Taxpayers paying billions for the renovations and construction of NFL stadiums | Hacker News Reader

Taxpayers paying billions for the renovations and construction of NFL stadiums

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178 pointspaulpauper143 comments

I don't care about organized sports much, and big collegiate sports are basically under my radar. But I'll tell you something -- some of the best "leaders" I've hired over the years were athletes -- especially collegiate athletes -- especially female athletes in underappreciated sports.

There's an incredible drive there to tactics, organization, consensus building, and so on that I never appreciated while growing up as a nerd in tech. Later, when I ended up with an employee who had both a strong tech and sports background I really started to appreciate the benefits of a collegiate sports education.

That all being said, professional sport appear to be out of control in a similar way that k-pop, appears to be. The real problem is that, outside of monetary compensation for themselves and their agents, these job categories offer very little in the way of societal benefit. They aren't building homes for the homeless nor are they curing cancer or colonizing Mars.

A nearly endless supply of new recruits, combined with limited professional positions plus the modern celebrity-industrial-complex, creates and endlessly toxic environment that sends young people into career funnels that produce failed <insert job> instead of successful <insert social benefit>.

Conversely, when I was going to my higher education, the universities were overrun with incoming students who had been convinced that Computer Science was the way to a stable and prosperous career regardless of their personal passions for the field and the industrial uses for CS graduates.

Tax subsidies to pro-sports systems appear to be nothing more than a social cancer in the same way. Tens of thousands of sports hopefuls literally erasing years from their lives so that they might have a chance at a lower-tier professional feeder league -- which again contributes very little to overall society -- if Football disappeared tomorrow, it would have very little long-term disruption to anybody.

Bread and Circuses are only valuable to bakeries and race course hot dog vendors.

> But I'll tell you something -- some of the best "leaders" I've hired over the years were athletes -- especially collegiate athletes -- especially female athletes in underappreciated sports.

Hypothesis: having strong ability and interest in leadership roles causes people to pursue athletics.

What is even more troubling to me is how an athlete can make 60 million dollars a year, and why tickets to games can cost $800 and up while our tax dollars subsidize it all... Back in the day there was a brutal revolution on taxing tea...

Now people are totally cool with student loans and mortgages indenturing our children for life while defense spending is astronomically higher than the moon.

Even mortgage interest deductions were gutted in the last 4 years.

I'm no revolutionary, and I painfully pay my fair share every year, but there is not much fair about taxes, and as usual it's always a costly lie to everyone that obeys the law/

If popular athletes making lots of money is "even more troubling" to you, your priorities are messed up.

Their issue is not with the athletes making lots of money alone. It's that the league is spending so much, and bringing in so much revenue, while also taking taxpayer handouts.

They are saying all that is more troubling because it isn't like the NFL and teams can't afford it. They are raking in money but still force the people to build their stadiums.

rather than being troubled by the athlete salaries, be even more troubled by the vastly larger owner salaries

> rather than being troubled by the athlete salaries, be even more troubled by the vastly larger owner salaries

We can be troubled by multiple things at the same time.

I at minimum would like to see tax issues divided into essential and nonessential, and for every nonessential to be voted on by the populace.

If the taxpayers want the stadium, so be it. If most oppose, it feels like more government theft.

One person's "essential" is another person's "nonessential". Schools, libraries, military, the EPA and IRS... it's an interesting idea but I don't see how you'll get agreement on what's actually "essential" beyond lawmakers' salaries.

That’s why in most situations it would make sense to think about how to do and take less

Typically we do this by voting. Voting is one means of solving collective dis/approval decisions.

Hard to have any strategy when every issue goes to a WIIFM vote.

WIIFM?

What’s In It For Me.

Why does this provide more difficulties? Do you think some of this may be resolved with cardinal style voting where several options may be provided and they can be scored/rated?

Vote for a prime minister/party/president like you would employ someone: pick someone great and get the hell out of their way. Obviously they shouldn’t be a dictator: have a senate or parliament. I think we need tweaks to what we have now. Proportional presentation or even just preference voting goes along way to helping balance things out more fairly.

>Even mortgage interest deductions were gutted in the last 4 years.

You lost me here. Mortgage interest deductions are one of the few areas that economists seem uniquely in agreement against. It tends to incentivize the wrong behavior (excessive housing size/mortgages and being a regressive tax that favors the wealthier propertied classes). Just because people like it, does not make it prudent policy.

I think you and the OP might be making the same point - that if policy dictates that tax breaks on mortgage interest deduction are capped at 750K then why is it acceptable to give members of professional sports oligopolies tax breaks for hundreds of millions of dollars?

