Albany to NYC Stadium: Drop Dead
I do not for a minute understand exactly why a plan for a $2.2 billion stadium for the New York Jets and, possibly, 2012 Olympic events has been shot down by New York state lawmakers. The expressed reasons do not make a lot of sense and seem to hide a ton of backroom politics. But the outcome is still good news for anyone who hates corporate welfare, especially the sporting variety.
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yay!
awesome!
In your FACE Selig!
I bet the morning-drive-time-sports-talk neanderthals will be bitching and moaning come daybreak. GOOD! You don’t hear me calling for a sales tax to subsidize my hobbies, and role-playing games don’t come cheap these days.
Selig?
Ha, I hear ya’, Akira. BTW, there was some RPG related thing I was going to mention to you a week or so back, but now I’ve forgotten.
Oh, I know, Vin Diesel is a big D&D nerd, apparently. I saw him on Conan O’Brien, and he was talking about it. He wrote the forward for some new D&D supplement that recently came out.
Just thought it was kinda cool, considering how I’m currently playing ‘Escape from Butcher Bay’, a video game with the character he played from the movies ‘Pitch Black’ and ‘The Chronicles of Riddick’ as the “hero” of the story.
Anyway, back on topic, that is good news, regardless of the convoluted logic they came up with the justify nixing the deal.
Maybe, just maybe they’ll build a stadium in Queens w/o a retractable roof. However, I’m a long suffering Jet fan. It’ll never happen precisely because it makes so much sense. Local press hasstates that the same money the Jets want to throw into the West Side could easily build a stadium in the outer boroughs. However, the Manhattan-centric view of the city has clouded a lot of minds.
And for MSG, all their hard earned efforts at being the only game in town for an arena (with all those tax breaks) will get shot to hell in a few years when the Nets area opens out in Brooklyn. Opposition is much less feeble, and basically amounts to yuppies wanting their fair cut of the money the spike in real estate values the development (complete with office towers and ~7500 apartments) will generate.
Maybe we have the western New York members, Bills fans, no doubt, to thank for such good sense. A boondoggle aimed at increasing revenue for a privately-owned operation is one thing. When that outfit is a division rival it is intolerable!
Kevin
Jets? Pfeh! Giants, baby!
aaron:
Whoops! (Heh heh…) Just goes to show how much of a geek I am. I’ve have every episode of Babylon 5 on DVD, but I don’t know that the Jets are a football team.
Why does that fact fill me with pride?
Lowdog:Last year, national radio-sports-jock Steve Czaban, who does a segment for our local hard-rock station morning show, spent a good 15 minutes complaining that Indianapolis Colts fans couldn’t find hotel rooms before the season opener because they were grabbed up by attendees of an annual game convention happening the same weekend. Of course, the conversation degenerated into the typical stereotyping of “geeks”: e.g. Dress in Star Trek costumes, overweight with acne, live in mother’s basement, never kissed a woman, etc.
Of, course, if you paint your body green and gold, stand around shirtless in subzero temperatures,and wear a foam rubber hat in the shape of a wedge of cheese, you’re considered to be the epitome of American machismo. Yet, if you attend a game convention, you’re a social pariah of questionable heterosexuality.
Man, I hate sports.
Todd,
How does Fresh Kills Stadium grab you? Party on the ferry.
Akira:
Indy swiped GenCon from Milwaukee, who had previously grabbed it from Kenosha (UW-Parkside), where it moved from tiny Lake Geneva. The guys who bought TSR (the D&D publishers) judged that the con had outgrown the convention and hotel facilities in Brew City. When they hit the 40K attendee mark, places where sweaty out-of-town fanboys could crash became scarce. As long as TSR, a company founded in Lake Geneva, was in the driver’s seat, the show was going to stay in Wisconsin. Wizards of The Coast, the Magic: The Gathering crew, had no such connection.
