Florida Weighs Corporate Welfare for New Sports Stadium
Tampa Bay taxpayers already funded one baseball stadium. Will they be forced to subsidize another?
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Commentators in the sports community lauded the efforts by the chambers of commerce to prop up baseball by using taxpayer dollars.
Tampa Bay Times sports columnist Gary Shelton summed up the debate by painting a dire picture for a world without public-subsidized stadiums, reiterating the necessity for passing this deal.
“You have every right to oppose a new stadium if you wish. Just understand this,” he wrote in apocalyptic terms this month. “Baseball is at stake. If you think a team is a community asset worth keeping, the eventual cost is going to be a new park”
The Miami Gamble
The city of Miami went through its own troubles with Marlins Park, the baseball stadium that opened in April and cost $634 million overall, a 50-percent increase from the original estimated price conjured up by the owners of the team in the initial stages of planning.
Norman Braman, a Miami-based billionaire automobile dealer and former owner of the Philadelphia Eagles, told Florida Watchdog in April that public-financed parks such as Marlins Park always end up being losses for the taxpayers and boons for the private investors who set the deals up and profit immensely.
“I don’t believe in corporate welfare. I believe that the Marlins have the capacity to build their own stadium,” said Braman. “It shouldn’t be the taxpayers that build these things.”
As a successful billionaire philanthropist, Braman said he has long prided himself on conducting honest business that benefits consumers and his employees, without the interventionist hand of government.
And he put his money where his mouth is.
Braman put more than $500,000 into defeating Miami-Dade County Commissioners who approved the stadium deal while at the same time hiking property taxes, saddling taxpayers with years of debt, and burdening low-income families across the county.
“These are profit-making businesses. You make an investment in your own business, not the taxpayers,” he said. “No one cares about the taxpayers.”
This article originally appeared at Watchdog.org.
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Screw that. I enjoy the Rays and would hate to see them go, but I totally oppose a dime of public money being used to subsidize the team.
Incidentally, the location does suck, and the stadium isn't exactly amazing. Still, I'd rather have that than more taxes.
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I love the trop. It's thoroughly air conditioned and they have full liquor bars, $8 tall boy bud lights, and not a bad seat in the house. Not to mention our metro area is brrrrrrrooooooooke. The tax deal ain't gonna happen
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But but but Trolley Cars!
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I fear the Tampa option. Not that I wouldn't prefer that, location-wise, but I don't want the tax burden.
If I were a betting man, I'd say a new facility in the Gateway area is most likely. If we're lucky, it'll be privately funded, but I'll believe that when it happens.
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Hey, the Florida... I mean Miami Marlins stadium was paid for by tax payers and that isn't in a great location so why can't Tampa do it?
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I enjoy the Rays and would hate to see them go
You and three other people. Anyone who believes that a new park for the Rays will lead to more than a 10% jump in attendance, especially given the subsequent rise in ticket/concession prices, is seriously delusional.
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Especially since 10% of nothing is...
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The location is a huge problem--it's about as far away from most of the attending population as it could be.
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I don't go to the Trop because it is just too big of a pain in the ass. That aside, why should tax payers be on the hook for a stadium? It seems like five years after a team gets its new stadium they start pitching for a new one. It is never ending extortion.
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That's exactly what it is, and cities not only shouldn't pay, they shouldn't have the legal authority to do so.
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I feel that if a municipality is responsible for paying for a sports franchise, they should have the honor of renaming them. The Tampa Bay Debt-Raisers? The New York Spending Giants? The Santa Clara 540's?
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generic Brand| 11.26.12 @ 11:06AM |#
..."The Santa Clara 540's?"One of the very few 'good deals' SF taxpayers ever got was when the Santa Clara politicos outbid SF for the new stadium.
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I feel that if a municipality is responsible for paying for a sports franchise, they should
have the honor of renaming themget a piece of the ownership. -
That's great if it's a profitable franchise, but an unhappy result if the municipality becomes an owner of one that is cash-flow negative....
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What if each individual taxpayer could take their share of the loss on their income taxes?
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If the taxpayers are investors, why don't they get in free? What's the actual return on this investment?
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Florida Weighs Corporate Welfare for New Sports Stadium
hope they are well anytime.