I’m not a disagreeing with the idea that tax breaks for stadiums is a bad idea. I’m saying something like mortgage deductions are evidence of the same type of bad policy for many of the same reasons. The OP seems to indicate one is bad while the other is good.

There are very few cases where mortgage interest deductions are better than the standard deduction.

That's only because the state and local tax deduction was limited at the same time as the mortgage interest deduction was (further) limited. The standard deduction also increased.

Prior to that, it wasn't uncommon for people in higher income tax states to exceed the standard deduction with SALT and mortgage interest.

> It tends to incentivize the wrong behavior (excessive housing size/mortgages and being a regressive tax that favors the wealthier propertied classes).

In Canada mortgage interest is not tax deductible. What's done here is that, for your primary residence, any rise in value (capital gains) is not taxed when you sell it.

The US and Canada have roughly the same home ownership rates.

The mortgage interest deduction was one of the few things enabling upward mobility for middle class citizens. Too many policies are governed based on one perspective. There was a cap on the profitability that could be garnered on applying it, but that was driven even lower in the past 4 years to make it almost worthless now.

The ability to save money and to be able to work your way out of economic instability is not a favor that government grants people. Upward economic mobility is one of the few things that held the social contract of taxation in place. Without upward financial mobility rules, taxation is simply a forced and pretty pohony "mob protection" fee.

>few things enabling upward mobility for middle class citizens

The opposite is true. It inflates home prices (because it incentivizes larger mortgages) which ends up pricing out people from the housing market. It can also lead to increased defaults.

It doesn’t provide upward mobility. It’s simply a politically popular way to favor a specific class of voters.

Other things are bad too, but the mortgage interest deduction is bad.

Increasing the standard deduction above what the mortgage interest deduction would have been isn't something an individual should complain about (they are better off), and reducing the amount of principal that is deductible to around 2x the median home sale price isn't exactly screwing over the common man.

The athletes making huge sums are not the ones we should be concerned about. They are under-paid in most cases relative to their worth to the billionaire individuals and corporations who make gigantic profits from tv rights, ticket sales, merchandise, revenue sharing, etc.

By what measure are the athletes under-paid, and by what measure are the owners and distributors over-paid?

It's the spread between workers(labor) and owners(capital). Millionaires working for Billionaires could be under paid, the same as 100k-aires are underpaid by 100M-aires.

Overpaid, or extremely wealthy by the global society - but under paid in their "local group" (for lack of better term)

Edit: like when VC say they take the risk - bullshit. They just risk money - labor (athletes, entrepreneur) risk time and health. Those are not renewable - but money is.

You define underpaid as being lowly paid compared to their local group but also claim that the group in aggregate is underpaid. Makes no sense.

I think your parent commenter was asking for a citation showing that NFL franchises rake in net profits for owners and another citation showing athletes wages are being held down artificially.

You are presenting ideology as objective truth.

Local group:

Other athletes including basketball and boxing players. The NFL in particular tries to ensure that individuals don't become brands on their own

Aggregate: athletes as a whole

> citation showing athletes wages are being held down artificially

this part is not controversial. the NFL has an official policy capping the total player salaries for each team.

Are you familiar with sports? The billionaires made their money outside of it. Sports teams often don't make any profits at all.

One possible answer: the fact that one is making a profit from the work of the other.

The whole sports industry is a waste of labor and capital. And the athletes are the crux of the issue here. The stadiums, the sponsors, the billionaires, ect. are built around these athletes. Does it even matter if the athletes are "underpaid?"

What makes them a waste of capital? And would you extend this same sentiment to other “non-productive” pursuits like art or writing?

There is writing of textbooks and there is writing of pulp. One adds to the patrimony of a society, the other much less so…

> There is writing of textbooks and there is writing of pulp. One adds to the patrimony of a society, the other much less so…

So entertainment has no value to society?

This feels like an overly utilitarian outlook. Some would say STEM fields help build a better world, but art and “pulp” actually make that world worth living in.

is tax money taken for art or writing? i could understand preservation of history or something but i don't think that compares at all to a stadium or sportsball stuff

Yes, all kinds of tax money funds the arts. The easiest to point to is the federal National Endowment for the Arts, but there are other funding mechanisms at nearly every level of govt

First let me clarify that something can be a waste of resources even if it creates some value. For examlple if I can create 1 value from 1 dollar or 100 value from 1 dollar the 1:1 ROI is a waste of capital in terms of value. With that in mind if we compare the value of the return from sports, which includes the labor and capital costs of the stadiums, as well as the profit consumed by the owners and athletes from ticket slales after the upfront cost is payed, to housing or education, we find that the value is very low. Additionaly, in the US, there are multiple sports (basketball, baseball and football) and multiple sports teams (some states even have more than one for each sport). Compare that with other countires that just have one sport (soccer/footbal) and one team. At the very least, the sports industry in the US is a waste of capital compared to soccer, which would fill the same demand for watching sports at a much lower cost.

