why stadium deals are so secretive

[Millhouse]

http://deadspin.com/braves-president-stadium-deal-had-to-be-done-in-secret-1582023678

 

[Timonen]

http://deadspin.com/braves-president-stadium-deal-had-to-be-done-in-secret-1582023678

i'm not sure why folks are angry at the process. They wanted to do a business deal. It's legal. They got it done. Time will tell how it works but I much prefer this scenario to ridiculous debate, whining and politicking. Braves were in a crappy deal (awful location, no rights to parking revenue, no ability to develop adjoining awful location), the city wasn't willing to help and now they've found something better.

Personally, the new stadium will be about 2 miles from my house and I'm cautiously optimistic about it (enough buffer that I think it'll be a positive on home value). They really are moving to where the bulk of their fan base is, which also happens to be a much higher income, nicer area...but it's still an Atlanta address.

 

[Millhouse]

i'm not sure why folks are angry at the process. They wanted to do a business deal. It's legal. They got it done. Time will tell how it works but I much prefer this scenario to ridiculous debate, whining and politicking. Braves were in a crappy deal (awful location, no rights to parking revenue, no ability to develop adjoining awful location), the city wasn't willing to help and now they've found something better.

Personally, the new stadium will be about 2 miles from my house and I'm cautiously optimistic about it (enough buffer that I think it'll be a positive on home value). They really are moving to where the bulk of their fan base is, which also happens to be a much higher income, nicer area...but it's still an Atlanta address.

ordinary business deals don't involve hundreds of millions of dollars of other peoples money.

if you don't like politicking, don't take money from taxpayers.

 

[Killdozer]

Gee Millhouse with your perspective of how tax money should be spent all NFL teams would be playing in corn fields with wooden goal posts.

 

[orange79]

Gee Millhouse with your perspective of how tax money should be spent all NFL teams would be playing in corn fields with wooden goal posts.

If you build it, they will come.

 

[AZOrange]

Gee Millhouse with your perspective of how tax money should be spent all NFL teams would be playing in corn fields with wooden goal posts.

The question I don't get is why financially strapped cities and taxpayers are shouldering the burden of millionaire/billionaire owners. I mean why can't the "tax exempt" NFL with nearly 10 billion in revenue not take this burden from the cities?

 

[Millhouse]

Gee Millhouse with your perspective of how tax money should be spent all NFL teams would be playing in corn fields with wooden goal posts.

smart

 

[Timonen]

ordinary business deals don't involve hundreds of millions of dollars of other peoples money.

if you don't like politicking, don't take money from taxpayers.

govt blows more of my money than i could ever count on things that bring me zero utility. at least this is going to be something i understand and get some value from. unless i get appointed the fair dictator of cobb county (at which point i'm paying off all my neighbors to quit sending their kids to private schools...which would be a much better investment than paying teachers more), such things are sadly out of my hands. if cobb has $300M to spend, they're GONNA spend it. this easily beats the alternatives.

 

[Millhouse]

govt blows more of my money than i could ever count on things that bring me zero utility. at least this is going to be something i understand and get some value from. unless i get appointed the fair dictator of cobb county (at which point i'm paying off all my neighbors to quit sending their kids to private schools...which would be a much better investment than paying teachers more), such things are sadly out of my hands. if cobb has $300M to spend, they're GONNA spend it. this easily beats the alternatives.

still not a business deal

 

[NKR1978]

The question I don't get is why financially strapped cities and taxpayers are shouldering the burden of millionaire/billionaire owners. I mean why can't the "tax exempt" NFL with nearly 10 billion in revenue not take this burden from the cities?

Privatized profit and socialized losses. It's the American way.

 

[javadoc]

http://deadspin.com/braves-president-stadium-deal-had-to-be-done-in-secret-1582023678

Have been watching these mostly from the sidelines, at least with regards to the overall question of propriety. I'm not a fan of public financing of sports venues.

Professor Ilya Somin has written about this many times, e.g. this link.

 

[cuseinchina]

why do they want to build a major league park out in the middle of nowhere? I understand the current location sucks...but why not do a RE deal and bring in some retail/hotels etc. Atlanta is booming.

 

[AZOrange]

Privatized profit and socialized losses. It's the American way.

I find it really odd that the public really falls for the "it's a good deal for the city" routine.

 

[Millhouse]

http://www.fieldofschemes.com/2014/...raves-stadium-vote-first-ask-questions-later/

vote on the deal before anyone knows what the deal is

 

[OttoinGrotto]

The question I don't get is why financially strapped cities and taxpayers are shouldering the burden of millionaire/billionaire owners. I mean why can't the "tax exempt" NFL with nearly 10 billion in revenue not take this burden from the cities?

An all time great.

 

[cuseinchina]

http://www.fieldofschemes.com/2014/...raves-stadium-vote-first-ask-questions-later/

vote on the deal before anyone knows what the deal is

I wish we'd had that kind of aggressive lack of disclosure, lack of taxpayer input, and accelerated approval process with the SU stadium project. Especially with state money rather than local. The state funds are going somewhere, may as well be Syracuse.

 

[AZOrange]

An all time great.

Hilarious. Reminds me of an equally absurd article I read one time about the taxpayers of Seattle funding Paul Allen's stadium and how he "leases" it for some absurdly low number and gets to keep all the revenue from it.

 

[Millhouse]

UNLV wants to build a dome. interesting to look at their numbers. turns a nice profit as long as you ignore the costs of building it, ha.

http://www.fieldofschemes.com/2014/...t-if-you-ignore-how-to-find-714m-to-build-it/

 

[Timonen]

still not a business deal

what's required for it to be a business deal? any type of entity can make a deal. do deals require x% transparency? the pols have been voted in to do business on their constituents behalf. if it turns out terribly, they'll be accountable. i know your point here can't be as simplistic as I'm interpreting it to be.

 

[AZOrange]

UNLV wants to build a dome. interesting to look at their numbers. turns a nice profit as long as you ignore the costs of building it, ha. http://www.fieldofschemes.com/2014/...t-if-you-ignore-how-to-find-714m-to-build-it/

The numbers in these deals get totally overlooked. For example in ATL the total cost is like 675 million while completely ignoring the 500 million plus in infrastructure and surroundings that the muni will finance.

Nothing to say that the braves play in a facility less than 20 years old whih was constructed for like 230 mil (or 320 mil or so in 2014 dollars). Why is the cost more than doubled?

 

[OttoinGrotto]

Why is the cost more than doubled?

Yeah, why is that?

 

[AZOrange]

Yeah, why is that?

Roughly $16500 per seat to build!

 

[Scooch]

That Braves stadium deal is utterly obscene. Anyone who wants a process to go down that way is simply rooting for the bad guys.

 

[Millhouse]

what's required for it to be a business deal? any type of entity can make a deal. do deals require x% transparency? the pols have been voted in to do business on their constituents behalf. if it turns out terribly, they'll be accountable. i know your point here can't be as simplistic as I'm interpreting it to be.

politicians don't make business deals. they make political deals.

if it involves other people's tax dollars it's not a business deal

 

[Millhouse]

That Braves stadium deal is utterly obscene. Anyone who wants a process to go down that way is simply rooting for the bad guys.

people who want a process like that here are the bad guys