Slate.com: Sports stoppage don't hurt local economies

pffft... Canadians. What do they know?

 

They can instantly calculate the number of Kraft dinners it costs to pay for anything. Can you do that? Huh? Huh????

 

I don't think he covered the loss of sales of Poutine because people weren't getting plastered at hockey games during the NHL strike. That effect must have cost them millions in their fake dollars.

 

I did hear most Canadian investors have really loaded up on Beaver Pelts and speculating on maple syrup.

 

I've read some articles recently that absolutely destroy the notion that public funding for stadiums can be justified because more money gets poured back in the local economy. There's lots more data on all that now, in the aftermath of every municipality in the nation bending over for privately held professional sports teams.

 

This is a very bad trend. I like the Texans but probably not worth the 400 million.

I think their lease is up in 20 years right? What will they want at that time?

 

It's stupid, especially if your in a market where teams won't necessarily stay.

New Jersey has a couple of arenas, and some aren't even used. The Izod center is empty because the Nets left, but no one wants to take out down. They have the PNC Arts Center, but IMO that's just sucking money from the only two arenas we need, Giants Stadium and the Rock.

 

That's interesting, and I completely believe it in regards to work stoppages, but I'm not quick to take that another step and say that getting a franchise isn't a benefit for a city. I think benefits you get are more ancillary, and therefore would be hard to detect in income or tax data. The team is good marketing for the city as a whole, making it incrementally more likely to attract visitors, new residents, businesses, etc over the long term as the city's reputation and profile is increased. A work stoppage wouldn't affect this marketing-impact. And the loss of stature after the departure of a team would be slow as well. If you wanted to measure it, you would want to look at a town that acquires it's first franchise. Even then, though, how do you compare their prosperity with that of a what-if scenario where they don't get the franchise?

 

By this line of thinking, the big famous metropolises where franchise-owners make scads of money -- New York, LA, Chicago plus places like San Francisco and maybe Houston -- have no need to subsidize a stadium. They don't need a sports franchise to be famous. A franchise might change everyone's perception of Tampa Bay or Milwaukee, but there must be a law of diminishing returns as you increase in stature from the other attarctive features of your city.

 

Now's a good time as any to ask this question, I heard once that players get paid per game, so anytime they play, they have to pay an income tax to the home team's state. Is that true?