But those two points aside I think the demand for watching other people play sports is flawed to begin with. And I think your example given with writing is perfect to lillustrate why. Written works each have a different value to them. A different lesson to them or different story. Writing a book that has already been writen has no value as a book. For example writing a chemistry textbook that is worse than an existing one (at the same price) has no value, unless there is value in reading both. But the value of sports is to fulfil some primal urge (the "point" of which, by the way, is to play sports yourself). Any way the urge is fulfiled has the same value. There is no "type" of sports when we consider the underlying demand that generates it as an industry. It also creates a second order demand of "follwing" the teams, which is the only reason the games can't just be replayed from 20 years ago. Which, by the way, compare that to writings from hundreds of years ago that are still read today. There is no need for the best players to play to fulill the underlying demand of sports. It is just the result of competition. In fact there is no need for televised sports at all compared to watching others at a local park or playing yourself. The same definetly cannot be said about writing: especially technical works but also fiction given that the work provides something more than just entertainment once you finish reading it. Although if you don't accept that fiction can ever do that then it's value is greatly dimminished. With respect to art I'm not sure what to say. I would say we already have enough art such that one already cannot consume all of it. The value of art is also controversial. It would depend on how you view that to say whether or not to extend this same sentiment to it. But many of the issues with sports can be seen in fashion, for example. So yes it does extend to other industries, although I think it is perhaps most clear in sports.

I think we disagree on how to measure value. Is there no value to listening to a pianist play Moonlight Sonata live? I’d say it adds value to one life, just as watching sports does. The idea that “we already have enough art” seems folly and absurdly reductionist. I’m sure we can find people who conversely say we already have enough technology.

>Is there no value to listening to a pianist play Moonlight Sonata live?

There is no value to it. Some claim that listening to music is enlightening. If that is so one can listen with headphones. And in fact most people do. Yet I do not beleive music is enlightening; it is just another primitive desire. If going to to a live concert truly changes people for the better then we can say it has value. But I believe it is really just pretentiousness, and the few who truly feel that they have gotten any benefit beyond the pleasure of the music are caught up in a mawkish placebo. There is no difference between classical music and pop music in terms of value, and in fact the latter is more popular (hence the name). And one can read in the comments of music videos on youtube that the isteners get goosebumps the same as the wasteful ticket buyer, listening to "inferior" and "uncultured" music on cheap earbuds. Only intellectually stimulating forms of entertainment have any chance of holding true value.

>The idea that “we already have enough art” seems folly and absurdly reductionist.

Please explain why. is the last 400 years of art too "old" for you to consume? Has it expired? At this point, consuming a given art is just at the expense of not consuming another. I can chage my statement to "only really good new art has value, because it has to compete with the old art and win." But as I implied earlier I don't think art has value to begin with. And I believe this is evidenced by the collapse of academic art, after which "art" loses all pretexts and becomes pure pretentiousness.

>I’m sure we can find people who conversely say we already have enough technology.

What do you mean? Technology is a tool, not a type of entertainment. Using a computer for a cash register only needs RPi level of performance. Using a computer as a web server or to run some complex calculation needs more performance. And there are uses of technology that have no value, such as video games. Although here at least any use of technology drives that technology to improve. For example games made GPUs a thing and supported nVidea for many years. Now GPUs are used to fold protiens. But the act of playing a video game has no value.

>What do you mean?

I mean there are people who do not think that increases in technology add any additional value. It’s due to the facts that we are all free to choose our own value functions and what adds value to one person will not necessarily add value to another. Having one camera on my phone adds value to me, having 3 more does not add any utility to me personally. Likewise, video games add value for some people more than others. Your stance seems to have a strange egocentric perspective that there is one objective measure of value. My disagreement is that I think there are as many unique value functions as there are humans. No offense intended, but the other perspective comes across as the socially awkward takes that are all too prevalent on HN.

>Please explain why.

For the same reason it was absurd that the head of the patent office claimed 150 years ago that anything of value had already been invented. We can’t foresee what other people will value. More importantly, art can be an end to itself. The idea that everything has to be a means to some end can devolve into treating all human endeavors as inputs into some global maximization functions, reducing humans to cogs in a machine. That feels a bit philosophically bankrupt (and sad) to me.

