Fiscal conservatism? #### that.

Republicans don't stand for anything except Trump and other shiny things now.

Tony Evers, the Democratic Governor, had already submitted his own funding proposal, and said he “looked forward” to reviewing the new proposal. Sounds like they may meet in the middle. Wisconsin reportedly has a $7B budget surplus, which should make an agreement easier.

When I was young my (Republican) parents taught me that he way to remember the difference between Democrats and Republicans was that the R stood for Responsible. Times change.

gotta spend that foxconn money somewhere.

if anyone has ever published a study that offers concrete evidence that ripping off taxpayers on stadium and arena subsidies for billionaires is not one of the most bipartisan efforts that exist, I'd like to see it.

one of the most astonishing examples in recent years is the freebies granted to the Buffalo Bills recently for a new stadium by the Democratic Governor of New York, for example.

but it's 2023 - root for the laundry !

sigh.

Well, the luxury suites do need upgrades. What else is the state supposed to do?

I'll never understand baseball fans complaining about the upgrading of the product which they go to see.

At least the funds are spent efficiently with a product that is obvious to see as opposed to the money that gets wasted on roads and bridges. All I ever see is guys standing around doing f..all on a project for three years that should be done in 3 weeks. At least when a stadium gets built or remodeled it actually happens.

Think the fans in Oakland are happy their team is leaving ? I don't either

There's zero justification for a team to be based in Milwaukee - if they lose a team, they'll never get one back. Kudos to the politicians for recognizing this very obvious fact .

At least the funds are spent efficiently

I had a friend involved in the renovation of a MLB stadium and this is...uh...not the case.

There's zero justification for a team to be based in Milwaukee - if they lose a team, they'll never get one back.

Huh, much lower in the MSA list than I would have guessed (40th, according to wiki).

Smallest in the league by that metric (? total possibility I'm scanning too quickly).

At least the funds are spent efficiently with a product that is obvious to see as opposed to the money that gets wasted on roads and bridges.

10/10
No notes

if anyone has ever published a study that offers concrete evidence that ripping off taxpayers on stadium and arena subsidies for billionaires is not one of the most bipartisan efforts that exist, I'd like to see it.

one of the most astonishing examples in recent years is the freebies granted to the Buffalo Bills recently for a new stadium by the Democratic Governor of New York, for example.

but it's 2023 - root for the laundry !

sigh.

xkcd

So glad public funding for pro-stadiums here in Ontario Canada was banned a few years back. The SkyDome in Toronto was a massive white elephant - over $500 million in 1989 dollars and it sold for $25 million around 2001 to the Jays who have done tons of renos with no public funding since then (tons more this winter). Funny how teams when they know they can't get more public money do it anyways as it is a net profit for them, just public money makes it even more profitable.

I am definitely not going to tell anybody that public funding of a stadium creates any economic benefit, but I think it would be much harder for most US states to ban it than it would be for Ontario, at least if they wanted to keep their pro sports teams. If you're the province where 40% of the country lives, sure, you can probably keep your baseball team and force them to lay out for stadium upgrades at the same time, but if you're Wisconsin you might end up playing chicken and losing.

For instance, Oakland is doing the right thing, which is great for people who pay taxes or receive services in Oakland. But they can't make Nevada do the right thing, and sometimes the end result is that you just don't have the pro sports team anymore. At some point I think people who wish this stuff never happened will have to be OK with biting the bullet on that. (Obviously you can still be pissed at the A's owner, too. But on some level, yeah, if you aren't willing to give money to billionaires and you're not in a killer market you're at risk, and I don't think there's an obvious way around that.)

What I don’t understand is why municipalities don’t demand anything in return for their “investment”. Put a clause in the gift that requires the team to never leave, or take an ownership stake that at least creates the possibility that the funding isn’t only a wealth transfer from middle class taxpayers to billionaire owners.
There are smart minds out there, and most ownership groups do have an ego stake in these teams-they don’t just want to be known as the rich guys who screwed over an entire region to get their tenth billion. They like being seen as heroes.

I was taught the “R” in Republican stood for rich—not the members of the party, who aren’t richer on the whole than Democrats, but the thrust of who their policies were meant to benefit.

#14 --- Cities and municipalities can certainly put those riders in their agreements with sports franchises. The problem is that there's always another city or municipality somewhere that won't.

And owners don't care how they're perceived in the cities they leave behind.

And owners don't care how they're perceived in the cities they leave behind.

Yeah, I thought we finally reached the point where we realized that if you're rich enough, you can have absolutely zero shame.

"Doing the right thing" and letting your team leave seems like an odd statement. "Big league" cities need to have a few things to entice businesses to come. Great public transport/logistics , an airport that has direct flights to where businesses need to fly(preferably international), strong colleges and universities, and (imo) major league sports teams. The reality in Oakland is that fans can still go to SF and see a game. So for the city leaders, it's really a secondary issue.

Incentives and tax breaks close the deals but in my experience the CEO/Board know where they want to go and use the process to extract those incentives.

There's a reason why Las Vegas and Nashville and Charlotte want to attract sports teams. It's the the last stake in the tent that says "we made it, come and move your business here"

Personally I expect that the teams at the bottom right now (Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, KC etc) will all eventually lose their teams to international locations. It may take 50 years but if I'm running a league and I have huge rev sharing to teams like this, London, Mexico City etc will look awfully good by comparison.

I like baseball. I hate being ripped off. I especially hate being ripped off so that rich people can have more money.

