A popular rhetorical question on social media:
What’s considered classy if you’re rich and trashy if you’re poor?
Getting money from the government.
Terry and Kim Pegula, owners of the NFL’s Buffalo Bills, have a net worth of $5.8 billion, according to Forbes magazine. Despite this, the State of New York is contributing $600 million, and Erie County is contributing $200 million, to build a new stadium for the Bills, it was announced on March 28; a headline in a news release from Gov. Kathy Hochul said the deal would “ensure” that the Bills “remain in New York State.” It’s the largest-ever contribution of public money toward an NFL stadium, surpassing the $750 million in public funds used to build Allegiant Stadium, an act that was successful in luring the NFL’s Raiders to Las Vegas from Oakland.
Or, as former Green Bay Packers executive Andrew Brandt put it on Twitter: “Socialize cost, privatize profit. Incredible business.”
We’re not blind to the reality that inducements to lure a business to a state or a municipality — tax incentives, infrastructure pledges — happen all the time.
But where are those who would condemn government handouts when it comes to professional sports teams, owned by billionaires?
Just in the NFL: The Colts left Baltimore, literally in the middle of the night, in 1984 for a publicly funded, domed stadium in Indianapolis. Stung by the loss, Baltimore committed to public funding for a new football stadium and lured the Browns from Cleveland in 1996. Stung by that loss, Cleveland committed to public funding for a new football stadium and the Browns “returned” — a new team was created, but the NFL declared that the Browns’ colors and records stayed in Cleveland — in 1999.
Throw in the Cardinals abandoning St. Louis in 1988 for Phoenix and an eventual new stadium, the Rams moving from Los Angeles to St. Louis in 1995 for a new, domed stadium, then the Rams abandoning St. Louis in 2016 for Los Angeles and a new, domed stadium. All but the Rams' return to L.A. paid for, in whole or in part, with taxpayer dollars.
In 2012, we urged the City of Milwaukee and State of Wisconsin to resist the request for public funding for a new Milwaukee Bucks arena. Fiserv Forum opened in 2018 with public funding, anyway. That funding was secured after a public threat from Bucks President Peter Feigin in July 2015 that, if a commitment to a new arena were not put in writing, the NBA would buy back the team and sell it to interests in Las Vegas or Seattle.
We were thrilled last July when the Bucks won their first NBA championship in 50 years. We’d rather the celebration on the Fiserv Forum floor that night hadn’t been set in motion by a threat to abandon the city.
Maybe, someday, a city and state will do as we initially urged when a sports team owner demands a new stadium: Tell the owner to feel free to build it themselves.
Until a government body is willing to stand up and say no, the socializing of the cost while privatizing the profit will continue.
Editorial link: https://journaltimes.com/opinion/editorial/journal-times-editorial-the-stadium-extortion-game-goes-on/article_c573dc74-b469-11ec-a530-6b7fd11b310a.html
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