Your implicit claim that consumption is jusified by the fact that it is consumed is wrong. No good or service can bring happiness. The only consumption that is justified is that which is nessesary to live or improve general well being such as food, shelter and medicine. Other goods, such as art, are a distraction from life.

>More importantly, art can be an end to itself.

Is life itself not the greatest art? One who lives for art is already dead.

>The idea that everything has to be a means to some end can devolve into treating all human endeavors as inputs into some global maximization functions

Even if all basic needs were fulfiled, art still would not have true value.

>reducing humans to cogs in a machine

Are artists and thier consumers not cogs in a machinine maximizing their pleasure? Not that this framing means anything on it's own.

>That feels a bit philosophically bankrupt

Many philosphies have taken the stance given above, begining in ~500 BC in Buddhism, and reappearing independently multiple times such as in Mohism in 400 BC and still existing in modern philosophies such as some forms of utilitarianism and nihlism. No serious philosphers, meanwhile, beleive that the meaning of life is to look at art.

> No good or service can bring happiness.

Going back to art, this is probably false. Art (including music) brings happiness to at least some creators and some consumers. I personally receive great happiness from listening to music.

>I personally receive great happiness from listening to music.

This is a pretty naive understanding of hapiness. It is widley held by philosophers, religions, and even even many (most) uneducated people that happines is happiness in one's state of being, ie. something like contentment. One who is "happy when he listens to music" is generaly said not to be happy. Not even not "truly" happy but just not happy at all. This can be demomstated from an evoltionary, teleological psychological, or even theological perspective.

I can assure you that at least in the theological circles I have traveled in you have it exactly backwards. In those traditions happiness is momentary and fleeting, but a contentedness with a state of being regardless of circumstances would be described as joy.

I get what you're saying here but it's an entirely different argument than saying subjective experience has no value. It comes across as so unwilling to acknowledge the inward experience of others as to appear almost insufferably unempathetic.

Oh I know this is just a side trail on a bigger discussion. You're completely correct though, ability to understand that other people's experiences are valid is the very definition of empathy.

I don't get billion dollar tax subsidies for my writing or art, and yet you can read or see it for free.

Out of all the things you can be critical of in sports, why the athletes? The demand for the sport results in athletes no matter what. I don't think HN commenters understand the extraordinary difficulty of becoming a professional athlete. Ignoring the genetic requirements, the amount of work and drive needed is unbelievable, and 99.9% will fail. Athletes are actually underpaid in the US, if you look at the wage to revenue ratios of most professional leagues.

Even if the athletes themselves were the problem, there is no viable solution here. Banning sports?

There may be no solution to the sports industry existing, but that doesn't prevent it from being a waste of capital and labor. But in it's current form, it can at least be improved by switching to soccer. See my other comment to your sibling for more detail.

>Athletes are actually underpaid in the US, if you look at the wage to revenue ratios of most professional leagues.

You need to compare the wage to profit ratio which I'll assume you meant. And while I don't say you're wrong I'd like to see the numbers. Also I guarantee the thousands of faceless workers built around these athletes are more underpayed than the athletes, although whether that's relevant depends on exactly what point you're making. In any case, while the work and drive needed to become an athelete is very high, the amount needed to fulfill the demand is very low. Again, see my other comment. So the effort put in is just to be the one to extract the resources from ticket buyers. And the more effort put in, or more accurately the more exclusive the talent pool becomes, the higher the total cost becomes, although perhaps that amount is negligible, and that depends on the numbers which I don't have and which are either way unnecessary for my central claim.

Thankfully, if we ever became a socialist country ala second world socialism, athletes would get the same “pay” and only slightly bigger apartments compared to everyone else but would keep on getting more than necessary amounts of PEDs as usual.

That’s a just world.

It is unclear who you are trying to argue against in this discussion.

With football at least, I think they’re underpaid considering the major problems with TBI those guys are having.

Locally the people voted for it. Subsidizing billionaires and a sport and stadium really only enjoyable by the wealthy bothers me, but my fellow citizens were given the explicit choice and said yes so… I’m guessing the tea isn’t going to be dumped in the ocean any time soon.

Imo sports and movie stars are over paid.

I often wonder a world where people in STEM were acknowledged in the same way as sports and entertainment.

Personally I think it's sad they're not and the world would be a better place if they were.

Unfortunately, the only places that value these diverse skills more in line with the needs (rather than wants) of a society are the ones run by authoritarians.

