Man I love this guy. As much as I don’t want to lose him in Florida I really hope to see him as POTUS.

quote:

The governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, has defended his veto of $35m in funding for a potential spring training site for the Tampa Bay Rays, after the Major League Baseball team used social media to raise awareness about gun violence after mass shootings in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas.
“I don’t support giving taxpayer dollars to professional sports stadiums,” DeSantis said on Friday, when asked about the veto of the sports complex funding.
“Companies are free to engage or not engage with whatever discourse they want, but clearly it’s inappropriate to be doing tax dollars for professional sports stadiums. It’s also inappropriate to subsidize political activism of a private corporation.”
On 26 May, in the wake of what they called “devastating events that took place in Uvalde, Buffalo and countless other communities across our nation”, the Rays said they would donate $50,000 to the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund and use their social media channels to offer facts about gun violence.
The New York Yankees also used social media to address the shootings, during a game between the two teams last week.
On Friday, citing an unnamed source, CNN reported that DeSantis’s decision to block the funding was influenced in part by the Rays’ tweets about the shootings...

more at link


https://amp.theguardian.com/sp...-bay-rays-gun-safety

There's enough money generated by baseball and football that taxes paid by the public should never go towards building new stadiums. Let all the pro sports use their own funding to build new stadiums or practice facilities. I think Ron Desantis is a fantastic Governor and would make an excellent president.

Nice....

Get woke, go broke...

DeSantis does a great job.

He certainly has my vote.

Unfortunately, I had to "unsubscribe" to the emails; I was receiving multiple email messages every day, asking for money. I could live with maybe one a week, but several each day, just too much.

Love to keep him here, screw the rest of the country, those states voters put in the lunatics, let those states reap the whirlwind of all the wokeness their voters installed.

Leave us in FL alone, come on down if you vote R and like Desantis, otherwise stay where ya are if you voted in the left.

If we can lets raise FL population to get more reps in the house, drown out CA representation in the house, then maybe we can make national changes.

Until then, lets get Desantis to build a wall and keep the rest of the country out... LOL

y'all have all the crazies... keep them there!

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
Love to keep him here, screw the rest of the country, your states population has put in the lunatics, let those states reap the whirlwind of all the wokeness.

Leave us in FL alone, come on down if you vote R and like Desantis, lets raise FL population to drown out CA representation in the house, then maybe we can make national changes.

Until then, I want Desantis to build a wall and keep the rest of the country out... LOL y'all have all the crazies...

Do you seriously think Florida is immune to what is happening throughout the rest of the country right now? Rising inflation, rising gas prices, rising food prices, major food shortages on the horizon, insane housing and rent prices, soon to be sky high rocketing interest rates...and I haven't even touched on the social issues and the erosion of the constitution in DC.

DeSantis won't be in the governor's mansion forever.

I’ve had enough of taxpayer monies to subsidize the development professional sports team franchises stadiums in exchange for temporary construction jobs as well. Let them foot the total expense, they’re making enough to pay athletes tens of millions in salary. Screw them

quote:

Originally posted by CQB60:
I’ve had enough of taxpayer monies to subsidize the development professional sports team franchises stadiums in exchange for temporary construction jobs as well. Let them foot the total expense, they’re making enough to pay athletes tens of millions in salary. Screw them

I've spent most of my adult life bitching about having to pay for sports stadiums for professional sports teams because I don't watch sports, don't care a bit for it and don't want to subsidize other people's entertainment as they don't subsidize mine.

quote:

Originally posted by calugo:
There's enough money generated by baseball and football that taxes paid by the public should never go towards building new stadiums. Let all the pro sports use their own funding to build new stadiums or practice facilities. I think Ron Desantis is a fantastic Governor and would make an excellent president.

It’s been proven that building a football stadium never pays back in revenue for any city. You basically have 8 home games during the regular season. If your team doesn’t make the playoffs that’s it for the year. It’s has way less fans spending money downtown not only because the games are so few but a large part of football is tailgating where you bring all your own stuff from home. Then since it’s Sunday everyone goes home right after the game because they have to work in the morning. Total scam to get taxpayers to foot the bill.

quote:

Originally posted by 1s1k:

quote:

Originally posted by calugo:
There's enough money generated by baseball and football that taxes paid by the public should never go towards building new stadiums. Let all the pro sports use their own funding to build new stadiums or practice facilities. I think Ron Desantis is a fantastic Governor and would make an excellent president.