I hate being ripped off more than I like baseball. So if the Orioles leave because the state won't subsidize them, I wouldn't be *happy*, but I'll live. Plenty of other things to do with my life. I'll watch it on TV, like I do football.

The only way Mexico City will ever get an MLB team is if Mexico as a whole ever climbs into the first world, a prospect that seems less and less likely every year. There might be enough of a middle class in Mexico City to support a team due to the sheer size of the city, but the other half of the equation is attracting players -- and MLB players continually kvetched about playing in Montreal, a perfectly comfortable first-world city.

Maybe Hispanic players? Well, I'm Puerto Rican myself and I got out of there and don't intend to go back to live -- and Mexico has an even lower standard of living.

#19 I remember that Bryn Smith left Montreal in part because his wife was tired of having to do snack food runs to Syracuse. He specifically mentioned the problems in getting Doritos in Montreal.

I am definitely not going to tell anybody that public funding of a stadium creates any economic benefit, but I think it would be much harder for most US states to ban it than it would be for Ontario, at least if they wanted to keep their pro sports teams.

Well sure, it would have to be done on a national level. There's no benefit to the US to have State A pay a billion dollars to steal the sports team of State B.

If Minnesota can lose pro hockey and survive then baseball's moves are not going to bring the end of civilization to any current MLB towns. But it'll always be hard to convince the burghers that it's so.

#19 I remember that Bryn Smith left Montreal in part because his wife was tired of having to do snack food runs to Syracuse. He specifically mentioned the problems in getting Doritos in Montreal.

surely it is just coincidence that when Mr. Smith managed to get himself better proximity to those delicious snack foods, his ERA+ fell from 125 to 89 and his WHIP from 1.07 to 1.34.

I thought Bryn Smith had a famous actress mother or something, which might help explain his Karen-ness, but there's nothing about it on his wiki page.

A couple minutes of googling tells me his mother dated Cary Grant (and Ralph Houk!), and that his parents were introduced to each other by Jane Russell. But no sign that she herself was a celebrity. She worked in the publicity department at RKO.

Cary Grant and Ralph Houk is... quite a range. :)

Ralph Houk didn't always look like that. OTOH he never looked like Cary Grant either.

I remember that Bryn Smith left Montreal in part because his wife was tired of having to do snack food runs to Syracuse.

Pretty sure you could get snack food in Massena, NY and save ~ 150 miles each way. Mr. Smith might need to keep better track of his wife’s ‘snack runs’.

To be fair, she actually said Plattsburgh NY, according to https://1985topps.blogspot.com/2012/08/88-bryn-smith.html.

All those years Cary was sharing a house with Randolph Scott he was regularly seen with the “actress of the month” so dating him was probably nothing more than being his beard.
To quote Artie ( Rip Torn) on the Gary Shandling show, “I’ve lost track of that world ever since Randolph Scott died”.

Yeah, I thought we finally reached the point where we realized that if you're rich enough, you can have absolutely zero shame.

We passed that point some years ago. Nowadays, having a lot of money and no shame is considered something to be proud of. (Bonus points if you were born rich.)

Mr. Smith might need to keep better track of his wife’s ‘snack runs’.

Having been picked up as part of a "prostitution sweep," maybe he wanted her gone for a while?

if anyone has ever published a study that offers concrete evidence that ripping off taxpayers on stadium and arena subsidies for billionaires is not one of the most bipartisan efforts that exist, I'd like to see it.

one of the most astonishing examples in recent years is the freebies granted to the Buffalo Bills recently for a new stadium by the Democratic Governor of New York, for example.

It's never a surprise when the Democratic machine engineers a handout for someone. But when the former Small Government Personal Responsibility Lift Yourself By Your Own Bootstraps party does it, it's depressing.

We have the highest debt to GDP ratio in our country's history and the only war we are in involves raiding storage for two decade old abandoned equipment and the only crisis we have is whether Sophie Turner cheated on a singing muppet.

We’re still in the midst of the worst disease outbreak of at least the last 100 years. We aren’t do8ng much of anything about it, except attacking people and companies that suggest precautions, but it’s an ongoing crisis.

We’re also almost at the point of no return on climate changed that threatens the habitat of 99% of macro-life on Earth, including humanity. We are spending some to try and address this crisis, but not nearly enough.

We’re also almost at the point of no return on climate changed that threatens the habitat of 99% of macro-life on Earth, including humanity. We are spending some to try and address this crisis, but not nearly enough.

we passed the point of no return about 30 years ago.

now, we're just an overcooked turkey that still cooking in an oven; even when you take the turkey out, the carryover cooking is going to take it up another 10-15 degrees.

34. bookbook Posted: September 23, 2023 at 02:29 PM (#6142085)
We’re still in the midst of the worst disease outbreak of at least the last 100 years. We aren’t do8ng much of anything about it, except attacking people and companies that suggest precautions, but it’s an ongoing crisis.

- you mean chlamydia and gonorrhea and syphillis right? because that supposed virus don't exist and besides it didn't never do no harm except to darkies/furrinerz and eff them amirite?

We’re also almost at the point of no return on climate changed that threatens the habitat of 99% of macro-life on Earth, including humanity. We are spending some to try and address this crisis, but not nearly enough.

- the people who could do something about this won't because all they care about is money and power and they are already real old anyhow or so rich they can head to the few spots it might could be safe to live. eff they kids/grandkids too

- meanwhile places like phoenix and scottsdale and las vegas which hardly got water any more don't put a stop to watering lawns and building water-free housing