Some would argue that teachers and firefighters are far more valuable than STEM workers, and should be paid accordingly.

Teachers definitely deserve more as they can shape the future. Absolutely agree with that one.

Capitalism pays according to how much someone contributes to the economy, not how much they contribute to society. If the inverse were true, we’d see social workers commanding financier salaries.

> Even mortgage interest deductions were gutted in the last 4 years.

Mortgage interest deduction is a regressive policy that primarily benefits the wealthy. I agree the government is far too wasteful, and cronyism has run rampant, but this the MID is a uniquely bad policy prescription.

What is even more troubling to me is how an athlete can make 60 million dollars a year

So, there's a multi-billion dollar industry, filled with graft and corruption (as detailed by the article) and you're mad 'cause the people performing are getting a share? Is it a call for a return the 1920s where the athletes got a pittance?

You know a vast number of second string players get nothing and are often crippled and even the high paid athletes take a lot of physical damage?

“TAxeS PaY foR tHe rOaDs and HiGhWayS”

I like where you're going. Glad your comment is being read.

The reason these things happen is that the politicians get bought by the team owners. I've seen it happen in more than one city I've lived in.

Massive political corruption. Totally legal too, because it's "campaign contributions". We've legalized bribery.

Well, encourage socialistic views, there will be more tax money to "help" those organizations.

This is why I respect how the Green Bay Packers raise money. They sell “ownership” of the team. Sure, it’s largely a novelty without much real ownership benefits, but it seems like a better approach than using taxpayer dollars to subsidize a highly profitable business.

Wikipedia has a summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Bay_Packers#Community_ow...

The NFL (and other professional leagues) probably wouldn't allow a similar structure to be put in place for another team.

Sort of ironically, Green Bay paid to build Lambeau Field in the 1950s.

I’m certain the NFL and other owners would sacrifice children to change GB ownership structure if they could.

The original stadium was funded like most others with a bond measure passed by the city not from the Packers organization. The more recent remodel was done through the 'stock' sale though.

To be fair, the renovation back in 2001 (IE, Lambeau as you know it today) was partly funded through tax payer dollars (as well as a stock sale). There was a referendum on the ballot to increase sales tax by 0.5% in Brown County for something like 15 years. So the public got to vote on it (it passed). I purchased my Packers stock at that time and voted Yes to the sales tax increase (lived in GB at the time).

But yes the Packers will do stock sales to help fund stadium improvement, or just pay it themselves.

Very against the rules. The Packers aren’t savvy here, they just existed long before business interests shut that practice down.

Seattle has restricted public financing for teams. We just picked up an NHL expansion team anyway :).

https://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Initiative-91-Seattle...

Most of stadiums (or similar infrastructures) are built with taxpayers'/government's money, so I genuinely don't know where to draw the line between "a stadium" and "a football stadium". On one end, cities obviously need stadiums; on the other hand, I'm not trying to pretend these specific stadiums in case are not going to benefit the football team and its associated private group the most, despite it can be used by others.

Again, I just feel it's a very nuanced topic.

Sincere question: Do cities really need stadiums?

A stadium was built in my city several years ago, and for me it has occasionally caused a moderate inconvenience, and had no upside. Some of my neighbors really like it, though.

I was thinking this same thing.

We might want one, but we don't need one. If we needed one someone would build one, same as we build restaurants, bars, refineries, breweries, manufacturing, etc without any subsidies from the gov.

I would love one for my small business, on a related note, I can't even count the times I have watched my city give millions in tax breaks to bring in already successful, wealthy, large businesses and give the local ones jack shi.

Would the business case not be - commerce generated during sporting events, multiple businesses nearby the stadium benefiting from increased foot traffic, and so on? Projected over a 10-20 year horizon, the city would likely make back its money and then some, while increasing income for businesses in the vicinity.

You presume that money couldn’t be spent elsewhere or even gasp saved away for a rainy day or paying down a debt early.

This is the frequently-cited theory, but most realistic studies show that it doesn’t really work out that way. I think the reasonable justification is more that having a team is an intangible good for the city, like a museum or a library, where you can’t measure the value in dollars.

Should each township build and operate its own cinema as well?

The 49ers stadium in Santa Clara has brought nothing but traffic, zero commercial or housing development. The Warriors' Chase Stadium helped vitalize Dogpatch but I guess one could argue that area was naturally going to be built up given UCSF expanded in that location.

If it brings traffic, it means it attracts people attending the events it's hosting. To me that's the main (or direct) purpose of it, and that (be able to host large events) is what differs big city lifestyle from others, at cultural level.

