Good take Will !!! I hope you are right. However, when the city of Houston is concerned, ignorance seems to win out. DaDakota
It's not necessarily ignorance about the stadium issue. There however HAS been a lot ignorance showed in the posts labeling people that were against the referendum and public sports financing in general and what not with one negative term after another. Heck I am one of the biggest sports fans you could run into, but it would be totally myopic of me to think everyone else cares about sports at all, let alone are even fans of particular professional franchises. Shouldn’t those that attend the games or other arena events pay for it (e.g., via event & parking taxes?). Why should my brother or my mother who care nothing about sports pay a dime for the Rockets. Granted we are in a Rockets forum and I can understand the balance of opinion would be to do whatever it takes to keep the team, but broad slanders of persons with a different view than oneself on a particular issue just shows short-sidedness. And it certainly does very little to persuade others that they maybe they should rethink their views about the issue. This post isn’t just a response to ones in this thread (there were far more offensive posts elsewhere), it is really just the straw that got me to respond.
Sir Scar... The only mypopia being shown, is the one that people who think Sports teams only effect the fans. It has a positive impact on the entire city. Conventions, resaurants, etc...etc.. We do live in a democracy..really a republic, so it is people's right to vote it down. I just think more people have KNEE jerk reactions then actually weigh the positives and negatives of a new arena or sports team. Evidence of this is the fact the the city is ponying up more then 3 times the money for a new stadium for a new owner of an EXPANSION team. Would have been prudent to keep the old one, don't you think? DaDakota
I agree the new deal is worse than the first one, though that doesn't justify either one by itself. Also, you could argue professional sports have a positive economic impact, but you have to consider it relative to the impact if that money was put in other areas (e.g., museums, arts, high-tech company incentives/corporate parks, urban redevelopment, etc.). That latter part of the equation is rarely considered. My personal opinion is that a good place to start is none of these places I described, rather any extra available public funds should go to education. I have argued elsewhere that though the taxes on Houston citizens may not be raised for these sports deals, there is no such thing as a free ride. There is only so much general revenue the local citizens and companies will allow to be extracted from the economy either directly or indirectly ("rental car fee's"). Therefore the main decision lies not with whom you tax (even "outsiders") but where you put that money. A user tax may be an exception to this but I would have to think about it, maybe because it is voluntary (you don't have to use something) it can be thought of differently. So my main point is that there are a lot of reasonable options for public investment, and like you said we live in more-or-less a democracy, and we should have respectful debate about it. I might even be able to be convinced the previous arena deal is a good one for Houston, and respect debate like this one could get me there. Finally, in the spirit of a users tax--I just don't it is fair to ask non-fans to pay for it rather than asking fans like myself and those on Clutchcity to pay for it. I just don't know why if there is public funding it just can't be a tax tacked on arena ticket or facility usage (e.g., $5 a head + $5 per car), doesn't that seem most fair??? With 42 games plus like 10 pre-season plus maybe 30 other events you have got close to $10 mil a year. Further if we really wanted to generate some more financing we add 5-10% tax to the corporate boxes. [This message has been edited by sir scarvajal (edited January 24, 2000).]
I am rooting for the team, but Bud Adams was a ****ty owner. Cancelling the preseason game during the teams last year was icing on the cake. He didn't care about the fans or the city, and while he may have played for players, that alone does not make a good owner.
I HOPE THE TITANS GET EMBARASSED!!! I HATE THEM WITH ALL MY HEART! GO RAMS! KICK THE S**T OUT OF BUD!!!
F*CK THE TITANS I hate them because they TANKED they last few Season. You think not. . . We make the play offs then they let Sean jones, Warren moon and the other ALL PRO DEFENSIVE END GO . . . IN ONE YEAR. THEN! They Start CODY F*CKING CARLSON . . . and Expect to Win . . . so they went 2-14 . . got a lot of high Draft Picks. . . . Then they Freed up Free Agent Money and when they jumped ship . . . They were Poised with some nice young Talent and the ability to trade for more. . . So Screw them and All Tankers like them Rocket River naaawwww. . . . .I'm not bitter. . . Just Pissed.
What do you mean they tanked the season after the playoffs? There was something called the salary cap that was instituted after their last playoff appearance in 93. The Oilers regularly had one of the highest salary team in the league. After their last playoff experience they were way over the cap. And the cap isn't a soft cap like in the NBA. It's a hard cap in which you could go over I believe $35 million at the time. When you have a team with 8 pro bowlers and loaded with talent, of course you are going to have to cut or not resign some pretty damn good players. But the season they went 2-14, they were the best 2-14 team in the entire league. I think they lost around 9 games by less than a touchdown. The best thing that came out of that season was the #3 pick in the draft which led to Steve McNair, which is a good thing.
