[ScoopLV]

Originally Posted by braindead0

Sports teams can't make is anywhere, period. If they could there would be no need to steal money from the productive members of society.

They certainly did make it in the past, and could make it again.

1) Make the owners privately finance their stadiums.

2) If owners have less to spend on players' salaries, too bad. Too bad for the players too -- these stadium subsidies are ALSO salary subsidies. They make more cash available to pay the outlandish salaries.

If the team wants to ride on the backs of the fans, they should use the Green Bay Packers model of selling worthless "stock" to finance improvements. Not every tax payer is a sports fan.


The team owners resort to emotional blackmail to get the fat stacks of tax cash. "Build me a new stadium or I'll move your beloved team to Albuquerque."

Then come the inevitable stories about how the team generates $20 billion a year in revenue for the city, in the form of parking lot fees, hotdog sales, factory jobs at the Crackerjack plant etc. Next, the city council gets word from the sports section of the newspaper that if they don't play ball on this stadium thing, articles will be written saying who's responsible for the team being packed off to New Mexico. "Find a way to build this stadium, or you'll be voted right out of office." Bonds are floated. Stadiums are built. And all is well for 20 years until the cycle repeats itself.

[Ulysses373]

Field of Schemes. Read through that if you want to get really depressed about how much money is wasted on sports teams.

[AuburnAL]

Originally Posted by ScoopLV

"Build me a new stadium or I'll move your beloved team to Albuquerque."

Not the Isotopes!

My advice would be to enjoy UNLV. Get the state to change the name to drop Nevada from the name if it makes it easier to root for them. They'll never leave town. They'll be relatively humble if they ever do ask for new facilities, and the fans' donations will pay for some of it out of their own pocket.

[Willy702]

Originally Posted by Ulysses373

But the question is why should we keep doing this? Why are we giving billionaires millions of taxpayer money for nothing? The San Francisco Giants paid for their stadium and they've been doing fine (they did get hundreds of millions in other improvements though so they didn't pay for everything). Busch Stadium for the Cardinals in St. Louis was mostly privately paid for as well (12% was a public loan), and they've certainly been doing fine too.



They say that about every stadium: "This, this and this event will be held there and you'll make the tax money back no problem!" But it's been shown to not be true. If it were such a positive investment, there would be no shortage of private financiers lining up to build them, especially in Las Vegas where they're willing to spend billions on a hotel.

Once the NFR leaves it will be plenty obvious what is lost by Las Vegas. And the city would lose it to a publicly funded arena. The casinos wont build it because the benefit of big events is spread across the whole city. Casinos from Sams Town to Silverton and all points in between gain from it through more rooms booked at higher rates and significantly larger action dropped in the casino. Same for Pacman fights and big name concerts. A pro sports team wont do this so the arena cant be expressely built for a team, but since an arena empty most of the year makes no sense they can be the local sell.

Las Vegans just take all this money generated as sort of a cash cow to milk, but you have to invest in it to grow it. Sure there is plenty of profit seeking private investment which is a blessing, but there are the bigger picture wider investments which languish because the answer is always dont tax me, make the other guy pay.

[Gatsby1925]

I am still holding out for an MLS Team! And I have the greatest name for it...

...McCarran United!

What? Corny as hell? Fine, I'll go back to the drawing board.

[orca17]

Once the NFR leaves it will be plenty obvious what is lost by Las Vegas.

I lived in Oklahoma City when the NFR left for Las Vegas. The negative economic impact on the city was immeasurable. The city pled poverty when the NFR told them they needed a better facility, the NFR left, and years later the city built the facility that might well have kept the event in town. Now the city has an NBA team, which is adding a lot to the local economy and generating publicity for the city.

For those who don't want a dime of public money spent on an arena, this is the approach the city has taken for years. The end result is that we are dependent upon UNLV and Strip hotels, who will always look out for their own interests first. We have already lost a hockey team because the president of UNLV at the time didn't want the team in "my arena", and there was nowhere else for them to go. Long-term events and professional sports teams will never make a commitment to the city with this kind of underlying instability. The old saying "you have to spend money to make money" definitely applies. We can't expect people to invest in this city if we don't.

[Gatsby1925]

Originally Posted by orca17

I lived in Oklahoma City when the NFR left for Las Vegas. The negative economic impact on the city was immeasurable. The city pled poverty when the NFR told them they needed a better facility, the NFR left, and years later the city built the facility that might well have kept the event in town. Now the city has an NBA team, which is adding a lot to the local economy and generating publicity for the city.

For those who don't want a dime of public money spent on an arena, this is the approach the city has taken for years. The end result is that we are dependent upon UNLV and Strip hotels, who will always look out for their own interests first. We have already lost a hockey team because the president of UNLV at the time didn't want the team in "my arena", and there was nowhere else for them to go. Long-term events and professional sports teams will never make a commitment to the city with this kind of underlying instability. The old saying "you have to spend money to make money" definitely applies. We can't expect people to invest in this city if we don't.

