Cities should not pay for new stadiums

Re:Cities should not pay for new stadiums by seanmcdirmid on Tuesday March 15, 2022 @09:51AM (#30685238)

It’s all about the money. American cities make money on sports teams, so would rather have them than not. It isn’t a social benefit but an economic one consisting of tax revenue and knock on effects for businesses around the stadium. They aren’t throwing money away on a stadium, they are investing $100 million now to make $30 million more a year in tax revenue for 10 years.

But what I really want to know is who pays $200 for a sports ticket and $20 for a beer? There is money to be made hand over fist, but I just don’t understand why that is true at all. I’d rather not have these sports teams either if only for the traffic they generate on game days. But if you want to blame someone, blame the customers for this stuff, not the local government that is just giving them what they want.

Also, Tokyo is a really bad example of you are failing against prestige boondoggles. How many sky trees and Tokyo towers does the world really need?

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Re:Cities should not pay for new stadiums by tanjtanjtanj on Tuesday March 15, 2022 @10:49AM (#30686024)

Tokyo Skytree was privately funded and I believe Tokyo Tower was as well. Both of them serve the function of increasing sightlines for broadcasting to reduce the number of towers needed throughout the city. This serves as a public good in a city where space is at such a premium. Not to say there wasn't additional expense added into the skytree for the prestige factor, it really didn't need to be that tall.

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