Indianapolis has not been shy about spending private and public dough to establish itself as a top site for athletic events, especially amateur and collegiate championships, and I gather their convention business isn’t shabby, either. Inevitably what happens is that some other metro area builds a bigger, more high-tech space, and lures annual shows away from their long-time homes. This is oddly similar to the way cities court sports franchises, often leaving the same wake of white elephant facilities behind. If New York could have co-marketed a Manhattan stadium with the Javits Center, it could compete for some of the largest shows and conventions. Attendees might still prefer going someplace with cheaper hotel bills, though.
Kevin
That wasn’t even the season opener, it was only a preseason game. And it was the Jets who couldn’t get downtown hotel rooms. (Gee, it’s not like the games are scheduled months in advance or something.) How do I know that? Ummm…I’m a big Jets fan, yeah, that’s the ticket! (I am actually a Jets fan, but this was a bad, bad idea, even by stadium building standards.)
Hallelujah!! The way I understand it, Sheldon Silver doesn’t want attention diverted from Ground Zero, which is still a gaping hole after almost four years. The stadium plan included tons of office space, apparently because even the Jets understand that a stadium on its own does nothing to attract other development. Silver says he doesn’t want that office space to “compete” with the office space that will presumably be replaced at Ground Zero someday. It all sounds looney to me too, but who cares! And yes, now that the Jets won’t have the Olympics as an excuse to take our money for their stadium, they will probably try to build in Queens.
And Jeff, thanks for the classic Daily News reference!
“Man, I hate sports.”
Hey now…lets not say something we’ll regret later Akira.:)
I love sports (most sports anyway), vehemently oppose public funding for stadiums, detest almost all “sports talk,” and like video games and Star Wars (although I would not classify myself as a “geek”). We’re (sports fans) not all a bunch of knuckleheads who dress up in paint ya know.
Ditto what matt said. I can hate public funding, but still love my teams. I’m a sci-fi geek, rpger and a big Raiders/Lakers/Dodgers/Kings fan. I personally think that people that paint themselvers Silver and Black are just as freakish as guys that come dressed as Jean Luc (of course, I’m far more likely to make fun of the Trekkie than the crazed Hells Angel member that’s wearing spiked shoulder pads and a Randy Moss jersey).
Yea!
I can hate public funding, but still love my teams. I’m a sci-fi geek…
Right on Mo! Me too. And me sci-fi geek too. But make that singular “love my team”. Go Broncos! But I do love your city. LA is fascinating fun.
“Of, course, if you paint your body green and gold, stand around shirtless in subzero temperatures,and wear a foam rubber hat in the shape of a wedge of cheese, you’re considered to be the epitome of American machismo. Yet, if you attend a game convention, you’re a social pariah of questionable heterosexuality.”
no, you’re both a bunch of ‘mos.
Yet, if you attend a game convention, you’re a social pariah of questionable heterosexuality
Only if you LARP. *ducks*
kevrob:
I still remember when GenCon was run out of the MECCA convention center before it was torn down for the Midwest Express Center. I still have my little yellow button that says “I found the miniature events at GenCon 98” when they put all the wargamers in an overheated, out-of-way basement at the Bradley Center. When I heard that WotC was moving GenCon to Indianapolis, I was very hacked off since I live the Milwaukee suburbs which made attendance a relatively inexpensive proposition.
Still, a con is a con, and I’ve been able to scrape together enough dough the last couple of years to get down to Indy for the big weekend. I have to say that I was impressed by the new digs; Obviously bigger, easy access to a shopping mall that DOESN’T close at 6 p.m. (unlike Milwaukee’s Grand Avenue), better night spots (Smokey Bones in Indy has fantastic ribs BTW, and the RAM Brewery has a good fish fry), and plenty of hotel space–unless you’re a football fan. 😉 All in all, Indianapolis is a city that is not afraid of bringing in tourism, unlike Milwaukee that does everything in its power to drive them away.
This year I won’t be able to make it down to GenCon. My new job doesn’t allow me any vacation time until fall, and my sister choose that weekend to have the Catholic Church officially sanction her sex life (i.e. marriage) so I have to attend or be persona non grata with the folks. There’s always smaller local cons (most in Illinois), but they don’t have anywhere near as much going on as GenCon.
officially sanction her sex life (i.e. marriage)
Amusing.
