Hacker News Reader

Comment by spamizbad | Hacker News Reader

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)

View on HN

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 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.

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 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.

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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com