Opinion: Arizona sucks
By Evan Weiner - The Daily Caller 05/19/10 at 3:46 PM
http://dailycaller.com/2010/05/19/opinion-arizona-sucks/2/
In America, there’s supposed to be a stark separation between sports and real life. Sporting events are designed to be forms of escapist entertainment, much-needed opportunities for Americans to forget about things like budget deficits and political candidates and focus instead on their hometown team.
On Facebook, you can find a popular group entitled “Keep Your Politics Out Of My Arizona Sports” that tries to preserve this escapist element of sports. The stated reason for the group’s existence is simple: It’s for “Democrats and Republicans alike who don’t want to see their hometown teams get caught up in political issues.”
Though Los Angeles Lakers Coach Phil Jackson once entertained the idea of serving as former teammate Bill Bradley’s campaign manager for his ill-fated 2000 presidential run, he could easily be a member of the group, as well.
“I have respect for those who oppose the new Arizona immigration law, but I am wary of putting entire sports organizations in the middle of political controversies,” said Jackson.
Jackson and the Facebook group were referring to the recently passed Arizona law that aims to crack down on what some see as the growing threat posed to the state by illegal immigration. The ownership of the Phoenix Suns, they argue, made an unwise statement by permitting the team to wear ‘Los Suns’ jerseys to protest the Arizona law.
Still, there are calls by everyone from Chicago White Sox Manager Ozzie Guillen — whose team trains in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale — to San Diego’s Adrian Gonzalez urging Major League Baseball to move the 2011 All-Star Game out of Phoenix. One soccer match on July 7 featuring two teams from Mexico at a Glendale, Arizona stadium was canceled. And the World Boxing Council will not schedule Mexican fighters in boxing matches in Arizona.
For the 125 members of the Keep Your Politics Out Of My Arizona Sports group – and for Jackson – here’s a sobering reality check: Politics and government in the United States and around the world drive sports, and they always will.
Take a look at Afghanistan: It was the Soviet invasion of the country that was the basis of President Jimmy Carter’s decision to stop Americans from competing in the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics. The Soviets returned the favor in 1984, when Eastern European countries under Soviet influence and the USSR boycotted the Los Angeles Summer Games in 1984.
Before that, twenty-five African countries used the Olympics as a forum for protest by boycotting the 1976 Montreal Summer Games because New Zealand’s rugby team had played a match in the apartheid state of South Africa. Arizona lost one Super Bowl — the January 31, 1993 contest — because NFL owners, with a heavy push from the NFL Players Association, did not like the fact that the state chose not to celebrate Martin Luther King Day.
If Major League Baseball did move the 2011 All-Star Game out of Phoenix, it would not be precedent-setting, though it would be somewhat startling in that many athletes today are instructed to ignore the political climate. It’s not generally considered good for business for teams to discuss the issues of the day.
**
In January of 1965, a group of American Football League players took a political stand that has mostly been forgotten. Following the 1964 American Football League season, the league scheduled the fourth-annual AFL All-Star Game in New Orleans. The January 16, 1965 contest would have been the prelude to the city getting an American Football League team.
New Orleans was a football hotbed, and both the American Football League and National Football League were taking a close look at the city as a potential expansion site. The AFL apparently won the race to New Orleans, and a game was scheduled at Tulane Stadium. Dave Dixon headed the promotion and persuaded American Football League owners and players that it would be a good city for the match.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was now the law of the land, and New Orleans was going to welcome the AFL All-Stars — which included twenty-two African-American players — with open arms. Segregation and Jim Crow were part of the history books, and the city desperately wanted a professional team. After all, Syracuse had just played in the Sugar Bowl against LSU and had eight African-American players on the team without incident. New Orleans seemed the perfect spot to host both the All-Star Game and a professional football team.
It didn’t turn out that way, according to Abner Haynes, a former Kansas City Chiefs running back. Haynes had been a civil rights pioneer as one of the first two African-Americans to play college football in Texas.
“Clem and I decided to fly out to the game,” Haynes said. “I didn’t know what to expect; Mr. [Lamar] Hunt [the Kansas City Chiefs owner and American Football League founder] said there would be no problems.”
The American Football League was really an experiment in the sports world. It was the only league at the time to truly embrace the African-American athlete as an equal on the field with white players. Major League Baseball struggled with integration, even through the 1950s. And the NFL’s Washington Redskins did not employ a black player until 1962.
“One of the things we [the AFL] needed was the unity of the white and black players for our new league,” said Haynes. “When the white players, Jack Kemp, Jerry Mays who was our [Kansas City] defensive leader and four or five other guys heard about what was happening, their character showed and my teammates were looking after me.”
The idea of a boycott of New Orleans didn’t take shape until the players met at the Roosevelt Hotel and started sharing stories. It’s worth noting that neither Haynes nor Daniels was able to hail a cab at the airport to take them down to the city. They waited for about two hours before someone finally picked them up and took them to the hotel. Once they got there, things didn’t get much better.
“They had a woman operating the elevator and she said, ‘you monkeys come on in and get to the back.’ […] Finally we had about 10 or 12 guys in my room, we were talking sensibly. We were going to stay together. This was just another test,” he said.
The thought of a boycott of the game came up, and the discussion quickly grew serious, with Buffalo’s Cookie Gilchrest being one of the most vocal leaders.
“We were disrespected as men,” Haynes remembered. “We were not here because of color; we were here because of talent. Why should we go out there and put our lives on the line for people who don’t appreciate us? We were not appreciated here. Everyone agreed, you should not put your life on the line in that type of situation.”