I think the DC Nationals stadium (current estimated price of $580 million dollars) will rival eventually the proposed $2.2 billion stadium for the New York Jets. Over the next 3 years the price tag will creep upward to over $1.3 Billion dollars. DC is known for spending way beyond its means.
Does anyone know whether this voids the deal for the land that the Jets got for 250 million from the MTA? It’s worth 600-700 million, if Robert Wood Johnson chose to, he could parcel the land and sell it to developers at a huge profit while screwing the public.
Akira/Lowdog/Kevrob/Eric:
Dudes, let your geek flag fly! I have a really butch friend who teases the hell out of me for my hobbies.. and then I point out that his precious Fantasy Football is basically role-playing. I mean, it’s a game, right? It’s “fantasy”? Guys make up their own teams, and taunt each other like Warhammer? What’s the fucking difference?
My biggest geek convention moment: the bar that was attached to the hotel had a special menu of drinks in honor of the event. They had one called “Fasers on Stun” (exact spelling). That sent me to nerd nirvana.
Eric: Don’t duck. I never LARPed in my life. I’m a thirty-something geek who won’t grow up, but even I think that’s pretty fucking bizarre. If anyone’s interested, send me an e-mail, and I’ll try to send the best fucking LARP clip ever. Lightning Bolt! Lightning Bolt! Ligtning Bolt!
Oh, and Vin Diesel had quite a bit of creative input in Escape from Butcher Bay, and it’s a pretty solid game.
I really hope he finds a nice fallback career in game development. It’s very cool to have a well-recognized tough guy break the stereotypes of gamers (even though it’s pretty much dead on..heh heh..)
David,
Good question. I sure hope they don’t get the land. The MTA, as a public agency, was obligated to sell it to the highest bidder, regardless of what was built there. Yet some idiot judge last week ruled that the Jets could get the land at a fraction of its worth. The corruption of this deal apparently reached every level of government.
Rhywun,
That could be rephrased as “the corruption of government at every level allowed this deal”.
I’m surprised Indy could ever run out of hotel space, considering they have enough for not one, not two, but three annual events that draw over 150,000 spectators apiece to in excess of 400,000 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. And a good portion of those people come for more than just the race event.
Thanks for the suggestions on ribs, tho. I’ll see if I can find that when we go for the USGP.
Both stadiums are terrible ideas – and those yuppies (at least those with any sense) – certainly DON’T want the Nets stadium anywhere near them. The property values were growing just fine without it. And nobody wants a giant, ugly, traffic-creating mess near their bucolic park slope brownstones.
The Jets stadium is just stupid. A complete waste of real estate 10 months out of the year, despite Bloomberg’s boner over a thriving convention industry. Hey Bloomberg, we have Javits center. If it can’t make money, why would the Jets stadium?
While in principle, I agree that most stadium deals with public money are bad, there are some good reasons for a local government to put up some money. Take the latest Minnesota Twins stadium deal. For the last 10 years, they have been desperately trying to get the state legistlature to build them a stadium with botched threats to move the team or even contract the team. All of which the people of Minnesota called the team’s and league’s bluff. Now, Hennepin County has decided to increase its sales tax by a 0.5% to partially fund the stadium. The city of St. Paul a couple years ago turned down a similar offer. This seems much more logical than the entire state of Minnesota funding the billionaire Carl Pohlad’s team. But, Hennepin County wanted to make sure a new stadium was built near if not in downtown Minneapolis instead of over in St.Paul or in an outlying metro city. It was an economic, business decision for a local community that was competing against other communities for the same asset.
What’s funny is the Giants are building another stadium near the current Giants Stadium at The Meadowlands. They’re paying for it themselves and they even offered a deal with the Jets where they can split cost and ownership 50/50, because they don’t use it when they’re on the road… and why pay for a whole stadium when you can pay for half? The Jets turned them down.