I consider "commercial or housing development" a plus, than the purpose itself.

Cities need stadiums to host all kinds of events, not limited to sports. But if you're not interested in any of these I guess at personal level you don't need it. Just like roads are useless for people who don't leave their house.

> Sincere question: Do cities really need stadiums?

Do they need most things? No, of course not do the people living there want the ability to easily attempt stadium events YES.

Most, but not all. The Chase Center got no public money [1].

[1] https://www.mortenson.com/projects/chase-center

> On one end, cities obviously need stadiums

Many people don’t like sports and find them a nuisance. The idea that they not only cause traffic but cost us money while making only a select few people extremely rich is nauseating.

> On one end, cities obviously need stadiums

Do they? And if it's such a good idea, why doesn't basic capitalism fund them completely?

San Diego finally got rid of the pox that was the Spanos family and seem to be doing much better for it.

Arguably, cities need public transport in from of a metro even more than stadiums, yet, the first underground railway was completely private enterprise.

To play devil's advocate: American football is a huge part of American culture. So this is merely tax payers investing in the proliferation and preservation of their culture.

(which is probably why all football teams should be publicly owned also)

I hate football, and I paid over 300k in taxes last year...

Edit: not sure why I'm being down voted. I was an Ethereum ICO buyer and I cashed some out last year. I hate that my tax dollars are going to football.

I think the downvoting is in part that whether or not you like something may not be material to the discussion. If you don’t like police/schools/highways it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t fund it with tax dollars. I think the central argument is whether or not a stadium is a public good and worthy of tax funds.

How did you get from stadium to police? The whole idea why people organize themselves in countries is to ensure internal and external safety and thus that everyone pay taxes for police, army and courts. Everything else is an addition and in my opinion even undesired to fund by whole community - you can always organize fundraiser or start a private enterprise for such things.

I was interesting that to some people (not me, though) a stadium is a public good and this worthy of public tax dollars to support. Just like the police or schools.

Like you said: it's the matter of opinion, public safety, though, is not.

Then use schools as an example. Or utilities. It’s not hinged on whether or not it’s a a safety issue, it hinges on whether it’s considered a public good.

I have suspicion you haven't read my first comment in this thread.

Possibly not, as it’s not inline with this. But I’m not not sure it negates the point that whether or not an individual values a particular thing does not determine if it’s a public good.

I repeat: public safety is THE reason why we organize in countries, so police, army, justice system is in COMPLETELY different category - it is something essential, the rest is disputable. That's why you cannot compare them with, e.g. schools, there are decent countries without public education, yet, there is no serious country without police/army/courts.

This still does not negate the fact that citizens also organize other public goods. Just because an individual deems them non-essential does not mean they aren’t public goods. As public goods, the collective citizenry has deemed them worthy of public funding. Libraries are not safety essential, yet they are still public goods. Whether or not they are ubiquitous or “essential to safety” has no bearing on whether they are public goods anymore than it matters if a singular individual disagrees with that designation.

I thought I was talking to an intelligent person - do you understand that "necessary" is totally different category than "nice to have"? What's the point of having libraries if they will be looted or bombarded on the very next day? How can you still don't understand that having or not having the police forces is not comparable to having or not having libraries?

Again, you seem to miss the point. The hierarchy of importance does not matter in determining if it's a public good. Nobody is making the point that all public goods are of equal importance. Your personal stance also does not determine whether society deems it a public good. You seem weirdly hung up on a point that is altogether centered on what seems to be your own personal definition. Something can be a low priority or non-essential or not economically viable and still be a public good. You seem determined to have an entirely different conversation but it seems to blind you to the actual points being made. Again, to answer your question, we got from stadiums to police because they are both arguably public goods worthy of tax dollars. That's not to say they are equivalent in utility or that every thinks they are worth the tax dollars spent. If you want to shoehorn a libertarian argument into the discussion it can be done in a more germane approach.

Also, please review the HN guidelines.

> Also, please review the HN guidelines.

Yeah, I know, you downvoted me, I don't mind, enjoy yourself.

But, again, to the point (because you still missing mine): I don't argue libraries shouldn't be subsidized from taxes, I even clearly stated it's the mater of personal opinion (if you read carefully you'd know), I argue that you just cannot mention libraries and the police in one breath like you did, simply because they are not of the same kind - the library (again - kinda tired of repeating myself) CAN be subject of discussion, but police, army, justice system - CANNOT.

It's not about me enjoying myself; the guidelines are there to help ensure a civil discourse. For what it's worth, I was not downvoting, somebody else already did so before I saw your comment.