It’s been proven that building a football stadium never pays back in revenue for any city. You basically have 8 home games during the regular season. If your team doesn’t make the playoffs that’s it for the year. It’s has way less fans spending money downtown not only because the games are so few but a large part of football is tailgating where you bring all your own stuff from home. Then since it’s Sunday everyone goes home right after the game because they have to work in the morning. Total scam to get taxpayers to foot the bill.

Well, as the OP of this thread obviously I’m happy my tax dollars aren’t going to buy the Rays a new complex. But I also think that we need to have honest debates. And a completely honest debate about the worth of tax dollars going to fund a new stadium means that “It’s been proven…” depends on what study you read and what metrics they used.

You are correct that a football team that doesn’t make the playoffs only plays 8 or so home games a year in a stadium. But it’s not like that stadium sits empty the other 357 days of the year. A sports stadium gets used for a lot of events during the year outside of the sporting event it’s built for. I’ve spent 4 of the last 5 weeks inside NFL stadiums working events that have nothing to do with football. The event that I’m working this week is bringing over 20k people to this city, most of which will be here for a full week. I personally am here for 11 days. Most of us need air transportation to and from the city, transportation around the city, hotel rooms, food, entertainment, etc…

If the stadium wasn’t here then this event and others like it wouldn’t be here either. Many studies don’t include, and maybe can’t include, events like this. Like most topics it’s extremely complex and a lot of people try to simplify it in order to manipulate the numbers to prove the point that they want to prove.

Also, why you decided to pick only on football stadiums when my OP was about baseball? If you are white, conservative or male then the MLB hates you too.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Pale Horse,

If the taxpayers are kicking in money to help build it, one of two things should probably happen: The taxpayers end up owning it, and lease/rent it to the team to act as an operator, or the taxpayer money is in the form of a loan that whomever does end up owning the stadium has to pay back. At least, that seems reasonable to me. That is no less than a bank would ask for if you came to them for a loan, and it isn’t like the NFL is a non-profit entity that won’t ever generate the revenue to pay for it without taxpayer help.

- Bret

quote:

Originally posted by sadlerbw:
If the taxpayers are kicking in money to help build it, one of two things should probably happen: The taxpayers end up owning it, and lease/rent it to the team to act as an operator, or the taxpayer money is in the form of a loan that whomever does end up owning the stadium has to pay back. At least, that seems reasonable to me. That is no less than a bank would ask for if you came to them for a loan, and it isn’t like the NFL is a non-profit entity that won’t ever generate the revenue to pay for it without taxpayer help.

- Bret

As far as I know most professional sports stadiums are owned by the state/city governments that paid for the stadium. So what you desire is already true.

quote:

Originally posted by Pale Horse:

As far as I know most professional sports stadiums are owned by the state/city governments that paid for the stadium. So what you desire is already true.

Are those profitable or negative income drains on the taxpayers?

Unless I own a restaurant or motel in the vicinity I don't want my tax dollars used to build a place for millionaires to work.

The taxpayers get to pay for these stadiums.
The politicians and their families & cronies get special credentials and other favors in return.
The whole thing is just a con job and done in all the cities with sports teams, sold as creating economic activity. No accurate cost/benefit analysis is ever done. The locations have enough sports fans that aren't smart enough to look past the lies to see the truth. They just want a winning team and a nice place to watch it.
The rest of us get screwed.

Our local government is playing the same game. Spend millions on a sports complex. But, they keep saying how the community will make money, when the taxpayers ask “how much?”, no one can answer and its pixy dust and unicorns on the answer.

I can think of no other business that throws serious money at a program without an idea of how much the return will be.

quote:

As far as I know most professional sports stadiums are owned by the state/city governments that paid for the stadium. So what you desire is already true.

Since when should our government be in business for itself? I don't expect my government to be in any other business than providing necessary infrastructure. I don't want it to be a developer or a landlord.

Because:

quote:

I can think of no other business that throws serious money at a program without an idea of how much the return will be.

If you want to be in the sports business then you should be prepared to build a stadium. Why should any of these large businesses get these types of treatment when small businesses don't? And I'm not saying that small businesses should, but that no business should.

quote:

Do you seriously think Florida is immune to what is happening throughout the rest of the country right now? Rising inflation, rising gas prices, rising food prices, major food shortages on the horizon, insane housing and rent prices, soon to be sky high rocketing interest rates...and I haven't even touched on the social issues and the erosion of the constitution in DC.

DeSantis won't be in the governor's mansion forever.

And yet he could be the next State Senator for a lot longer than he could be POTUS, and that would mean he's working for FL.

Desantis won't be able to fix the constitutional social erosion in DC, jmo DC is lost because we send the same POS people to do the same shit every year. The problem isn't DC, it's who states send to DC.

