VID: Carson Should Just Say 'No' to New Football Stadium

A plan to build a new football stadium in Carson, CA came one step closer to reality this week after the Los Angeles registrar certified that the measure had the signatures needed to qualify for a spot on the ballot. 

Carson city council members will meet on Tuesday to decide whether to approve the ballot initiative for a public vote or bypass the process altogether and adopt the plan outright. 

In February, the Inglewood city council adopted a plan to build an NFL stadium at the old Hollywood Park site. St. Louis Ram's owner Stan Kroenke has said that he will privately fund the construction of the proposed stadium so he can move the Rams back to Los Angeles. 

The San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders are hoping a competing stadium plan in nearby Carson will be an alternative home if they cannot work out favorable deals in their hometowns. While details about the financing have yet to be released, the plan is reported to be similar to the San Francisco 49'er's stadium deal in Santa Clara, CA which required over $600 million in construction loans from the city. 

Reason TV recently sat down with Chapman University's Joel Kotkin to talk about why giving public cash for stadium projects is a really bad idea. Produced by Alexis Garcia. Approximately 5 minutes. Original release date was March 17, 2015 and the original writeup is below. 

"Anybody that drives around Southern California can tell you the infrastructure is falling apart," says Joel Kotkin, a fellow of urban studies at Chapman University and author of the book The New Class Conflict. "And then we're going to give money so a bunch of corporate executives can watch a football game eight times a year? It's absurd." 

When the Inglewood City Council voted unanimously to approve a $1.8 billion stadium plan on February 24th, hundreds of football fans in attendance cheered for the prospect of a team finally returning to the Los Angeles area. 

On it's face, the deal for the city of Inglewood is unprecedented—Rams owner Stan Kroenke has agreed to finance construction of the stadium entirely with private funds. The deal makes the stadium one of the most expensive facilities ever built and is an oddity in the sports world, where most stadiums require millions in public dollars to be constructed. 

And while the city still waits to hear if it will indeed inherit an NFL team, the progress on the new privately-funded Inglewood stadium has set off a bidding war between other cities that are offering up millions in public subsidies to keep (or attract) pro-sports franchises to their area. 

St. Louis has proposed a billion dollar waterfront stadium financed with $400 million in tax money to keep the Rams in Missouri. And the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders have unveiled a plan to turn a former landfill in Carson, California, into a $1.7 billion stadium to keep the Rams from encroaching on their turf. While full details of the plan have yet to be released, it's been reported that the financing would be similar to the San Francisco 49er's deal in Santa Clara, which saw the team receive $621 million in construction loans paid for with public money. 

Even the fiscally conservative Scott Walker is not immune to the stadium spending craze. The Wisconsin governor wants to allocate $220 million in public bonds to keep the Milwaukee Bucks basketball franchise in the area. Walker has dubbed the financing scheme as the "Pay Their Way" plan, but professional sports teams rarely pay their fair share when it comes to stadiums and instead use public money to generate private revenue. 

Pacific Standard magazine has reported that in the last 20 years, the U.S. has opened 101 new sports facilities and stadium finance experts say that almost all of them have received public funding totaling billions of dollars. Politicians generally rationalize this expense by stating that stadiums will generate economic revenue and job opportunities for the city, but Kotkin says those promises are rarely realized. 

"I think this is sort of a fanciful approach towards economic development instead of building really good jobs. And except for the construction, the jobs created by stadia are generally low wage occasional work." 

"The important thing that we've forgotten is 'What is the purpose of a government?'" asks Kotkin. "Cities instead of fixing their schools, fixing their roads or fixing their sewers or fixing their water are putting money into ephemera like stadia. And in the end, what's more important?"

Produced by Alexis Garcia. Camera by Garcia and Justin Monticello. Music by Jason Shaw. 

Approximately 5 minutes. 

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