And for the last time, I was not equivocating. I've said that multiple times; there is no disagreement despite your insistence on pretending there is. The through-line is not that they are equal, it's that they are both public goods of varying degrees. You are reading too much into the comments and inserting arguments that are not there.

Perhaps an aspect of American culture so expensive and not that old should be allowed to diminish according to its market demand.

It’s part of American culture but so are many other things we don’t directly give money. This seems a lot more like corruption, especially when you look at the track record of misleading economic promises.

I haven’t lived in San Diego since the 2000s but I’m still bitter about the way the Chargers got a contract which guaranteed greater attendance than they had for the Super Bowl, where they got more money for an empty seat than a sold ticket. No way that would have flown in a straight up vote, which is why they carefully avoided one.

I think your note about public ownership is the rub for a lot of people, even fans - this ultimately goes to benefit the owners of the franchise the most.

Considering how severely pro football injures players' brains, maybe this particular bit of culture isn't necessarily worth preserving at taxpayer cost just because lots of us love it. We've given other popular things the boot in the past.

I don't dispute that it's part of American culture, and I have no particular interest in denigrating others' interest in it. But I don't think this would muster taxpayer support, if actually put to a vote among taxpayers. I certainly wouldn't vote for it, nor would anybody I know, and yet my state is putting down $850m in taxpayer money for a new football stadium[1].

[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/oct/05/buffalo-bills-...

“Nobody watches sports ball in my bubble.”

Not everything needs to be put to a vote to know that it reflects what people want. Specific policies that are unpopular become campaign issues. For example despite being quite democrat leaning, Marylanders don’t like public transit, so Larry Hogan won two terms as a Republican promising to cancel transit projects and shift funding to highways. But if anyone proposed defunding the Baltimore Ravens they’d get booted out of office.

Also, even if that was true, there’s lots of public funding for cultural projects that probably wouldn’t fly if put to a ballot measure. The New York State Arts council has a budget of $90 million a year. The current Bills stadium is almost 50 years old. Even if the new Bills stadium lasts only 30 years, the arts council will receive almost $3 billion over that time. Which do you think would be more likely to pass in a ballot state wide ballot measure? $850 million for a stadium of $3 billion for arts?

I watch sports ball and I don’t want the team defunded but I don’t want my taxes paying for the construction of a new stadium; the revenues of which won’t be going back to the city.

Just make it simple. Take the cost of the stadium as a no recourse loan against the team. All of a sudden stadiums get produced with "any" level of scrutiny. It's far too easy to ask for more handouts for luxuries when you're not paying the bill.

Again: there's no "sports ball" denigration.

I like watching men in leotards fly around a track on their bicycles, but I haven't asked my municipality to pay for my personal athletic boondoggle. It's not clear to me why my tax dollars should subsidize others' athletic boondoggles either, especially when they come in the form of privately-owned teams, stadiums, etc. I'd perhaps feel less strongly about this if the state retained ownership of their investment, but that's not the deal in any case that I've seen so far.

> I like watching men in leotards fly around a track on their bicycles, but I haven't asked my municipality to pay for my personal athletic boondoggle.

It is often the case that so-called "lesser" sports not only don't get public subsidies, they pay taxes that the bigger sports don't.

For example, I enjoy watching curling. Granite Curling Club in Seattle is one of only two curling-specific facilities on the west coast and while it is a non-profit organization, it still pays property taxes, something that the Seattle Seahawks[0] and Seattle Mariners[0] do not. While the relative amounts are small, to be sure, to take the Mariners for example they pay $1.5 million in rent to the county yet the public expense is much higher than that[1].

This isn't a slam on the concept of sports--I also am a lifelong baseball fan--just how they are paid for, on which I think we agree.

0 - https://dor.wa.gov/sites/default/files/2022-02/InLieu_Leaseh...

1 - https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/mariners/king-county-cou...

This might be an artifact of a filter bubble, no? It reminds me of Scott Alexander's interesting discussion of outgroups, wherein he revealed that despite knowing around 150 people (probably), and that roughly 46% of Americans are creationists, there was no overlap in those two subsections of society. The odds of that happening by chance are, literally, astronomical. Despite living in a Republican district in a Republican state, he never managed to meet any Republicans. Socially, at least. It was fascinating to realize just how subtle yet powerful such filter effects could be.

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anythin...

Sure, it could be. But I like sports, and a lot of my friends like football. The civic angle (private businesses getting free taxpayer money) weighs more heavily on all of us (I suspect) than any pro- or anti-football bias.