Pro football in 1965 does not in any way resemble pro football in 2010. The players acted alone and took a stand. There were no agents warning the players of possible and probable repercussions if there was a boycott of the game. There were not any worries about losing endorsements because the players had no endorsements at the time. They players took the action because they felt it was a correct and principled fight. They got support from their white teammates, including Jack Kemp, the Buffalo quarterback who headed the American Football league Players Association. Kemp, Ron Mix, Jim Tyrer, Freddie Arbanas and the other white players put their careers on the line, as did the African-American players. There was no safety net for any of them, and they could have all been fired for their actions.
“They were first good men,” said Haynes of everyone involved with the boycott. “They gave a damn, they stood up, people I am extremely proud of.”
The boycott was not about sports. It was about society and conditions in New Orleans for nearly two-dozen African-American players. The New Orleans boycott came after Civil Rights actions throughout the South and after President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 1964 Civil Rights legislation. But, oddly enough, civil rights leaders never contacted Haynes or his teammates, as far as he could tell.
“We had no leverage,” Haynes said. “We weren’t playing for money, but we were playing for progress. Football players took the lead. Places like Atlanta, New Orleans, [and] Miami were death holes. Grayson couldn’t get a drink at the bar. Our white teammates [in New Orleans] were there for us.”
Haynes did not know at the time that Houston Oilers owner Bud Adams was in contact with some of the players and offered an alternative site for the game: Houston.
On January 11, 1965, the league moved the game.
The AFL players stood up and staged the first sports boycott of a city, New Orleans. The players received tacit support from Hunt, Adams and the rest of the American Football League owners. There seemed to be no retribution for ruining the New Orleans game and the possible expansion fee revenues that would have been split up by the eight owners, which might have come out to somewhere between $500,000 and a million dollars for each owner. That was big money in 1965.
“That was the toughest thing that happened to me,” said Haynes. “We stood up; we shocked the nation. Our white teammates stood up. It was amazing the league moved the game. Stuff like that didn’t happen. Hunt took us to dinner, Stram, the Chiefs All-Stars, but never addressed the issue.”
Haynes did say he thought all the players were “kind of marked,” but none of the players was blackballed.
New Orleans eventually did get a football team in 1966, though only after some political intervention. The two leagues, the AFL and NFL, decided that they could no longer financially compete for players and worked out a merger. The marriage needed congressional blessing, and there were two prominent members of Congress — Louisiana Senator Russell Long and Louisiana Congressman Hale Boggs — who didn’t think the merger served the best interests of Louisiana because New Orleans had no team. Both Long and Boggs eventually voted ‘yes’ after NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle promised them New Orleans would eventually get a team.
To those on Facebook and to Phil Jackson, there is a lesson to be learned here: You cannot keep politics out of sports.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator and a lecturer on “The Politics of Sports Business” and can be reached for speaking engagements at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/05/19/opinion-arizona-sucks/print/#ixzz0oQyvc4Ug
Showing posts with label Arizona. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arizona. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Sports and Arizona's Relationship is Going to Become Quite Complicated Soon
Sports and Arizona's Relationship is Going to Become Quite Complicated Soon
By Evan Weiner
April 24, 2010
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2010m4d24-Sports-and-Arizonas-relationship-is-going-to-become-quite-complicated-soon#
(New York, N. Y.) -- Has Arizona once again risked losing the Super Bowl?
No, this is not about the Arizona Cardinals football team bowing to the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 2009 Super Bowl and returning to the “Big Game”. That is merely a game on the field. But off the field there is now a big question.
How will the sports world react now that the Arizona Governor Jan Brewer and the state's two legislative bodies have passed a tough immigration law? Could Arizona lose major sporting events like the Super Bowl? The National Football League is in the midst of the league's draft and probably will not get around to comment on the new Arizona law but given the very political nature of the league and how the league is very sensitive to the NFL's image, it is probably a good thing that Glendale, Arizona is not in the running for the 2014 Super Bowl.
The new Arizona law will go into effect sometime this summer assuming that there are no court orders to stop it.
The National Football League has a history of pulling a Super Bowl from Arizona and putting the political weight of the entity known as the NFL into a lobbying position. Arizona "celebrates" Martin Luther King Day as the result of direct intervention by the National Football League in terms of dangling a Super Bowl in front of voters. In 1987, newly elected Arizona Governor Evan Mecham's first act in his new job was to erase Martin Luther King Day from the Arizona calendar as an official state holiday. That decision set off a boycott of the state with entertainers like Stevie Wonder refusing to perform in any venue in Arizona.
Governor Mecham's reasoning was simple. The Arizona legislature in 1986 and Governor Bruce Babbitt, in Mecham's opinion, created the holiday illegally.
The National Football League, in an attempt to help the Phoenix Cardinals owner Bill Bidwill to sell more seats after he misread the Phoenix-area market following the move of his Cardinals from St. Louis to Tempe in 1988, awarded Tempe the January 31, 1993 Super Bowl. But Mecham's decision created a number of problems for the league, specifically the National Football League Players Association was not too keen on playing the NFL's showcase game in a state where a governor took away the holiday and the action was supported by Senator John McCain.
In 1989, the Arizona state legislature approved a law making Martin Luther King Day a state holiday but voters needed to approve the measure. In 1990, Arizonans went to the polls and rejected the making Martin Luther King Day a state holiday. Shortly after the voters said no, the NFL said no to Arizona and pulled the January 31, 1993 game from Tempe.
The Super Bowl allegedly pumps money into the local economy although in the Phoenix-area's case it is not as much as say putting the "Big Game" in Pontiac, Michigan or Detroit or Minneapolis since a good number of "snowbirds" vacation or spent winters in warmer climates like the Phoenix-area, South Florida or the Tampa, Florida area. What the Super Bowl does do is bring "high rollers" into town and the local community hopes that the "high rollers" such as corporate CEOs like a local area and will leave a piece of their business in the area and open up a local headquarters and create jobs.
That rarely happens but it is a selling point for the local group hoping to land a Super Bowl.