My favorite game convention moment was down at ShoreCon. A bunch of us had signed on to play a brand new card game called Grave Robbers From Outer Space taught to us by the game’s creator. We played one game and we tried to be positive. We played a second painful game, and when the creator asked how it was, we collectively got up and walked out without saying a word.
Hey, I enjoy Grave Robbers from Outer Space from time to time.
MNG – yeah, I like the game, and it was cool to hear that Vin’s a (somewhat) nerdy tough guy.
See, I’m into all kinds of shit. I play rpg’s, I like sci-fi, I’m into sports (I actually play ice hockey a couple of times a week), I work out, I go to clubs, I’m a dj, I go see rock-and-roll concerts. So to me, you don’t have to be one or the other. At the same time, the folks who are extreme one way or the other usually make me wonder what their problem is. 🙂
Akira – I’ll be in Milwaukee on the 18th for a party my friend is having. Flying up all the way from Phoenix. Feel free to drop me an email.
Yet, if you attend a game convention, you’re a social pariah of questionable heterosexuality
But your virginity will remain unquestioned… :o)
Akira/Lowdog/Kevrob/Eric: Dudes, let your geek flag fly! – Mr. Nice Guy
Hey, MNG, if you were to place me on the Geek Hierarchy, I’d be with the non-gaming*, non-fanfic-writing SF fen, Campbellite/Heinleinite/Baenist subsect, crossed with a serious, if currently dormant comics jones. In my bookselling days I always got stuck with merchandising the D&D shelves, because I was the only staff member who had half a clue about the differences between a manual and a module. Some friends of mine started a comics shop that lasted better than 15 years, which also sold RPGs, and I would help out there. I was a dealer, but never a junkie. I’ve attended a few X-Cons, but never GenCon.
One observation: for several years I worked for Milwaukee’s premier independent bookseller, which had a small location in The Grand Avenue mall, and a larger less Waldenbookish store further east on Wisconsin Ave. When GenCon was in town, the impact on those stores was essentially bupkis. The stores didn’t specialize in SF or fantasy, and the fen who attended the con had access in the Dealers’ Rooms to a selection of frontlist and backlist titles that made our puny SF sections seem miniscule. Sometimes someone who lived in the boonies would show up and go nuts in our Computer Science section. At the time we were specializing in selling direct to businesses, and routinely stocked texts that would be hard to find except at certain university bookstores and maybe a half-dozen trade stores in those pre-e-commerce days. Our military history and remainder tables would get a good going over, too. But the “economic impact” of having a convention like GenCon in town went primarily to the hospitality industry. Not every retail outlet is affected in a positive manner by these dos.
Aside to Mo: haven’t I seen Raiders fans made up as Klingons? Just Q’plaH, baby!
As a Giants fan born and bred in NY State, it bothers me a bit that the Jints will continue to play in Joisey. It’s the Empire State’s own fault that even the high taxes in NJ look small in comparison to what the team and, given NYC’s history of imposing city income tax, the players might have to pay if a new Giants Stadium were built in one of the 5 boroughs or in Nassau County.
As for M’waukee not being tourist-friendly, that depends. Our summer festivals, especially Summerfest, bring in rivers of people, as does the Wisconsin State Fair. The hotels get so booked for the most popular of these events that it actually makes it tough to book conventions during certain summer weeks. Of course, every time someone wants to build more hotel space they put their hand out to the city, county and state for “economic development” money, inspiring those already in the market to cry foul and try to either thwart new entrants or get their own snouts in the trough.
A current plan is to transform the long vacant 35 acre site of the old Pabst Brewery into an entertainment and dining complex, using $41 million in tax subsidies. Existing merchants, tavernkeepers and restauranteurs are griping about having to subsidize new competition.
Kevin
*When I was a high school kid, I got roped into a game or two of the Avalon Hill variety, but I never got into wargaming deep enough to even buy anything.
kevrob:
Thanks for the link! It’s good to know where one is in the food chain 🙂
blammo wrote:
“a giant, ugly, traffic-creating mess”
you mean new york city?