When Will Cities Smarten Up? The Bills Milk Buffalo
Cities bend over and burp out tax breaks into the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions.
Buffalo is one of them.
Jon Terbush writes at TheWeek.com that taxpayers are paying big to keep the Bills in Buffalo, and under the stupidest of terms -- terms that pretty much guarantee that they'll be back before long with their hand out for more millions:
Under the deal's terms, the Bills will receive what has become commonplace for teams demanding new or improved facilities: hefty public financing. While most such deals represent long-term investments by local governments, a provision in the Bills' lease could leave taxpayers shelling out big-time for just seven more years of football. And even if Buffalo retains the Bills after that point, taxpayers will likely have to shell out hundreds of millions more to keep their Bills.The new lease's terms call for $130 million in improvements to 40-year-old Ralph Wilson Stadium. Of that total, the Bills will cover just $35.5 million. New York state and Erie County will pick up the remaining $95.5 million.
The total cost of the deal hits $271 million once operating expenses, like rent and upkeep costs, are factored in. The team is in line to cover just $44 million of that total.
On its face, taxpayers are buying the loyalty of their football team, as the lease binds the Bills to Buffalo for the next decade. Yet the lease also includes a one-time opt-out clause after year seven that will allow the Bills to skip town for a marginal fee. This all but guarantees that within the decade, the Bills will be back with a new list of financial demands, telling the state and county to put up even more money or risk losing the team.
Recent history has shown that states and municipalities are all too willing to spend big to keep pro teams in town. This past year, the Miami Marlins inaugurated their new stadium, which was made possible through $409 million in public bonds issued by Miami-Dade County. Just a few years ago, both the New York Yankees and Mets got new stadiums, and taxpayers ponied up nearly $2 billion to make it happen.
Public funding for new stadiums has become as commonplace in the NFL as it has in other sports. Since 2000, public funding for new football stadiums has routinely covered two-thirds or more of the total project cost. In one of the more extreme instances, taxpayers in Marion County, home of the Indianapolis Colts, paid for 86 percent of a $720 million stadium that opened there in 2008.
...The short duration of the Bills' new lease means that negotiations toward a longer, more costly deal, are about to get under way. In one sense, that debate has already begun. The lease established a split public-private commission to research the logistics of a new facility. And with new state-of-the-art stadiums now topping the $1 billion mark, New York taxpayers could be asked to pay for a major chunk of that, on top of the millions they're already due to pay. Toronto has lobbied hard to bring the NFL to Canada. The Bills, who already play one game every year in Toronto, thus have built-in competition for their services, meaning more leverage come deal time.
This is sports welfare, and at the rate municipalities are going broke these days, taxpayers and voters need to wake up and see that this ends.
Unfortunately, people's romantic identification with "local" sports teams (with players who are anything but local -- bought and brought in from all over the world) will surely cause them to push for this cashflow-arrhea to continue.
Ohio County Stadium Debts Force Government To Sell Hospital, Raid Savings
I was holding a conversation with a person years ago about this. He was saying that even with additional sales tax tacked onto the base rate we were still paying more sales tax in our county than what the people were paying in Cincy. He couldn't get the idea that taxpayers shouldn't be paying a dime for professional sports.
Jim P. at January 1, 2013 10:37 PM
It's really no different from opera houses, ballet theaters, and so forth. It's the fundamental question: if a form of entertainment is not self-supporting, should the local government support it?
Some people think local governments are supposed to ensure a broad cultural offering, because it makes the city a more attractive place to live. Of course, there is sometimes the other motivation: one should take a careful look at the bank balances of the politicians who approves deals like this.
Personally, I say "no". Lower tax rates will do more to make a city attractive than any number of ugly (and mostly unused) public buildings. Where there is enough demand, private enterprise will step in - for example, with a theater that can be used for everything from films to ballet to concerts.
a_random_guy at January 2, 2013 2:47 AM
"This past year, the Miami Marlins inaugurated their new stadium, which was made possible through $409 million in public bonds issued by Miami-Dade County. "
Yep, and that stadium (as well as the Marlins themselves) is the laughingstock of baseball. That contraption in center field is widely referred to by baseball fans as the "vomit machine". It will be grossly out of fashion in ten years and the team will be demanding more money to renovate the stadium.
Atlanta voters just voted down a bond issue to build a new stadium for the Falcons. The stadium that the Falcons play in, the Georgia Dome, is less then twenty years old and there's nothing wrong with it. It just doesn't have all the latest cool features and attractions.
The Indianapolis Motor Speedway periodically reminds everyone in its press releases that it does not receive any government subsidies. In fact, the Speedway has spent a fair amount of its own money fixing up the deteriorating neighborhood around it.
Cousin Dave at January 2, 2013 7:26 AM
a_random_guy: "Of course, there is sometimes the other motivation: one should take a careful look at the bank balances of the politicians who approves deals like this."
Bingo!
Stadiums, golf courses, opera houses, convention centers: not just entertainment for the hoity-toity elite at the expense of working class taxpayers, but a lucrative source of income for the rich friends of politicians, and some nice gratuities for the politicians themselves as well.
Ken R at January 2, 2013 10:34 AM
"It's really no different from opera houses, ballet theaters, and so forth. It's the fundamental question: if a form of entertainment is not self-supporting, should the local government support it?"
Random guy, that parallel struck me immediately. With opera the answer always was "culchah!" That was always bullshit too; the reasons city governemtns and little princely states supported opera houses was that a display of "culchah" meant that you were on par with the big boys.
So now profesional football is 'culchah". (Rinses vomit out of mouth.)
Ha! I love it! Football is offically now on the same cultural fossil list as opera and ballet. Although here recently opera is gaining fans rather than losing them.
Jim at January 2, 2013 10:52 AM
FedEx Field (where the Redskins play) was privately funded, though I would imagine the State of Maryland had to come up with some dough for infrastructure around Landover.
Nationals Park, where the (surprise) Nationals play, cost over $690 million, according to NBC Washington. According to JDLand.com, funding was sourced via municipal bonds, a business tax, and a little bit of private money. A beauty of a park, really, but what a bucket of money it cost.
Meanwhile, RFK Stadium, decrepit though it is, still stands, and is still used.
Old RPM Daddy (OldRPMDaddy at GMail dot com) at January 2, 2013 2:09 PM
For those who think community investment improves the attractiveness of the host city, I have two words for you to consider. DETROIT Lions.
LoneStarJeffe at January 3, 2013 7:01 PM
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