that the Olympics were a major economic boon worth investing in.
The subsidies for Olympic Games and FIFA World Cups were for a very long time mostly housing, public transport and the stadiums that were sustainably usable for many decades (just look at my home city of Munich if you want to see an example). Only after corruption took over decisionmaking and sponsors demanded special laws (e.g. in Brazil with beer [3]), liberal democracies decided to not participate in the racket, and so dictators bought their way in.
[1]: https://www.treffpunkteuropa.de/wie-die-eu-die-entwicklung-v...
[2]: https://www.bmvi.de/DE/Themen/Digitales/Computerspielefoerde...
[3]: https://www.t-online.de/sport/fussball/wm/id_53306408/fifa-v...