Seeking a Stadium: Tax Money Needed

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By Brendon Berger

Hello, my name is Brendon and I am an NFL fan.

I love watching football, in particular the Pittsburgh Steelers, because who doesn’t like watching the good guys win? I’ve purchased Madden EVERY year for going on 20 years now, regularly take the first day of the NFL draft off, and used my first two fantasy football picks EVER to draft Tim Biakabutuka and Jamal Anderson (and you are welcome for the chance to think about those two for the first time in well over a decade).

Suffice to say I ought to be easy for the National Football League to please. So why oh why do I find myself stewing in a potent mix of annoyance and futility?

Stadiums…it’s always the f****** stadiums!

Last thursday everyone’s favorite commissioner, Roger Goodell, had this to say about the pending move of the Chargers from San Diego to Los Angeles:

““For more than a decade, the San Diego Chargers have worked diligently toward finding a local stadium solution, which all sides agreed was required. These efforts took on added intensity in the last two years. A year ago, NFL owners granted the Chargers an option to move to Los Angeles. Rather than immediately exercising that option, the team spent the past year continuing to work on finding a stadium solution in San Diego…The Chargers worked tirelessly this past year with local officials and community leaders on a ballot initiative that fell short on election day….Relocation is painful for teams and communities….which makes it even more disappointing that we could not solve the stadium issue. As difficult as the news is for Charger fans, I know Dean Spanos and his family did everything they could to try to find a viable solution in San Diego.”

(Story with the full quote can be found here)

Rog…just…shhh… just shhh. You’re making it worse so just go be a smug SOB somewhere else. For those who don’t keep as painfully appraised of the ‘stadium’ process I’ll translate what the commissioner just said.

“Dean Spanos (Chargers owner) tried repeatedly for a decade to extort money from the citizens of San Diego. Failing this he appealed to the NFL who stepped in and uttered those magical words ‘Los Angeles’ which have acted a magic spell for some time now. When Invoked they previously had caused new stadiums to spring forth from the earth because the spaghetti spined cowards that govern various cities don’t want to be the one who ‘lost’ the team. Surprisingly this time around it failed, so in what amounts to an epicly expensive temper tantrum Spanos has decided to move his team to LA. Giving a giant middle finger to you San Diego”

The move just doesn’t make sense on so many levels, but let’s start with the obvious. The NFL offered a hefty $300M in stadium assistance to the Chargers for a stadium that was projected to cost $1.2B. Spanos has a net worth of around $2.4B, admittedly you don’t get to that figure without being a shrewd handler of money, but this is hard to swallow. We are expected to believe that somehow multi-billionaire Spanos simply could not find ANY other way to raise the remaining capital necessary to fund his palace. No he NEEDED taxpayer dollars and when they weren’t forthcoming…tantrum.

The argument for the use of public funds for the benefit of pro-sports franchises rests on the idea that stadiums are in fact investments. This assertion, however, does not hold up under scrutiny and even cursory research will turn up a myriad of studies, done by people much smarter than I am, confirming that fact. Seemingly the only people who DO think municipal investment in stadiums is a good thing are the ignorant or those who stand to directly benefit from them.

Consider that the construction jobs created by the projects are, by their nature, temporary. Many of these stadiums then have the temerity to staff themselves with VOLUNTEERS in many positions come gameday (which is just so…BLARGH). And finally the idea that a new stadium will suddenly lead to an increase in the amount of being spent in a metro area (and thus more extortion…err…taxes) is a fantasy. The amount of dollars a population has for leisure is not significantly changed by the arrival of a new stadium. It’s possible the team could see a larger percentage of the existing pie, but this doesn’t mean much to city.

Finally in the case of Los Angeles itself. On paper it seems to make sense, but for whatever reason it has NEVER worked for the NFL in LA. Now in a fit of peak the league has decided to push it’s watch, phone, and wedding ring into the middle of the table along with all its chips. Moving a franchise from a city that loved football to a city that doesn’t seem to care. I could expound more upon this theme but it’s already been done in far superior fashion by Bill Plaschke of the LA Times here.

While it may not feel like it right now to the powder blue faithful, they have a lot to be proud of. They resisted the Spanos family and the NFL’s attempts at extortion. They exercised their rationality and didn’t indulge empty rhetorical calories of pro-stadium arguments. Admittedly my list of ‘things the government SHOULD be involved in’ will be shorter than most but I can’t see how ‘stadium building’ makes it onto anyone’s list. Here’s to you oh hometown of Ron Burgundy, and to your future schadenfreude.

For another, more learned, take on this issue check out this video from the conservative review.

To close…just one last rendition of…