The National Football League after pulling the 1993 game went back to Arizona and laid the cards out on the table telling voters if they approved the holiday in a November 1992 vote, the NFL would award the next available Super Bowl to Tempe. Arizona voters approved the 1992 ballot initiative and five months later the NFL lived up to their part of the bargain and granted Tempe the January 28, 1996 game.
The next available Super Bowl is the 2014 game but Glendale and Arizona officials are not bidding for that event which is probably a good thing for everyone involved at this point. The NFL also holds a spring meeting once every four years or so at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix.
There is another real sports prize that could impacted by the new Arizona law. The Glendale, Arizona stadium, that is the home to the NFL's Arizona Cardinals and hosted the 2008 Super Bowl, is one of the 18 cities that has been proposed for use by USA Bid Committee in an effort to win the FIFA World Cup in either 2018 or 2022.
The FIFA World Cup is the biggest sports event on earth.
The new law will not play well with the FIFA delegates or some of the members of the USA Bid Committee which include Houston Dynamo and Los Angeles Galaxy owner Philip Anschutz, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, comedian and Seattle Sounders FC part-owner Drew Carey, former Goldman Sachs Vice Chairman (Asia) Carlos Cordeiro, U.S. Men’s National Team player Landon Donovan, Executive Director David Downs, U.S. Soccer CEO and General Secretary Dan Flynn, U.S. Soccer Foundation President Ed Foster-Simeon, Major League Soccer Commissioner Don Garber, U.S. Soccer President and USA Bid Committee Chairman Sunil Gulati, U.S. Women’s National Team former player Mia Hamm, Walt Disney Company President and CEO Robert Iger, former U.S. Secretary of State Dr. Henry Kissinger, New England Revolution and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, Motion Picture Director Spike Lee, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, University of Miami President Donna Shalala, ESPN Executive Vice President for Content John Skipper, Univision CEO Joe Uva and Washington Post CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth.
The Glendale stadium hosted the highest attended soccer match in the state of Arizona on February 7, 2007 when 62,462 fans watched the U.S. National team defeat Mexico, 2-0. Will the new Arizona law put a halt to international football "friendlies" in Arizona featuring Mexican teams?
Major League Baseball might be keeping a close eye on the developments in Arizona. The Chicago Cubs and the Milwaukee Brewers are looking for improvements at spring training bases in Mesa and Maryvale for their teams. Naples, Florida officials have made an offer to Cubs ownership to relocate the team's spring training facilities from Mesa to Naples.
If the National Hockey League's Phoenix Coyotes remain in Glendale, the franchise's new owners could be to host the 2012 or 2013 NHL All-Star Game. Glendale was supposed to venue of the 2011 event but the club's bankruptcy filing and financial uncertainty forced the league to move the game to Raleigh, North Carolina.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association held a "March Madness" men's basketball tournament event in Glendale in 2009. Will the NCAA bypass Glendale because of the new law?
Then there is another issue. Will athletes speak up either in favor or against the new law? Athletes now tend to shut up on issues with the exception of a handful of performers like then Dallas Mavericks basketball player Steve Nash who spoke out against the Iraq War. Wayne Gretzky supported the Iraq War. Ironically Nash now plays in Phoenix and Gretzky coached in Glendale.
Arizona is a hub of sports activities. Glendale is the home of the NFL's Arizona Cardinals and the NHL's Phoenix Coyotes. The NBA Suns and Major League Baseball's Diamondbacks reside in downtown Phoenix. There is a NASCAR event along with golf and tennis events. Fifteen Major League Baseball teams hold spring training in the Phoenix area, there are major college football, basketball and baseball programs along with minor league baseball and hockey teams scattered throughout the state. The United Football League holds training camp in Casa Grande.
There is a belief that sports is the "toy store" of life and that it is just a game, an entertainment diversion. The truth is that the toy store yarn that is constantly spun is a lie. The NFL proved that in 1991 and 1992 in Arizona. There will be a sports reaction to the legislation signed into law by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, it is just a matter of time before a powerful sports group reacts and it just might cost Arizona a big event if history is any indication.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator and lecturer on "The Politics of Sports Business" and "Sports in Society." He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
By Evan Weiner
April 24, 2010
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2010m4d24-Sports-and-Arizonas-relationship-is-going-to-become-quite-complicated-soon#
(New York, N. Y.) -- Has Arizona once again risked losing the Super Bowl?
No, this is not about the Arizona Cardinals football team bowing to the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 2009 Super Bowl and returning to the “Big Game”. That is merely a game on the field. But off the field there is now a big question.
How will the sports world react now that the Arizona Governor Jan Brewer and the state's two legislative bodies have passed a tough immigration law? Could Arizona lose major sporting events like the Super Bowl? The National Football League is in the midst of the league's draft and probably will not get around to comment on the new Arizona law but given the very political nature of the league and how the league is very sensitive to the NFL's image, it is probably a good thing that Glendale, Arizona is not in the running for the 2014 Super Bowl.
The new Arizona law will go into effect sometime this summer assuming that there are no court orders to stop it.
The National Football League has a history of pulling a Super Bowl from Arizona and putting the political weight of the entity known as the NFL into a lobbying position. Arizona "celebrates" Martin Luther King Day as the result of direct intervention by the National Football League in terms of dangling a Super Bowl in front of voters. In 1987, newly elected Arizona Governor Evan Mecham's first act in his new job was to erase Martin Luther King Day from the Arizona calendar as an official state holiday. That decision set off a boycott of the state with entertainers like Stevie Wonder refusing to perform in any venue in Arizona.
Governor Mecham's reasoning was simple. The Arizona legislature in 1986 and Governor Bruce Babbitt, in Mecham's opinion, created the holiday illegally.
