John Oliver's Takedown of Public Funding for Stadiums
By: Jeff McDonough
All over the country there are sports franchises that are rumored to be at least considering leaving their current city. The biggest reason given always seems to be because their stadium or arena is too old. This complaint always seems overblown to me. Stadiums cost so much money to build, that to tear down a perfectly functional one seems gratuitously wasteful. When you visit ballparks like Wrigley Field and Fenway Park, it is like watching a baseball game in a museum. It doesn’t matter if the game is a blowout because you can get your money’s worth just soaking in the sights. As long as older stadiums have sporadic updates over the years, I am an advocate of keeping them. Even places with much less prestige but that are still viewed as outdated, like Royal Farms Arena in Baltimore, are perfectly adequate in my mind. I’ve seen basketball and wrestling there in recent years and had a lovely time. I see no reason why the city would spend the money to tear this place down and construct a new one.
That’s the real issue though. The money so often comes from the pockets of the government, and therefore, the taxpayers. The billionaires who run these teams — often as their secondary or tertiary businesses once they’ve made their fortunes — have the unmitigated gall to ask us to fund their fancy, new, luxury projects. The thinking is that new stadiums and all the events there will boost the local economy. John Oliver, the host of HBO’s Last Week Tonight, asserts that this is a fallacy, in a scathing condemnation of this practice that he delivered two weeks ago. The money from those gaudy naming rights deals that landed Baltimore clunky-sounding stadiums like the aforementioned Royal Farms Arena — or how about when the Ravens called PSINet Stadium home? — often goes to the franchises and not the city. The money from additional events like concerts, well, Oliver points out that they may be only lining team owners’ pockets as well. But you better give them what they want because the threat to move your favorite team to another city always looms.
