DC:
Professional sports stadiums are some of the biggest rip-offs on the planet, and team presidents and owners know it.
One of the worst offenders is former Miami Marlins team president David Samson — who helped broker a deal for a new baseball stadium that will end up costing Miami taxpayers an estimated $2.4 billion before helping former owner Jeffrey Loria sell the team for $1.2 billion just a few years later
So, Samson recently made an appearance at ESPN radio host Dan Le Batard’s birthday party in Miami, and the apparently stumbling-drunk former Marlins’ president decided to brag about successfully fleecing Florida taxpayers. more here
Tax payers are brain dead stupid. The politician rats SHOULD be strung up.
Hmmm, you mean Bryce Harper making 20 to 40 million dollars A FUCKING YEAR is fiscally sustainable only because of idiot fans and taxpayers?
It has been my observation over decades that, generally, the more hardcore the sports fan, the lower the intellect, morality and general reliability as a fellow citizen. It’s so consistent it’s practically a constant you can bank on. Exceptions have been rare.
The number of visible tattoos, piercings and other pathological self-scarring correlates the same way, with exceptions here even rarer.
I didn’t set out to see either one of these things, but I do see them and I know others do as well.
add to that the number of things hanging from the rear view mirror……
GREEN BAY PACKERS
They got state and national celebrities to BEG for gov’t funding on tv and radio, and they got it, 100s of millions of it.
How do they repay the taxpayers? The Green Bay Packers give out novelty sized checks all year round to the charities of their choice, not to refund the taxpayers.
Gee that’s nice of them to get a lot of love from money that’s not theirs.
SCAM!
As bad as banks;
Socialize the costs and losses (i.e., paid for by you and me), privatize the profits (kept by the Big Bosses).
And Craig Kimbrell the Boston Red Sox closing pitcher is not worth a 6 year contract that would pay him $100 million dollars.
Oops!
Did I say that out loud?
Anything subsidized by the government is a ripoff and a bad deal, electric car, solar/wind power, sports stadiums, illegal imigrants…
One of the few exceptions might have been the former space program.
…this guy’s a piker next to Mike Brown of the Cincinnati Bengals. THAT guy got a new stadium AND 4 practice fields AND control of all the nearby riverfront downtown land AND concession revenue AND free upgrades for life in what could be the most one-sided staduim deal in history.
It probably was not a coincidence that the County Commissioner he “negotiated” this deal with left the County government the next year and went to work for…Mike Brown of the Cincinnati Bengals.
The stadium is almost 17% of the County budget 18 years later.
And the Bengals are a terrible team, too.
I’m not sure who’s so worried about being a “big league city”, but as long as sports and politics corrupt each other, as long as beefhead jocks still support worthless teams. and as long as voters continue to PERMIT this, it’ll continue to be as common as dirt.
…the only reason you DON’T hear about Mike Brown and you DO hear about THIS guy is, that Brown (and most owners) is not fool enough to BRAG about it.
But they ALL do it.
Enjoy the game, you’re paying for it, ticket or NOT…
https://www.businessinsider.com/worst-stadium-deal-cincinnati-2011-7
It was a joke from the beginning…They only had an average of
1200 or so Fans at every Game in the old Stadium..When the Cubs came
to Town it would balloon up to around 4000 Folks.
Everyone bitched, but it got done anyway.
Now we know where the Pittsburgh Pirates ownership model came from… 😡
TAXPAYERS, mind you, STILL owed $20,000,000.00 on Three Rivers Stadium (Pittsburgh), when they blew it up in 2001 – 30 years AFTER they built it!!! 😮 😮 😡
“Anything subsidized by the government is a ripoff and a bad deal, electric car, solar/wind power, sports stadiums, illegal imigrants…”
And ANY gov’t which subsidizes such extortions is corrupt – by definition.
izlamo delenda est …
Didn’t they also still owe money on the Kingdome when they blew it to smithereens in the early 2000’s? At least we got Safeco Field and a stadium for the Seajerks but at what cost. And also didn’t they increase hotel taxes etc. to help pay for part of it? By the way indoor baseball sucked and I hated the Kingdome.
grool DECEMBER 19, 2018 AT 4:36 AM
Thank You! Your summation is helpful going forward, but limited by where it might be repeated…
It’s called COST SHIFTING, and in this case it is a form of welfare for the rich. This is why professional sports salaries are so high. If owner’s had to buy and maintain their own stadiums they would have less to pay the players.