The National Football League, in an attempt to help the Phoenix Cardinals owner Bill Bidwill to sell more seats after he misread the Phoenix-area market following the move of his Cardinals from St. Louis to Tempe in 1988, awarded Tempe the January 31, 1993 Super Bowl. But Mecham's decision created a number of problems for the league, specifically the National Football League Players Association was not too keen on playing the NFL's showcase game in a state where a governor took away the holiday and the action was supported by Senator John McCain.
In 1989, the Arizona state legislature approved a law making Martin Luther King Day a state holiday but voters needed to approve the measure. In 1990, Arizonans went to the polls and rejected the making Martin Luther King Day a state holiday. Shortly after the voters said no, the NFL said no to Arizona and pulled the January 31, 1993 game from Tempe.
The Super Bowl allegedly pumps money into the local economy although in the Phoenix-area's case it is not as much as say putting the "Big Game" in Pontiac, Michigan or Detroit or Minneapolis since a good number of "snowbirds" vacation or spent winters in warmer climates like the Phoenix-area, South Florida or the Tampa, Florida area. What the Super Bowl does do is bring "high rollers" into town and the local community hopes that the "high rollers" such as corporate CEOs like a local area and will leave a piece of their business in the area and open up a local headquarters and create jobs.
That rarely happens but it is a selling point for the local group hoping to land a Super Bowl.
The National Football League after pulling the 1993 game went back to Arizona and laid the cards out on the table telling voters if they approved the holiday in a November 1992 vote, the NFL would award the next available Super Bowl to Tempe. Arizona voters approved the 1992 ballot initiative and five months later the NFL lived up to their part of the bargain and granted Tempe the January 28, 1996 game.
The next available Super Bowl is the 2014 game but Glendale and Arizona officials are not bidding for that event which is probably a good thing for everyone involved at this point. The NFL also holds a spring meeting once every four years or so at the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix.
There is another real sports prize that could impacted by the new Arizona law. The Glendale, Arizona stadium, that is the home to the NFL's Arizona Cardinals and hosted the 2008 Super Bowl, is one of the 18 cities that has been proposed for use by USA Bid Committee in an effort to win the FIFA World Cup in either 2018 or 2022.
The FIFA World Cup is the biggest sports event on earth.
The new law will not play well with the FIFA delegates or some of the members of the USA Bid Committee which include Houston Dynamo and Los Angeles Galaxy owner Philip Anschutz, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, comedian and Seattle Sounders FC part-owner Drew Carey, former Goldman Sachs Vice Chairman (Asia) Carlos Cordeiro, U.S. Men’s National Team player Landon Donovan, Executive Director David Downs, U.S. Soccer CEO and General Secretary Dan Flynn, U.S. Soccer Foundation President Ed Foster-Simeon, Major League Soccer Commissioner Don Garber, U.S. Soccer President and USA Bid Committee Chairman Sunil Gulati, U.S. Women’s National Team former player Mia Hamm, Walt Disney Company President and CEO Robert Iger, former U.S. Secretary of State Dr. Henry Kissinger, New England Revolution and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, Motion Picture Director Spike Lee, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, University of Miami President Donna Shalala, ESPN Executive Vice President for Content John Skipper, Univision CEO Joe Uva and Washington Post CEO and Publisher Katharine Weymouth.
The Glendale stadium hosted the highest attended soccer match in the state of Arizona on February 7, 2007 when 62,462 fans watched the U.S. National team defeat Mexico, 2-0. Will the new Arizona law put a halt to international football "friendlies" in Arizona featuring Mexican teams?
Major League Baseball might be keeping a close eye on the developments in Arizona. The Chicago Cubs and the Milwaukee Brewers are looking for improvements at spring training bases in Mesa and Maryvale for their teams. Naples, Florida officials have made an offer to Cubs ownership to relocate the team's spring training facilities from Mesa to Naples.
If the National Hockey League's Phoenix Coyotes remain in Glendale, the franchise's new owners could be to host the 2012 or 2013 NHL All-Star Game. Glendale was supposed to venue of the 2011 event but the club's bankruptcy filing and financial uncertainty forced the league to move the game to Raleigh, North Carolina.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association held a "March Madness" men's basketball tournament event in Glendale in 2009. Will the NCAA bypass Glendale because of the new law?
Then there is another issue. Will athletes speak up either in favor or against the new law? Athletes now tend to shut up on issues with the exception of a handful of performers like then Dallas Mavericks basketball player Steve Nash who spoke out against the Iraq War. Wayne Gretzky supported the Iraq War. Ironically Nash now plays in Phoenix and Gretzky coached in Glendale.
Arizona is a hub of sports activities. Glendale is the home of the NFL's Arizona Cardinals and the NHL's Phoenix Coyotes. The NBA Suns and Major League Baseball's Diamondbacks reside in downtown Phoenix. There is a NASCAR event along with golf and tennis events. Fifteen Major League Baseball teams hold spring training in the Phoenix area, there are major college football, basketball and baseball programs along with minor league baseball and hockey teams scattered throughout the state. The United Football League holds training camp in Casa Grande.
There is a belief that sports is the "toy store" of life and that it is just a game, an entertainment diversion. The truth is that the toy store yarn that is constantly spun is a lie. The NFL proved that in 1991 and 1992 in Arizona. There will be a sports reaction to the legislation signed into law by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, it is just a matter of time before a powerful sports group reacts and it just might cost Arizona a big event if history is any indication.
Evan Weiner is an author, radio-TV commentator and lecturer on "The Politics of Sports Business" and "Sports in Society." He can be reached at evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Sports and taxes, a perfect marriage
Sports and taxes, a perfect marriage
By Evan Weiner - The Daily Caller 04/15/10 at 1:21 PM
http://dailycaller.com/2010/04/15/sports-and-taxes-a-perfect-marriage/
Today is T-Day — as in Federal Income Tax Day. The 1040s and their tax relatives have to be finished and sent to the Internal Revenue Service. But those aren’t exactly the only taxes that individuals will have to pay.
