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OT: MLB Thread

This idea sports is terrible to chip in some money for is silly. The government wastes so much of our money on such nonsense.

Sports is good for business.

It's usually middle-aged women crying about that.
 
JackBurton said:
This idea sports is terrible to chip in some money for is silly. The government wastes so much of our money on such nonsense.

Sports is good for business.

It's usually middle-aged women crying about that.
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Sports is good for business if you're a team owner who can hold city hall and your fans hostage whenever you decide you want a new stadium or arena built for you. It's not nearly so good for governments and taxpayers to be in the business of building said venues, especially when they are turned over to the team owner right after they get built.

Study after study over the past 20+ years has proven beyond a doubt that publicly-financed stadiums do nothing and in many cases have a negative impact on their communities. The city of Detroit somehow found the money to build Ford Field, Comerica Park and soon a new arena for the Red Wings even though it has lost 50% of it's population over the past 50 years, is bankrupt and can't even find enough money to keep basic services like water and electricity going in large parts of the city. Building those sports venues isn't helping Detroit; it's hastening its end. And Detroit is just one example.

It's very simple: if building stadiums was good for business then sports teams wouldn't be asking government to fund them. They'd just build them with their own money. It's just a big shell game in which team owners get nearly all the profits while assuming next to none of the costs or risks.

I feel sorry for the Expos because in many ways they were the exception to the rule. They actually needed a new stadium (unlike, say the Atlanta Braves who after only 20 years are expecting a city that went broke on the 96 Olympics to build them another new stadium) and they really didn't have enough money to build one themselves. But most pro sports franchises have more than enough cash to build themselves a stadium if they want to. But why would they do that when they can extort one for free from their home city?

Charles Bronfman talks about how when he first saw the Big O he knew right away that it would be crappy for baseball. Well if he knew that why did he agree to play there? Because it was free, I suppose. But what he should have done, assuming he believed that playing in the Big O would not be good for the long-term health of his team, was build his own baseball-specific stadium in a better location. Unlike the consortium which took over the Expos after him, Bronfman had the money to do this or at least the clout to get the money together to build it. But just as he was with player contracts, Bronfman chose to be a cheap juif. And as soon as the cost of being a baseball owner got too much for his liking he bailed. Bronfman is celebrated by many as the man who brought baseball to Montreal but he also played a role in the franchise's mediocrity. When push came to shove he wasn't willing to pay what it cost to be a winner.
 
You can't blame Bronfman. He never wanted to be majority owner of such an expensive asset. Calling him "cheap juif" is unfair. Is Warren Buffet cheap because he doesn't own a pro team? Some guys prefer more conservative investments. Of course, Charles nephew, Edgar Jr. went the other way and lost the entire Seagram's fortune in his attempt to become a famous music mogul.

As Buffet said about sports teams:

Well, they're kind of like art. I mean, they go up in value because there's just a lot of rich people that want to own one, and there's more rich people than there are teams. So they compete for 'em. Some of them don't make much money, as you know, but if you've got a lot of money, what are you gonna do with it? Some people buy art, some people buy houses, some people buy boats. I invest, but I'm different.
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If only Edgar had fit the bigoted stereotype. Seagrams (the world's #1 distiller in the 80s) would still be in the family.
 
XPOFAN said:
Did you lose money on that stock?
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I see you're strong as ever in following an argument. But to answer your irrelevant question -- I personally didn't lose a penny. That happened before my investin' days.
 
CH1 said:
I see you're strong as ever in following an argument. But to answer your irrelevant question -- I personally didn't lose a penny. That happened before my investin' days.
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Thanks for the insult. :rolleyes(2):

I was just asking because you were going on about it as if you had lost money.
 
Well, we were clearly talking about Charles Bronfman and his prudent business ways. He described the loss of Seagrams

“It was a disaster, it is a disaster, it will be a disaster,” he says. “It was a family tragedy.”
 
Edgar Sr. would have made for a more dynamic owner of the Expos than Chas, who's vision was hampered by his desire to save money. Edgar was more of an alpha male who would have seen the Expos as an extension of his penis, in much the same way Steinbrenner did with the Yankees and Jones does now with the Pokes. Sure, Edgar Jr. is a screw-up, but so is Chuck's son Stephen, who couldn't hold down a job in his younger days. It happens the further removed you get from the original source of wealth. Sam built the empire in front of his son's eyes so they knew what it meant to work. But the grandkids don't understand privation. They were born with silver spoons in their mouths and have never wanted for anything their entire lives. Small wonder that they'd treat the family business like a toy.
 
Habs53 said:
Some people do not get the part about government tax money. That is why i could never understand not funding for a stadium.
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Argument is people would spend the money anyway and government would get its tax money. Not new tax money.
 
The same thing applies to casinos. They don't generate new money. They just take in existing money that would be spent elsewhere. The only way a casino is good for your economy is if the parking lot is full of cars from outside the state of province in which it is located. Vegas casinos are good for Nevada because they are a tourist destination. But your local casino only only caters to local gamblers. So instead of someone spending money at a restaurant, sporting event, concert or movie, they blow their cash at a slot machine and all those other local businesses suffer.

If you use public money to build a stadium, that's money you aren't using to build or maintain schools, hospitals and infrastructure. Montreal's ifrastructure is crumbling and it's unemployment rate is close to 10% The only way the government could even begin to broach the subject of public funds for a stadium would be if they were going to be getting a direct cut of the profits. But that isn't how these deals are ever structured. The way it inevitably works is that the taxpayers foot nearly 100% of the construction costs and then when it's done they hand the keys to the team owners who keep all or nearly all of the revenues. Team owners can always find another city willing to give them what they want so the only way to keep them in your city is to keep them happy and teams aren't happy with sharing.

It is always preferable when an owner builds the thing themself. Failing that a public-private partnership is doable but it has to be real. The owner has to share in the cost of construction and the ensuing profits. It can't just be gifted to them by the taxpayers.
 
XPOFAN said:
Opinion: New economic realities make Montreal a viable option for MLB

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/sports...l?hootPostID=7bc4ac32c991469acafa7b6c726ddea9
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This article (like most) assumes Mtl is equivalent to any other market its size, excluding the realities of the population demographic in Mtl - it's large allophone population consists of a great many who have no association with a ball & bat coordination game like baseball. I'm speaking of the huge Arabic populace that skew the allophone demographic in Mtl. Thus, the market size which will attend, follow & watch the games, is not not "the largest population in North America without an MLB team", just sayin...
 
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