That is an excellent point. Our contract with the NFR is coming up (2014,) and last I heard Oklahoma City is making a huge push to get the event back. One reason for this is, you guessed it, a larger arena that got top renovations when the Thunder moved from Seattle. I admit to not being too confident in keeping the event here.

[Ulysses373]

Originally Posted by orca17

I lived in Oklahoma City when the NFR left for Las Vegas. The negative economic impact on the city was immeasurable. The city pled poverty when the NFR told them they needed a better facility, the NFR left, and years later the city built the facility that might well have kept the event in town. Now the city has an NBA team, which is adding a lot to the local economy and generating publicity for the city.

In this article, from Oklahoma City, the Mayor admits that not having games there during the lockout had no economic impact, NBA Lockout Not Really Costing OKC, Economist Says - Oklahoma City News Story - KOCO Oklahoma City (http://www.koco.com/r/29652696/detail.html - broken link): "Mayor Cornett said there has been no noticeable impact to the city’s revenue without the Thunder playing. In fact, it’s on the rise."

As for the NFR, it's not really the same as a local sports team, it's much closer to an event like the SuperBowl where people come from everywhere for it. A local sports team doesn't have that kind of impact. I couldn't find anything that says the NFR left OKC because of the stadium. All I could find was that they left because they were offered more money (prizes and other things).

Let me say that I'm not against an arena, I'm against a public funded arena for a privately owned local sports team. A public arena with events where the profits go back to the public is fine, but that is not how they work for sports teams.

[Willy702]

Originally Posted by Ulysses373

In this article, from Oklahoma City, the Mayor admits that not having games there during the lockout had no economic impact, NBA Lockout Not Really Costing OKC, Economist Says - Oklahoma City News Story - KOCO Oklahoma City (http://www.koco.com/r/29652696/detail.html - broken link): "Mayor Cornett said there has been no noticeable impact to the city’s revenue without the Thunder playing. In fact, it’s on the rise."

As for the NFR, it's not really the same as a local sports team, it's much closer to an event like the SuperBowl where people come from everywhere for it. A local sports team doesn't have that kind of impact. I couldn't find anything that says the NFR left OKC because of the stadium. All I could find was that they left because they were offered more money (prizes and other things).

Let me say that I'm not against an arena, I'm against a public funded arena for a privately owned local sports team. A public arena with events where the profits go back to the public is fine, but that is not how they work for sports teams.

You might as well say you are against an arena period because no such thing exists. Even the Giants so-called privately financed ballpark was made possible only after the city arranged for the land and donated it to the project and then paid for all municipal services to be installed. And then they gave them property tax breaks and tax increment funds as well.

In most places these wouldnt be called publicly paid for buildings but in Las Vegans anti-tax mindsets even a dollar spent to acquire public land would be called public funding and start a movement for a ballot proposal to get it rejected. You watch the supposedly under plan arena in Henderson will come to a point where something will have to be paid for by a public entity and the anti-tax crowd will be out in force. They will ask the city to build them an access road or something small and there will go the project.

I just have to laugh when I read or hear people talk about how Las Vegas will be a third world city if taxes go up any more. The third world mindset is alive and well and someday when the contributions of the gaming industry are overwhelmed by too many residents in the Valley things sadly will get really tough and people will have to make a decision of do they want to finally pay for things or will they just accept a lesser functioning city. People in the South seem to have already decided to accept this, do the people of Las Vegas want to do the same?

[orca17]

In this article, from Oklahoma City, the Mayor admits that not having games there during the lockout had no economic impact, NBA Lockout Not Really Costing OKC, Economist Says - Oklahoma City News Story - KOCO Oklahoma City (http://www.koco.com/r/29652696/detail.html - broken link): "Mayor Cornett said there has been no noticeable impact to the city’s revenue without the Thunder playing. In fact, it’s on the rise."

Cornett isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer (he used to be a news anchor on the station that wrote the story you cited) - and in his position as mayor, he is supposed to put the best possible face on any situation. I haven't researched overall tax receipt figures in the area, but one cannot argue the point that there are people in the stadium area who would not be there were it not for game night. Many of them will have traveled from outside the city. It is a big boon for businesses in the immediate area (this was true even for minor league hockey and baseball, which are played in the same general area of the city).

A pro franchise changes the country's perception of a city, and it gives local citizens something of their own. One thing Las Vegas sorely lacks is something belonging to us, the people who live here. Most anything of consequence was built for tourists, and one reason there isn't more of a sense of community in this city is that there is nothing that belongs to all of us. Right now we have nothing to collectively root for.