In the United States, there are all sorts of taxes that people pay that end up going to sports, and all of these “hidden” sports taxes are rarely noticed. The United States government has created tax breaks for corporations that buy big-ticket sports items, like club seats and luxury boxes, that allow a fifty percent write-off of the cost of the ticket.
The higher the cost of the ticket, the more corporate can write off, and that has a trickle-down effect on people who cannot write tickets off as a business expense. (Minnesota Twins fans have found out just what a new stadium means, as ticket prices are more than thirty percent more on average.)
The government has given big-time colleges and university sports programs a tax-exempt status, which means that college football factory schools that play, say, in the Rose Bowl do not have to pay taxes on their share of the revenue generated. Owners can depreciate players’ contracts like an individual taxpayer can depreciate a car.
Every day, it’s tax day for sports.
Some athletes even have to pay “the Michael Jordan tax.” In the 1990s, California lawmakers passed a bill that taxed athlete’s earnings for the days they spent playing in the state. There are similar taxes in New York and Philadelphia. Conversely, a good many athletes have moved to Florida or Nevada because they don’t have to pay state income tax there.
A myriad of taxes go to pay municipally built sports facilities. Every day, it is tax day as people pay restaurant, motel, hotel, car rental, sewer and water and other taxes to assist sports owners, whether it is in Florida, Arizona, Texas, Washington or Ohio.
In Pittsburgh, proceeds from slot machines help to pay for the new Penguins arena. In Minnesota, “racinos” slot machines at race tracks could end up financing a new Vikings football stadium. “Racinos” have saved the standard bred racing industry in Delaware, West Virginia and New York. The racetracks would be malls today without the casinos, but the casinos would not exist without the standard bred racing.
Americans love sports, even if they cannot any longer afford to pay high prices for games. But why aren’t sports teams held accountable for raising taxes to pay off the debt at municipally owned venues which, in many cases, has forced municipalities to cut services for the elderly, for education, and even for snow removal?
As Jim Bouton, the former Major League Baseball pitcher and author of the greatest book ever written about sports, Ball Four, once said, “Hey it’s our guys.” Americans love sports and their teams, and sports can do no wrong — even if the evidence suggests otherwise.
Politicians go after sports teams because they figure if their city is big league, then businesses that create good jobs will locate in their burg. The stadium and arena will be economic engines (that’s actually not quite true, since most stadium/arena jobs are not exactly permanent). Of course, there is no evidence that any of their assumptions true, but why let facts get in the way of a good yarn?
In 2003, financially strapped Pittsburgh elected officials, who had just opened a new baseball park and imploded the old Three Rivers Stadium even though there was still debt on the extinct building, were breathing a sigh of relief that an expected heavy snowfall fizzled out, and with good reason. They saved a million dollars for every inch of snow that did not fall. That was the cost of cleanup in 2003. They could not afford big snows because of cost.
In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg plans to cut a large number of city workers because of a gaping budget deficit, yet Knicks fans, some of whom are facing the Bloomberg chopping block, are hoping that the Jim Dolan family-owned Madison Square Garden business can lure Lebron James with a contact offer of, say, $14 million a year. That would roughly be equal to the Garden’s property tax value, if the Dolan’s were paying property tax on the building.
Because one of the Garden’s previous owners, Sumner Redstone and Gulf and Western, somehow convinced New York politicians that the Knicks and the National Hockey League Rangers were no longer financially viable in Manhattan and had to move, New York City and New York State waived collecting property taxes on a piece of valuable Manhattan real estate between Seventh and Eighth Avenue and 31st and 33rd Streets.
Most major markets, mid-size markets and a good number of smaller markets around the country are subsidizing sports enterprises. Louisiana politicians in 2002 decided to hand New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson some $186 million over a nine year period as thanks for not moving his football from the Crescent City. Benson will get two more stipends, each for about $23 million, in July 2010 and in July 2011. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and Benson recently renegotiated a new deal that cuts the amount of the stipend and caps the handout at $6 million a year under a new lease arrangement, but Benson gets a building near the stadium which he will renovate and then rent out to the state, which will move offices into that building. Benson will also build an entertainment center around the Superdome, which officials think will be an economic engine.
The state will continue paying Benson, but the rules have changed a bit. Benson will become a major real estate developer, thanks to the new deal, and he stands to make a great deal of money. If the money does not materialize, he will get a state handout.
In Glendale, local officials are trying to keep the Phoenix (soon to be called the Glendale or Arizona) Coyotes in the city-built arena. Glendale has approved a lease agreement with a potential Coyotes owner, Chicago White Sox and Bulls front man Jerry Reinsdorf. Reinsdorf’s group is expecting vast subsidies from a financially challenged Glendale, and Glendale seems to be willing to work out deals that would make sure that the National Hockey League team would get generous revenue streams to keep the team in the arena. The Goldwater Institute is looking into blocking the Glendale-Reinsdorf deal.
In nearby Mesa, officials are trying to reach a deal that would keep the Chicago Cubs in the city for spring training after the team’s lease expires in a couple of years. A proposal to charge an additional tax on the sale of tickets at “Cactus League” or spring training games in Arizona was met with stiff resistance from the other teams that train in the Phoenix area. But Arizona politicians are looking for other tax schemes to keep the Cubs in Mesa, including tax increment financing.
In Maryvale, Arizona, local elected officials know the Milwaukee Brewers deal with the city to use the city’s facility for spring training is done in two years, and city officials know that they will have to come up with a financial plan to keep the team in Maryvale or the franchise will be gone, possibly to Phoenix, where the Oakland A’s facility needs an upgrade. Phoenix is broke, though, and the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority is facing an economic shortfall of $10 million.
