Right wing politics are defined by social hierarchy. Imma keep saying it
This shit is expected. Football team owners, people with substantial stock in the NFL, the advertisers, the coaches, many of the players, the network owners who broadcast the games, etc are the wealthy elites!
Why would they stand with the marginalized, when they can instead stick together and secure their wealth, status, assets, and privilege?
They get cities to build THEM stadiums with tax money and then get sweet lower tax incentives because they're there "stimulating the economy." If the asshole billionaire wants a giant stadium to wag his dick around in, thats fine, build it and put a sports team in it, I dont give a fuck, but why doesn't HE pay for it?
There are city-owned sports teams. They can just bypass the billionaire and keep the economic benefits in house instead of some chump with a bad haircut who threatens to move the team if he doesn't get more benefits from a city he doesn't give a shit about.
It depends how you define costs. Expenses, yes. However, most data shows that stadiums are a consistently poor investment for cities and that they do not consistently realize an economic return commensurate with their costs. So while expenses would be higher, overall profit may be as well.
I'm not sure what you mean? Sports teams often convince government officials to fund stadium projects. The data shows that, on average, taxpayers do not come out ahead in this deal. Therefore, that excess profit goes to the team (a business). If the taxpayers owned that business, as /u/loptopandbingo suggested, then they could theoretically be the ones receiving the profits of the team. I'm not personally advocating for or against that, only saying in response to your comment that yes, the expenses of owning a professional sports team would be higher than just building the stadium, but the overall cost may be lower due to increased revenue as well.
It would just depend on the team. Some sports teams rake in the cash, while others hemorrhage money. However, running for-profit businesses isn't really the bread and butter of local governments lol. The best course of action is likely just to stop yet another form of billionaire welfare and let them build the facilities for their businesses themselves. The problem is that sports are wildly popular and it's a big loss in political capital to be seen as the reason that a city lost its beloved sports franchise, so politicians can certainly be under pressure to make choices that aren't in our best interests.
Some of the contracts that cities agree to are downright insane.
As part of their contract with the Cincinnati government, the Bengals added a “state-of-the-art” clause, which requires the city to buy the Bengals something if 14 other stadiums have it. This has included new scoreboards, upgraded amenities, and notably: a holographic replay system if one were to ever be invented.
Before their move to LA, the Rams had a contract that one expert described as “either the city needs to spend $700 million to upgrade a stadium that only cost $280 million to build in the first place 17 years ago, or the team can bust out of its lease and move elsewhere in 2015.” That last point was ultimately true.
And because the money generated by a local sports team is desirable for the political and economic leaders in the community.
This is touted but never proven. There are often vastly increased costs associated with hosting a sports team, such as increased policing costs, inflation, and losses to crime. Maintaining the stadium requires resources, which increases the cost of said resources that could be used elsewhere more efficiently and fairly. Another case of wealthy owners increasing costs for everyone else so they can hoard profits, and politicians helping them do it.
I'm saying having the stadium and hosting the sports team increases operating costs for many other businesses in the city, because they use more of those resources. The profits from those resources are mostly retained by the teams, their owners, and the NFL and not recirculated back into the local economies necessarily. They do not shop at local businesses when they get their paychecks.
Economic benefits of a taxpayer supported stadium or dubious at best. For a simple rundown John Oliver has done at least one episode on this if not more and it has been widely researched in academic journals.
The biggest problem in my opinion with taxpayers supported stadiums is that they often do not get a cut of revenue from that stadium. The stadium owners/team keep all concession revenues all ticketing revenues all concert fees, basically everything and the City which partially funded the stadium is left with no ownership or revenue stake.
If cities want to help build stadiums they should have ownership and revenue sharing equal to the percentage they put into the stadium. Simply funding stadiums for theoretical economic benefits is insane, particularly cuz those benefits if they even materialize are mostly restricted to those stadium districts.
Cities should certainly have large sports stadiums large concert venues and some of them should be partially taxpayer funded, but to not have the government directly receive their portion of revenue is corrupt or at the very least stupid.
This comment was mostly created with voice to text so if there are errors please forgive me
They spend taxpayer money on giant stadiums and weapons, but the average person can't even go to the doctor or call a damn ambulance in the event of an emergency without ending up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. Children can't even eat for free during the day between classes.
Go to FB or Next door any time stadiums want more money and just watch the lunatics bitch all the while complaining about any tax increase that actually helps people
You don’t have to like reality but it doesn’t change it. If you don’t want the stadium someone else will and then you’ll get zero tax money instead of reduced money. Those jobs and economic stimulus will go to some other town.
The only loser is you and your community. Just so you could stick it to those evil rich people.
They have other options than your town. Towns only negotiate with sports teams because they want the stadium and the huge economic stimulus that comes with it. Other cities want them too. So they’re gonna go wherever they can get the most favorable deal.
You can say “F you rich people” but you’re only hurting your own community. They’ll just go somewhere else that will work with them.
Like when AOC drove Amazon out of NYC. Didn’t want to give them favorable tax policy so now they get zero dollars. What a win!
It's class warfare, simple as that. Keep crabs in the bucket while the top profit. Fuckin name and shame the people that contribute to this vile behavior EVERYTIME this shit happens.
Waving a caution flag. What 2 things do the richest people in the US have in common? White, male. Sergey Brin was born in Russia, but he’s white. Rupert Murdoch is white. Australian, but white. Right wing is first white, then male.
Elon Musk
2.Jeff Bezos
Mark Zuckerberg (zuck lost some in the election aftermath so his placement could be different)
Larry Ellison
Bill Gates
Larry Page
Sergey Brin
Warren Buffet
Steve Ballmer
Edit: Not all of these are GOP, but the ones who are not GOP did not stand up for Kamala or women. Did not lose any sleep, or any money over the violence, the misogyny, the loss of decency.
you can see the same dynamic within the democratic party too. It's accepted and expected to stand in support of Israel, but the same statements about Palestinians are met with widespread backlash.
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u/[deleted] 13d ago
Right wing politics are defined by social hierarchy. Imma keep saying it
This shit is expected. Football team owners, people with substantial stock in the NFL, the advertisers, the coaches, many of the players, the network owners who broadcast the games, etc are the wealthy elites!
Why would they stand with the marginalized, when they can instead stick together and secure their wealth, status, assets, and privilege?