Fix the problem in your state(s) and we can fix DC, until the CHoomer, Pukelosi, AOC, Moochconnels et al are gone and replaced with good basic constitutional backing people, the problems will persist.

The issue isn't ever the POTUS, its congress and that has to be fixed at the state level.

quote:

Originally posted by RichardC:

quote:

Originally posted by Pale Horse:

As far as I know most professional sports stadiums are owned by the state/city governments that paid for the stadium. So what you desire is already true.

Are those profitable or negative income drains on the taxpayers?

Negative income drains. Here's a fairly long read about the way it truly is.

https://econreview.berkeley.ed...their-profit-margin/

The Economics of Sports Stadiums: Does public financing of sports stadiums create local economic growth, or just help billionaires improve their profit margin?

Sports fans can be irrational. To someone watching from the outside, fans’ behavior is puzzling: their fanatical, unwavering support, and emotional investment in their teams seem inexplicable. However, as an avid fan myself, I have realized that much of the true allure of sports is intangible. Rooting for your teams is largely based on where you live, and you derive a sense of belonging from being part of a community of irrational, borderline psychotic fans. However, professional sports are also a business. As such, team owners, most of whom are billionaires, profit off fans’ commitment by having local taxpayers foot the bill for stadiums that cost billions of dollars. This leads us to my primary question: is the economic impact of stadiums in local communities significant enough to warrant the entire community paying for it?

The reasoning behind public financing of stadiums is predicated upon a belief that new stadiums will create a significant impact on the local community through increased jobs in the short-run and increased spending through tourism over the long-run. The short-run impact can be significant, as seen with the Los Angeles Rams, whose new stadium in Inglewood is expected to “provide more than 3,500 on-site construction jobs in Inglewood and more than 10,000 jobs by the time it is completed.” However, many advocates of publicly-funded stadiums are banking on a “multiplier effect,” in which increased local income created through these construction jobs could lead to further spending, investment, and job creation, thereby creating a long-term benefit for the local economy. Another important reason why so many teams succeed in receiving public funding for stadiums is the threat of leaving and the corresponding dissatisfaction that residents have with the city after a team moves. For example, when Seattle refused to pay for a basketball stadium in the city, owner Clay Bennett decided to move the team to Oklahoma City, renaming his team from the Seattle Supersonics to the Oklahoma City Thunder. On that account, the idea of public financing is nuanced, but it is rooted on questionable economic ideals and intimidation of local residents.

Unfortunately, the subsidies have not created the local impact that they promised. To understand why, let’s consider the Atlanta Falcons’ new stadium, which cost $2 billion for construction—$700 million of which was paid by local taxpayers. While proponents may talk about a multiplier effect, several theoretical and empirical studies of local economic impact of stadiums have shown that beliefs that stadiums have an impact that matches the amount of money that residents pay are largely unfounded. The average stadium generates $145 million per year, but none of this revenue goes back into the community. As such, the prevalent idea among team owners of “socializing the costs and privatizing the profits” is harmful and unfair to people who are forced to pay for a stadium that will not help them.

Further, a study by Noll and Zimbalist on newly constructed subsidized stadiums shows that they have a very limited and possibly even negative local impact. This is because of the opportunity cost that goes into allocating a significant amount of money into a service like a stadium, rather than infrastructure or other community projects that would benefit locals. Spending $700 million in areas like education or housing could have long-term positive consequences with the potential for long-term increases in the standard of living and economic growth.

Additionally, it is important to consider that public financing is largely helping billionaires pay less for a service that they can afford. This dangerous precedent is an unnecessary privilege rather than a necessity. These sports teams are supported by successful owners who are capable of funding stadiums themselves. The owners will be compensated handsomely through the profits received through ticket sales, corporate advertising, and concessions over the next several decades. Public subsidies are an unfortunate power play used by these influential teams on local communities that are emotionally attached to sports teams, and a shift to making these projects private is going to be important moving forward.

Furthermore, stadium construction in college sports is indicative of the precedent in professional sports. College sports, especially in historic, blue-blood programs, can affect communities just as strongly as professional sports teams can. For example, the University of Alabama’s football program brought in $174 million in revenue in 2018, which is comparable to professional sports teams. However, Alabama was funded entirely by the school, carefully racking up profits before deciding to invest in a new stadium. Starting something similar in professional sports could lead to a system of self-sustenance and owners considering stadium costs when deciding to purchase a new team.

Over the last thirty years, building sports stadiums has served as a profitable undertaking for large sports teams, at the expense of the general public. While there are some short-term benefits, the inescapable truth is that the economic impact of these projects on their communities is minimal, while they can be an obstacle to real development in local neighborhoods.