Spending Stephen Ross' money

The Ross donation is awesome and hard to seperate from the issue here, but the whole "shared cost" of these stadiums by everyday taxpayers to line the pockets of the wealthy team owners is just horse shit. Don't do it.

There is NO correlation between stadiums and "shared benefit of the region." The jobs are transitory, non-skilled, low paying jobs and the "benefit" of cheering for a sporting team on a region/society is far far overvalued compared to the cost. It's bullshit.

If your team ownership says "Help us pay for a new arena or we walk." Let them walk. Use the windfall to enhance schools, infrastructure, use the money to help lower the costs of doing business in the area. Bring in young professionals, industry. The "benefits" of helping revitalize a region through those measures would certainly blow away the "benefits" of getting drunk and cheering on the Rochester Mud-Dicks every Sunday.

/nopolo

It's seems like most of the disagreement here is over the premise that the taxpayers are the ones asking for the stadium.  Seems like there's pretty universal consensus that if the taxpayers want the stadium, they have no business forcing Ross to foot the bill simply becuase he's rich, and it's fair for him to go to a higher-bidding municipality if he wants to.  On the flip side, if Ross is the one who's demanding the new stadium, it's not fair to force the bill on the taxpayer who will not reap the majority of the benefit.

Dude needs to get that deal with CBS done. Bummer for the people with Time Warner.

And the rules pertaining to this particular club membership rest on the idea that owning a franchise in the league, is like owning a McDonalds franchise. The interesting part about that  is this: McDonald's isn't about selling burgers, even if they keep track of every one sold. The corporation sets the standards for invidual ownership of franchises, and maintaining the look and face of the brand, while the corporation itself is concerned with real estate owned. 

And guess what, this is the way the NFL works. No corps allowed, except during the season and Super Bowl. They are the bottom line. The only franchise owned by a corporate entity in the NFL, ever,  is the Green Bay Packers. And the reason is, they were organized as a corporate owner from the beginning. 

Today, however, if you want to buy into this exclusive club, and the NFL is all about exclusivity, you have to adhere to extremely strict membership rules. And one of those is this:  NFL owners are all about making their private interest a public entity only when it comes to sharing the cost of building facilities and stadia to house their teams. They consider their teams public utilities when it comes to stadium construction, and everyone pays, even if you have no interest in football or whether your city needs or wants to build a new arena. 

You might wonder why the NFL thinks stadiums should be built using public money to support a private enterprise, and you might surmise that their argument is that their private enterprise benefits a wide group of businesses and entreprenuers as well as fans and the public at large. And this thinking is easily understood and makes quite a bit of sense. What doesn't make sense, however, is why the NFL takes this position in regard to stadium and facility construction to benefit their enterprise, but will not permit any public interest in the ownership of any franchise.

I mean the corporate brand has a monopoly interest. The court has decided that issue. 

And today the NFL, like never before, parses its business in such a way, that every dime it can possibly extract from the paying public and the emotional zealotry of its community of fan bases, is done with glorious delight. But no team can be owned except by an individual. And the reason is simple: individual owners are more easily accountable to each other and their collective interest in the league's success, because they are in league with each other. 

So, billionaires who can make $200 million donations to their favorite university, still expect people who have a minor or no interest in their business activities, to support their enterprise when it comes to building a new stadium or renovating one. After all, they might one day go  to watch an event there. They need to be held accountable for this,  like NFL owners. 

After the Marlins Park fiasco, the climate in south Florida is very hostile towards public funding for stadiums. Also, all the hype about new stadiums and major events bringing money to cities is way overblown. There is little proof of this, and recent examples mostly show a somewhat negative effect.

...considering that the National Football League is pretty much pure American propaganda, frankly, the taxpayers should probably be paying for everything the NFL does.

The real shame is that greedy capitalist like Ross have figured out ways to skim a few bucks off of what should be a purely public enterprise.  Maybe it's time for a constitutional amendment incorporating the NFL as a branch of the US government?  Write your conressmen today!

The title of this post would fit nicely into the previous thread. How can we double up Ross's money?

to build a stadium with other peoples money.

 

If you could build a house with the taxpayers picking up half the tab, would you?

I personally don't care for Stephen Ross, but I really don't care how he spends his money.

Space heaters for Dominic's and keeping the place open year round. Pitchers of mulled wine at Christmas? Pitchers of Nog? Hellz yeah. Heated patio tiles for the win

The stadium isn't even 30 years old.  If he wants a new stadium, then he shouldn't be upset if people don't want to pony up the cash.  I think Miami sports fans are pretty laid back anyway, so I can't see the excitement to pay more in taxes to finance the stadium.

If he wants more luxury boxes to get a Super Bowl and make more $$$, that's his desire, not the citizens of Miami.  And I have trouble buying the argument that they need a new stadium to get the Super Bowl.  It's Miami.  The NFL will still come back for Super Bowls, regardless of the stadium.

Entertainment isn't free. If you want premium local entertainment your city has to pony up some cash for it. Ross didn't even want Florida to take that money out of its coffers. He wanted them to raise the hotel tax 1% and use that money for the new stadium. There's a lot of intangibles that successful sports franchises bring to a city. Not everything can necesarily be measured by some economist.