The federal government is the backbone of sports in the United States. Because of a loophole in the Tax Act of 1986, municipalities can only use eight percent of the revenues generated inside of a publicly funded facility to pay down the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of debt. Other deals that have been cut with sports owners include hikes in water taxes, sewer taxes, car rental taxes, hotel and motel taxes and restaurant taxes to build new or renovate old facilities. There was even a “sin tax” in Cleveland to build a new baseball park, with some of the funding coming from a sales tax hike on cigarettes and alcohol.
You name it; politicians will tax it for sports facilities.
Cable television provides yet another revenue stream. Because of the Cable Television Act of 1984, many people are totally unaware that they are supporting sports through cable fees. The legislation signed by President Ronald Reagan created something of a socialist cable television apparatus, in which everyone who buys into the basic expanded tier of television also pays for all the channels on the tier and supplements sports networks like ESPN – whether they watch the channel or not.
That legislation has enabled ESPN (and others) to become financially successful without worrying about advertising support. In turn, ESPN, TNT, Versus and regional sports cable networks are paying billions of dollars in sports fees to various leagues and teams, with just a fraction of their 95 million subscribers actually watching the product.
It’s one of many ways that the government is aiding sports. It is not quite taxation without representation — in fact, it’s not even quite taxation — but the mechanisms allow sports owners to generate revenues that go to pay athletes, managers, and coaches and allow college programs to pay millions of dollars for football and basketball coaches.
This week is tax week, but it is always tax day in the United States for sports. Without taxes, big time sports in the America would have been downsized a long, long time ago.
Evan Weiner is an author, columnist, lecturer and radio/TV commentator on the “Politics of Sports Business.”
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/04/15/sports-and-taxes-a-perfect-marriage/print/#ixzz0lC5JHOMO
By Evan Weiner - The Daily Caller 04/15/10 at 1:21 PM
http://dailycaller.com/2010/04/15/sports-and-taxes-a-perfect-marriage/
Today is T-Day — as in Federal Income Tax Day. The 1040s and their tax relatives have to be finished and sent to the Internal Revenue Service. But those aren’t exactly the only taxes that individuals will have to pay.
In the United States, there are all sorts of taxes that people pay that end up going to sports, and all of these “hidden” sports taxes are rarely noticed. The United States government has created tax breaks for corporations that buy big-ticket sports items, like club seats and luxury boxes, that allow a fifty percent write-off of the cost of the ticket.
The higher the cost of the ticket, the more corporate can write off, and that has a trickle-down effect on people who cannot write tickets off as a business expense. (Minnesota Twins fans have found out just what a new stadium means, as ticket prices are more than thirty percent more on average.)
The government has given big-time colleges and university sports programs a tax-exempt status, which means that college football factory schools that play, say, in the Rose Bowl do not have to pay taxes on their share of the revenue generated. Owners can depreciate players’ contracts like an individual taxpayer can depreciate a car.
Every day, it’s tax day for sports.
Some athletes even have to pay “the Michael Jordan tax.” In the 1990s, California lawmakers passed a bill that taxed athlete’s earnings for the days they spent playing in the state. There are similar taxes in New York and Philadelphia. Conversely, a good many athletes have moved to Florida or Nevada because they don’t have to pay state income tax there.
A myriad of taxes go to pay municipally built sports facilities. Every day, it is tax day as people pay restaurant, motel, hotel, car rental, sewer and water and other taxes to assist sports owners, whether it is in Florida, Arizona, Texas, Washington or Ohio.
In Pittsburgh, proceeds from slot machines help to pay for the new Penguins arena. In Minnesota, “racinos” slot machines at race tracks could end up financing a new Vikings football stadium. “Racinos” have saved the standard bred racing industry in Delaware, West Virginia and New York. The racetracks would be malls today without the casinos, but the casinos would not exist without the standard bred racing.
Americans love sports, even if they cannot any longer afford to pay high prices for games. But why aren’t sports teams held accountable for raising taxes to pay off the debt at municipally owned venues which, in many cases, has forced municipalities to cut services for the elderly, for education, and even for snow removal?
As Jim Bouton, the former Major League Baseball pitcher and author of the greatest book ever written about sports, Ball Four, once said, “Hey it’s our guys.” Americans love sports and their teams, and sports can do no wrong — even if the evidence suggests otherwise.
Politicians go after sports teams because they figure if their city is big league, then businesses that create good jobs will locate in their burg. The stadium and arena will be economic engines (that’s actually not quite true, since most stadium/arena jobs are not exactly permanent). Of course, there is no evidence that any of their assumptions true, but why let facts get in the way of a good yarn?
In 2003, financially strapped Pittsburgh elected officials, who had just opened a new baseball park and imploded the old Three Rivers Stadium even though there was still debt on the extinct building, were breathing a sigh of relief that an expected heavy snowfall fizzled out, and with good reason. They saved a million dollars for every inch of snow that did not fall. That was the cost of cleanup in 2003. They could not afford big snows because of cost.
In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg plans to cut a large number of city workers because of a gaping budget deficit, yet Knicks fans, some of whom are facing the Bloomberg chopping block, are hoping that the Jim Dolan family-owned Madison Square Garden business can lure Lebron James with a contact offer of, say, $14 million a year. That would roughly be equal to the Garden’s property tax value, if the Dolan’s were paying property tax on the building.
Because one of the Garden’s previous owners, Sumner Redstone and Gulf and Western, somehow convinced New York politicians that the Knicks and the National Hockey League Rangers were no longer financially viable in Manhattan and had to move, New York City and New York State waived collecting property taxes on a piece of valuable Manhattan real estate between Seventh and Eighth Avenue and 31st and 33rd Streets.