It was actually 35/1 and Rams if I remember correctly were 200/1. Me and my cousin put 500 dollars on the Titans. My $8750 are only 6 days away!!!!1 ------------------ "We need to fockass".....Dream back in the day [This message has been edited by Scarface (edited January 25, 2000).]
The old stadium problem will solve the new one. I was never a huge Oilers fan, but I'm rooting for them to win the Super Bowl, because then all these coulda-woulda-shoulda feelings about letting them go to Nashville will be in the back of people's minds when they go to vote on the next Rockets arena referendum.
Sir Scarvajal, User pays - an interesting philosophy which is hard to argue with, except... - Not everyone uses an airport, but a slice of everyone's tax dollar goes towards building it - I don't live in a remote area but I pay a "Universal Service Charge" to subsidise provision of phone services in such areas - A very small proportion of the population will use the new Hobby Performing Arts Centre (or whatever its called) and I'm sure a large part of THAT was publically funded. They aren't stellar examples, but I think you can see my point. I come from a country (Australia) in which the top marginal income tax rate is close to 50%, and a lot of it is used to fund services that I never use. Its just a price you pay to preserve your quality of life. Fair enough, a large portion of the Arena income will end up in Les Alexander's pocket, so the comparisons don't strictly translate, but look at what you get in return from having the rockets here:- - Employment for 250 Arena staff 45 games per year - 45 visiting teams per year, virtually every one of whom is a millionaire, dumping cash on local businesses and hotels - The Fanny Mae foundation who receive god knows how much money from the Rockets Coupled with all that, I thought part of the Arena deal ecompassed a tax on tickets, in addition to the rental car and hotel tax. If thats not user pays, what is? Well, we lost the Rockets, but THANK GOODNESS those rental car rates and hotel prices didn't increase. I'd hate to see all those visiting businessmen shell out a few extra percent. PS - I still stand by my previous comments that the real problem is the artificially high player salaries.
Sir I did a lot of research on this for a bus law class of mine last semester, Sports teams generate almost triple the revenue of any park, museum, or anything else in the city combined. I don't remember all the numbers but the only city that had a negative impact upon getting a team was the city of Oakland because Al Davis was smarter than the city of Oakland, he got a great deal on the stadium(he didn't have to spend a dime on the renovations) so he moved the team back and all he had to do was to give the ticket sales to the city of Oakland who were the most incompetant bunch of idiots I have ever seen. Davis sued the city numberous times and the city countersued and the ongoing process has cost the taxpayers millions. That is the only city who was hurt by a single team, but the Warriors sales softened the blow a bit on the city. The Houston taxes were on visitors to the city and cheating husbands who got hotels for their hoes. So I can't see any reason why we voted the Referendum down. ------------------ "We need to fockass".....Dream back in the day
Scareface, if you #'s are correct that it a pretty strong argument. Of course it would be pretty much impossible to trace, but it would nice to see the long term impact that such funds could have if put into education/schools. Of course increased eventual revenue is only one of many reasons to strengthen education. Also, things might have changed, but when I was in Houston last they couldn't get funds to fix broken down schools. If funding for schools are on track, and your figures replicate with independent forcasters, I probably would set the Arena deal as the next priority for public funds.
davo, Well, we lost the Rockets, but THANK GOODNESS those rental car rates and hotel prices didn't increase. I'd hate to see all those visiting businessmen shell out a few extra percent. The stadium plan, that was rejected by the voters, did not call for any taxes to be increased or to be created! The existing taxes that are being used to pay for the new baseball and football stadium would have been split another way to pay the new basketball stadium. The implication here is that the stadium tax would have been around longer. BTW, the primary tax payer for this tax is visitors. This "stick the city's visitors" tax is quite pervasive throughout US cities. For you kind and gentle souls who do not want to burden our city's visitors with this "harsh" tax (taxation without representation, no less), I suggest that you travel less often since other US cities do not share your convictions toward their visitors Again, the real reason the stadium vote failed is that the county's Republican chair person mobilized his voters to vote it down, just to get egg on the Democratic mayor. No more, no less. Rocket River, F*CK THE TITANS and Bud Adams while you are at it The Oilers problems started when they let their veteran left tackle (Don Maggs) go to free agency. They replaced him with a rookie, who did not get the job done, leading to more sacks and more IR for the QBs and eventually to the demise of the Run and Shoot. The Titans should be favored to beat the Rams, since they have already done it once this year. Personally I would not bet against them.
