“Nobody watches sports ball in my bubble.”

Not everything needs to be put to a vote to know that it reflects what people want. Specific policies that are unpopular become campaign issues. For example despite being quite democrat leaning, Marylanders don’t like public transit, so Larry Hogan won two terms as a Republican promising to cancel transit projects and shift funding to highways. But if anyone proposed defunding the Baltimore Ravens they’d get booted out of office.

Also, even if that was true, there’s lots of public funding for cultural projects that probably wouldn’t fly if put to a ballot measure. The New York State Arts council has a budget of $90 million a year. The current Bills stadium is almost 50 years old. Even if the new Bills stadium lasts only 30 years, the arts council will receive almost $3 billion over that time. Which do you think would be more likely to pass in a ballot state wide ballot measure? $850 million for a stadium of $3 billion for arts?

Again: there's no "sports ball" denigration.

I like watching men in leotards fly around a track on their bicycles, but I haven't asked my municipality to pay for my personal athletic boondoggle. It's not clear to me why my tax dollars should subsidize others' athletic boondoggles either, especially when they come in the form of privately-owned teams, stadiums, etc. I'd perhaps feel less strongly about this if the state retained ownership of their investment, but that's not the deal in any case that I've seen so far.

> I like watching men in leotards fly around a track on their bicycles, but I haven't asked my municipality to pay for my personal athletic boondoggle.

It is often the case that so-called "lesser" sports not only don't get public subsidies, they pay taxes that the bigger sports don't.

For example, I enjoy watching curling. Granite Curling Club in Seattle is one of only two curling-specific facilities on the west coast and while it is a non-profit organization, it still pays property taxes, something that the Seattle Seahawks[0] and Seattle Mariners[0] do not. While the relative amounts are small, to be sure, to take the Mariners for example they pay $1.5 million in rent to the county yet the public expense is much higher than that[1].

This isn't a slam on the concept of sports--I also am a lifelong baseball fan--just how they are paid for, on which I think we agree.

0 - https://dor.wa.gov/sites/default/files/2022-02/InLieu_Leaseh...

1 - https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/mariners/king-county-cou...

I watch sports ball and I don’t want the team defunded but I don’t want my taxes paying for the construction of a new stadium; the revenues of which won’t be going back to the city.

Just make it simple. Take the cost of the stadium as a no recourse loan against the team. All of a sudden stadiums get produced with "any" level of scrutiny. It's far too easy to ask for more handouts for luxuries when you're not paying the bill.

This might be an artifact of a filter bubble, no? It reminds me of Scott Alexander's interesting discussion of outgroups, wherein he revealed that despite knowing around 150 people (probably), and that roughly 46% of Americans are creationists, there was no overlap in those two subsections of society. The odds of that happening by chance are, literally, astronomical. Despite living in a Republican district in a Republican state, he never managed to meet any Republicans. Socially, at least. It was fascinating to realize just how subtle yet powerful such filter effects could be.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anythin...

I think the parent would likely agree with me in this but forgive me if I am speaking for them. I wouldn't have nearly as large of an issue with stadium funding if they were put up to a vote and I was outvoted. I can tolerate being in the minority opinion but I have little tolerance for dictation.

Sure, it could be. But I like sports, and a lot of my friends like football. The civic angle (private businesses getting free taxpayer money) weighs more heavily on all of us (I suspect) than any pro- or anti-football bias.

Besides, creationism is a pretty hot-button social issue. People feel strongly about football, but hopefully not that strongly.

> People feel strongly about football, but hopefully not that strongly.

For better or for worse, I’m guessing a lot of people care more about what happens to the local football team than whether creationism is taught in the local schools.

Absolutely! I meant more in the filter bubble sense: I don’t know if I could find a creationist in my social circle, but I could definitely find a handful of football fanatics. So it’s not such a strong feeling as to produce the bubble we see with extreme religious differences.