Most major markets, mid-size markets and a good number of smaller markets around the country are subsidizing sports enterprises. Louisiana politicians in 2002 decided to hand New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson some $186 million over a nine year period as thanks for not moving his football from the Crescent City. Benson will get two more stipends, each for about $23 million, in July 2010 and in July 2011. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and Benson recently renegotiated a new deal that cuts the amount of the stipend and caps the handout at $6 million a year under a new lease arrangement, but Benson gets a building near the stadium which he will renovate and then rent out to the state, which will move offices into that building. Benson will also build an entertainment center around the Superdome, which officials think will be an economic engine.
The state will continue paying Benson, but the rules have changed a bit. Benson will become a major real estate developer, thanks to the new deal, and he stands to make a great deal of money. If the money does not materialize, he will get a state handout.
In Glendale, local officials are trying to keep the Phoenix (soon to be called the Glendale or Arizona) Coyotes in the city-built arena. Glendale has approved a lease agreement with a potential Coyotes owner, Chicago White Sox and Bulls front man Jerry Reinsdorf. Reinsdorf’s group is expecting vast subsidies from a financially challenged Glendale, and Glendale seems to be willing to work out deals that would make sure that the National Hockey League team would get generous revenue streams to keep the team in the arena. The Goldwater Institute is looking into blocking the Glendale-Reinsdorf deal.
In nearby Mesa, officials are trying to reach a deal that would keep the Chicago Cubs in the city for spring training after the team’s lease expires in a couple of years. A proposal to charge an additional tax on the sale of tickets at “Cactus League” or spring training games in Arizona was met with stiff resistance from the other teams that train in the Phoenix area. But Arizona politicians are looking for other tax schemes to keep the Cubs in Mesa, including tax increment financing.
In Maryvale, Arizona, local elected officials know the Milwaukee Brewers deal with the city to use the city’s facility for spring training is done in two years, and city officials know that they will have to come up with a financial plan to keep the team in Maryvale or the franchise will be gone, possibly to Phoenix, where the Oakland A’s facility needs an upgrade. Phoenix is broke, though, and the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority is facing an economic shortfall of $10 million.
The federal government is the backbone of sports in the United States. Because of a loophole in the Tax Act of 1986, municipalities can only use eight percent of the revenues generated inside of a publicly funded facility to pay down the hundreds of millions of dollars worth of debt. Other deals that have been cut with sports owners include hikes in water taxes, sewer taxes, car rental taxes, hotel and motel taxes and restaurant taxes to build new or renovate old facilities. There was even a “sin tax” in Cleveland to build a new baseball park, with some of the funding coming from a sales tax hike on cigarettes and alcohol.
You name it; politicians will tax it for sports facilities.
Cable television provides yet another revenue stream. Because of the Cable Television Act of 1984, many people are totally unaware that they are supporting sports through cable fees. The legislation signed by President Ronald Reagan created something of a socialist cable television apparatus, in which everyone who buys into the basic expanded tier of television also pays for all the channels on the tier and supplements sports networks like ESPN – whether they watch the channel or not.
That legislation has enabled ESPN (and others) to become financially successful without worrying about advertising support. In turn, ESPN, TNT, Versus and regional sports cable networks are paying billions of dollars in sports fees to various leagues and teams, with just a fraction of their 95 million subscribers actually watching the product.
It’s one of many ways that the government is aiding sports. It is not quite taxation without representation — in fact, it’s not even quite taxation — but the mechanisms allow sports owners to generate revenues that go to pay athletes, managers, and coaches and allow college programs to pay millions of dollars for football and basketball coaches.
This week is tax week, but it is always tax day in the United States for sports. Without taxes, big time sports in the America would have been downsized a long, long time ago.
Evan Weiner is an author, columnist, lecturer and radio/TV commentator on the “Politics of Sports Business.”
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/04/15/sports-and-taxes-a-perfect-marriage/print/#ixzz0lC5JHOMO
Sunday, February 21, 2010
The Chicago Cubs, Tiger Woods and a Senator Wannabee
The Chicago Cubs, Tiger Woods and a Senator Wannabee
By Evan Weiner
February 21, 2010
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2010m2d21-The-Chicago-Cubs-Tiger-Woods-and-a-Senator-wannabe#
The American media never ceases to disappoint. Tiger Woods is forced by someone to make a statement about his private life and people like Mort Zuckerman are there ready to provide all the details and analysis of a manufactured for media consumption mea culpa. Zuckerman owns the New York Daily News and is rumored to be a candidate for the New York senate seat held by Kristen Gillibrand.
How can you actually take Zuckerman seriously when his newspaper puts out on the front page a headline concerning Tiger Woods and bimbos? In fact the exact New York Daily News headline on February 18 was Lock Up Your Bimbos. Now Zuckerman does not write headlines for the newspaper but if Zuckerman wants to really run, he needs to explain how the lack of serious news judgment, in that edition, on page 2 there was a poll about how Americans are fed up with elected officials, on page 3 there was something about a fortune teller or psychic and then the gold, pages 4 and 5 on Tiger Woods with Zuckerman’s lead columnist Mike Lupica, who also doubles as one of Zuckerman’s political commentators. That makes sense since Lupica can now apply his limited knowledge of facts in not only the sports section but on the political scene.
Zuckerman also needs to explain why he has taken away his contribution to the 401k plan at the Daily News. But that would require a dedicated section on the economic woes of the country. Zuckerman would also have to explain why he is spending millions of dollars in beefing up the look of the Daily News including more color in an age when newspaper readership is declining or simply dying off as young people do not flock to buy newspapers. He might also by asked why his newspaper is disrespectful which newspapers generally are with sarcastic headlines, half truths and malicious gossip.
Zuckerman’s people also might want to actually report on something that concerns people. Here’s a story that Mort has overlooked in his paper and if you are running for Senate Mort, this might be a good one for you.
