Seattle-area taxpayers finally pay off KingDome, 43 years after construction, and 15 years after implosion. (layoffs, dollar)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I find that most people aren't doing a 30 year loan to lower their payments so they can invest more into a 401K.
A lot of people do a 30 year so they can afford more house just looking at monthly mortgage payments. One large problem with a 30 year loan is that it slowly builds equity. It takes about 21 years to have half the loan paid off. So if someone buys a home on a 30 year and for whatever reason then sells the home 5 or so years later -- they might not have any gain in equity after they pay the fees related to selling and buying again.
A fool and his money will always be parted that is no reason to deny the option of a 30 year mortgage.
Side question have you been to both stadiums? I've only been to jerryworld and cant imagine anything nicer. Was metlife more expensive because of real estate?
Not that I'm aware, the Meadowlands complex was pretty big, and I think it was built on part of it's original land. That said MetLife was privately financed (although the $2.3M Yankee Stadium cost NYC $1.2B) by the Giants and Jets (which of course begs the question, if some teams can do it, why can't they all?).
Not directed at you, but at people saying sports teams attract corps. Which corporations select a city to HQ in based upon sports, unless it's already a sports team?
I don't think that Google located to Mountain View because of the 49ers, Raiders, Giants, Athletics, Kings, Earthquakes, or any team whatsoever. I don't think Microsoft located to Redmond, because Paul Allen wanted to own the Seahawks, or anyone was really interested in the Mariners, Sonics, Sounders or any other team. Boeing did not relocate to Chicago because they preferred the Bears and White Sox. If the determination of where to site your Corporate HQ (or even large subsidiary) is determined by their available sports, you're probably not going to be earning that much money for the local community very long.
Personally when I was meeting companies at their Corp HQ's or branches I couldn't care less about the local amenities as long as I had a decent hotel room, and food. In fact if someone offered me an all expenses corporate box viewing of any sporting event I would have had to decline, if I accepted I'd be liable to be fired since the corporation had a very strict policy on accepting payments/gifts from partners current or potential. How would that look if a contract went to one company against another and somehow my picture was taken on the Jumbotron with the CFO of that corporation that received the contract? Either the contract was unfairly determined because of nepotism, or because I'd been bribed.
Gungnir, Most lower bowls in most stadiums are corp boxes, and they also fill skyboxes. It is a huge part of corporate entertainment.
Maybe it is, but that doesn't mean that the taxpayers should be funding it.
If corporate entertainment is cost effective let the corporations fund the stadium. Hey I would have been prepared to when I used to be a shareholder of a full season suite at CenturyLink with a group of other guys I worked with (it wasn't a corp box, just 5 guys who worked together buying a 16 seater box at the midfield). I'd stump up say $1/4M for a guaranteed suite to my furniture, color scheme and decor requirements (to a maximum budget) at a discounted rate for 10 years (say $25k/year reduced costs, and consider the decoration as interest on the 1/4M loan) assuming I paid suite costs every year of course. I'm pretty sure that season ticket holders would be prepared to do the same under the same conditions, they can have a cushion color choice of and their name on the seat, again with reduced pricing, and they can have the event priority benefits that Suite owners have too (i.e. first refusal for events other than MLS/NFL where they have their suite). A 67,000 seat stadium that can raise $5k per seat could raise $335M just from season ticket holders paying a $5k "deposit" for a season ticket over 10 years (and some swag, and a $500 per year discount). Add in Suites/Boxes around 100+ (another $250M) or so and you've got the entire development costs covered for CenturyLink at least, including Paul Allens completion guarantee and portion of the costs. Sure it means that all ticket sales go to the cost of the stadium, but they're not the big payouts of most televised sports anyway.
I think you'll find that in most cases the added revenue from business relocating to a city that happens to have a "national" or "major" team solely because that city has that team is tending towards zero. Corps aren't (and should be) even thinking about "does this city have a sports team" until they're so far down the list of things they need, they're probably also considering whether it's primarily evergreen or deciduous, or the amount of rainfall it receives annually. Corps are looking for low corporate taxes, good road and communication networks, good and secure utilities, strong and skilled labor pools, or educational facilities and local/state government incentives to relocate long, long, long before "does it have a sports team".
Like others have said, if the public didn't build the stadium, they would be privately built. And they would be big and nice enough to get fans coming to games. All the publicly built stadium effect has is a short boom in the local area while the stadium is new. This would happen anyway if the city built it or not. The only difference if the city builds it is that it can guarantee the stadium will be in town A at the expense of the stadium being built in town B.
Before anyone mentions the benefits a new stadium on a local economy, they must also mention the opportunity or forgone costs on the local economy where the stadium would have been built if a certain city (Seattle) had not built it with public funds. And the net between the two would be very little in the black.
Its corruption at its finest. Social costs and private profits as someone said. Either the city gets all the ticket revenue or the team builds its own stadium.
If a company can build a skyscraper using its own money while paying its employees millions of dollars in salary, I see no reason why another company which also pays its employees millions in salary can't build a stadium with its own money.
A franchise is just another company. Sports is just another big business. A skyscraper and a stadium cost about the same amount of money.
Gungnir, Most lower bowls in most stadiums are corp boxes, and they also fill skyboxes. It is a huge part of corporate entertainment.
It is a big part of pro sports revenue. We built KeyArena, a pro basketball stadium in 1995. Two years later construction started on a new baseball stadium, and three years later construction started on a football/soccer stadium for Paul Allen, who was at the time the world's sixth richest person.
As early as 2000, NBA commissioner David Stern started talking about a new NBA facility. Sonics GM Wally Walker explained that the problem was that the new baseball and football stadiums had better corp. lux box facilities and had taken all the business, leaving the Sonics unprofitable. Taxpayers balked at the idea of building another tax-funded NBA stadium only a decade later, and the Sonics moved to OKC in 2008.
A hedge fund guy named Chris Hansen is still pushing for another subsidized NBA stadium, but so far does not have a team. In the event that he gets one, I imagine that it will be designed to take lux box accounts from the M's and Hawks, and one or both will be back in Olympia demanding new stadiums to keep up with the Joneses.
Seattle could easily set a record for building the most tax-funded pro sports stadiums. Hopefully the billionaire owners and millionaire players will present us with a nice trophy
Seattle could easily set a record for building the most tax-funded pro sports stadiums. Hopefully the billionaire owners and millionaire players will present us with a nice trophy
So what? You post more complaints about Seattle on POC than any other poster posts about any other city. Clearly you are unhappy, so why don't you move to a metro more to your liking? Seattle is doing just fine.
So what? You post more complaints about Seattle on POC than any other poster posts about any other city. Clearly you are unhappy, so why don't you move to a metro more to your liking? Seattle is doing just fine.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