Besides, creationism is a pretty hot-button social issue. People feel strongly about football, but hopefully not that strongly.

> People feel strongly about football, but hopefully not that strongly.

For better or for worse, I’m guessing a lot of people care more about what happens to the local football team than whether creationism is taught in the local schools.

Absolutely! I meant more in the filter bubble sense: I don’t know if I could find a creationist in my social circle, but I could definitely find a handful of football fanatics. So it’s not such a strong feeling as to produce the bubble we see with extreme religious differences.

I think the parent would likely agree with me in this but forgive me if I am speaking for them. I wouldn't have nearly as large of an issue with stadium funding if they were put up to a vote and I was outvoted. I can tolerate being in the minority opinion but I have little tolerance for dictation.

In some sense fast food is American culture as well but I don't see much benefit in using tax money to preserve that culture.

What I am trying to say is that "culture", native or not, does not necessarily have anything to do with public dollars. That totally depends on the context (history, popularity and otherwise) and can be political. e.g. In the US, performing arts organizations receive very little to no public funding. (In fact, one such funding almost got cut in 2017 in Trump's tax bill.)

Bread and circuses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses

I remember times where free market and private enterprises were huge part of American culture. I miss those times, bloody socialists are going to ruin everything.

I suppose a politician could run on not providing any funding for sports arenas / stadiums. It has worked before and teams naturally end up leaving. Another angle might be to get a number of similarly minded people together and stage a protest. I feel like few of the "no arena / no stadium" crowd would have that strong of convictions however - though I could certainly be wrong.

> Las Vegas and Chicago rely on tourism taxes to help pay off these municipal bond commitments

I didn't have any idea that's what those taxes were for. What percent of hotel guests chose to visit those cities to see sports games?

Well, it's a pretty simple calculus for the owners.

You're going to get people to pay for my stadium, Mr. Politician, or else losing this thing that millions of people in this city love is going to be, fairly or unfairly, blamed on you.

It's of course gross and hilariously stupid given that every professional sports team owner is a billionaire, but most of those marrow suckers didn't become billionaires by not leveraging incentives when the benefit for doing so is obvious.

That’s a lot of teachers and doctors and roads and hospitals.

It’s always been odd that the sport of the land of capitalism is the least free market of all the worlds sport - particularly compared with European soccer for example

https://syndication.bleacherreport.com/amp/177539-american-s...

The notion that capitalists prefer free markets is nothing more than a children's story, right up there with Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. They're not lobbying Washington to ensure there is healthy competition in their industry.

Exactly. Capitalists pursue bought markets, either buying up competitors or politicians to achieve their goals.

Sports are zero-sum and the greater economy is not. What’s odd is Europeans treating each exactly the opposite of what that would imply.

The 49ers, with their stadium in Santa Clara, provide double the entertainment:

1. entertainment watching the 49ers football games.

2. entertainment watching the 49ers owners fight with the city of Santa Clara -- over the deal the team agreed to, in order to build the stadium. Wasn't the team even funding various city-council candidates this last election?

The 49ers bring entertainment but the stadium built at the new location hasn't really brought much to the local community aside from lots of traffic on Sundays. I lived right next to the stadium for several years and there's been next to no commercial development nor housing development. Anyone who goes to the 49ers game has to drive to DTSJ to continue the party. I don't know if it's the result of NIMBYs or the local government, but the stadium has brought nothing to the local community (maybe to the pockets of the mayor and the admins who approved it however).

That one IHOP next to it shut down and nearby businesses have become huge targets for car break-ins on game days, so we can't say it hasn't brought anything to the community.

Just more proof that bread and circus remains an effective strategy for politicians to win favor with the masses.

Gee, it's almost like we live in a country where the rich use the political system to get richer.

https://youtu.be/xcwJt4bcnXs (Stadiums: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver)

San Diego Chargers owners tried to pull this and the city of San Diego voted to reject the measure. So they left to LA and play second fiddle to the Rams.

In the end they were playing in a new, state of the art stadium. And this year, they're a much better team than the Rams.

Seattle lost the supersonics because it didnt cave to this backwards farce. Unfortunately the city is worse for it

It should be an option to opt out of tax dollars going toward such useless things.

There are what, 8 home games every year for an NFL team?

That's a lot of money coming in for parking, hotels, restaurants, and bars in the area. A Super Bowl that the new stadiums usually get can bring half a billion in. That stadium also gets used for other events like concerts.

The bad thing is you can't spent less than $2 billion on a new stadium. Kind of like a new apartment building, it has to be high end.

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