The city of Mesa, Arizona has decided that it needs the Chicago Cubs baseball team needs to remain in the town to conduct spring training after the Cubs ownership lease with Mesa officials runs out at Hohokum Park after the 2012 spring training portion of the baseball calendar. Mesa officials reached a deal with the Cubs new ownership to build an $84 million stadium, which would be used by the baseball team for at the most 15 or 16 times a year, and the stadium would be funded by adding a seat tax on all spring training games played in the Mesa vicinity, places like Phoenix, Scottsdale, Goodyear, Glendale, Surprise, Maryvale, Peoria and Tempe. There would also be a rise in the Maricopa County car rental tax, which is sold to local residents as a tax on tourists, not them although a significant amount of car rentals are local.
The Cubs ownership would buy the land needed for the stadium and then swap the land back to Mesa in exchange for a stadium and the baseball team would also get the stadium naming rights and keep all of the signage revenues. Mesa voters would have to approve spending for bonds to fund the stadium in a referendum.
Needless to say, Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig and the owners of the Dodgers and White Sox (Glendale), the Indians and Reds (Goodyear), the Giants (Scottsdale), the Angels (Tempe), the A’s (Phoenix), the Brewers (Maryvale), the Mariners and Padres (Peoria) and the Royals and Rangers (Surprise) who are presently in the Mesa area and the Tucson-based Diamondbacks and Rockies who will conduct spring training on an Indian reservation starting in 2011 are not to thrilled about the proposal.
The ticket tax means those teams’ owners will get less disposable income directed at them.
The Goldwater Institute, a conservative think tank type entity, is not on board either. They think that the deal is illegal because of Arizona’s ban on giving gifts to private concerns.
Arizona is also broke.
Zuckerman should understand that as he has a piece of the National Football League’s Washington Redskins and he put up money or the Daily News did to help New York land the 2012 Summer Olympics. This should be an easy article for the Daily News to get. Sports, politics, economics, a Senator wannabe should be rather familiar with the issues.
Mesa elected officials came up with all sorts of goodies to support the argument that baseball fanatics who travel to Mesa and the Valley of the Sun should help pay for the new Cubs park. The Cubs baseball team has an annual impact of $138 million on the Arizona economy (which if believable would be a huge haul for a state that is selling government buildings and closing state parks because the state is broke --- another Zuckerman political issue to report on perhaps he can get Lupica on that). Cactus League attendance would drop 22 percent without Chicago Cubs baseball (Cactus League attendance should increase in 2010 with the addition of Cincinnati in the Phoenix area as Reds ownership has moved the spring training headquarters from Sarasota, Florida to Goodyear) and the Cubs baseball is spring training’s biggest draw as more than 203,000 people paid to see the team last year in Mesa and other Phoenix/Tucson area stadiums.
Arizona, through the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority (AZSTA), has been very aggressive in going after baseball teams and luring them from Florida. In recent years, the state has landed Cleveland and Cincinnati for Goodyear, the Chicago White Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers in Glendale, Texas and Kansas City in Surprise and has fought off an attempt by Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman to get team owners to move to the Nevada area. The AZSTA has a budget shortfall of $10 million and cannot help in the Cubs-Mesa stadium plan.
One of the teams opposing the seat tax is the Milwaukee Brewers. Milwaukee’s deal with Maryvale ends in 2012 and that could set up a battle between Arizona and Florida over building a spring training facility for the team.
Arizona and Florida are two of the hardest hit states in the economic downturn but somehow are trying to find millions of dollars to support stadium building despite being broke.
Naples and Collier County, Florida officials were ready to get on their collect hands and knees to build Wrigley Field South for Cubs owner Tom Ricketts with the hope of using a tourist tax, a hotel/motel tax to help fund the project. Perhaps they will turn to Brewers owner Mark Attanasio and give him the same offer if Mesa prevails and keeps the Cubs.
Perhaps Zuckerman, the New York Senatorial candidate, and his ace columnist Lupica, will follow the Cubs-Mesa story and all of the political elements that are involved. But then again, maybe not. There are still bimbos on the loose and fortune tellers’ stories to be told and they can play amateur psychiatrist and continue analyzing whether Tiger Woods apology was heart-felt enough for them.
evanjweiner@yahoo.com
By Evan Weiner
February 21, 2010
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2010m2d21-The-Chicago-Cubs-Tiger-Woods-and-a-Senator-wannabe#
The American media never ceases to disappoint. Tiger Woods is forced by someone to make a statement about his private life and people like Mort Zuckerman are there ready to provide all the details and analysis of a manufactured for media consumption mea culpa. Zuckerman owns the New York Daily News and is rumored to be a candidate for the New York senate seat held by Kristen Gillibrand.
How can you actually take Zuckerman seriously when his newspaper puts out on the front page a headline concerning Tiger Woods and bimbos? In fact the exact New York Daily News headline on February 18 was Lock Up Your Bimbos. Now Zuckerman does not write headlines for the newspaper but if Zuckerman wants to really run, he needs to explain how the lack of serious news judgment, in that edition, on page 2 there was a poll about how Americans are fed up with elected officials, on page 3 there was something about a fortune teller or psychic and then the gold, pages 4 and 5 on Tiger Woods with Zuckerman’s lead columnist Mike Lupica, who also doubles as one of Zuckerman’s political commentators. That makes sense since Lupica can now apply his limited knowledge of facts in not only the sports section but on the political scene.
Zuckerman also needs to explain why he has taken away his contribution to the 401k plan at the Daily News. But that would require a dedicated section on the economic woes of the country. Zuckerman would also have to explain why he is spending millions of dollars in beefing up the look of the Daily News including more color in an age when newspaper readership is declining or simply dying off as young people do not flock to buy newspapers. He might also by asked why his newspaper is disrespectful which newspapers generally are with sarcastic headlines, half truths and malicious gossip.
Zuckerman’s people also might want to actually report on something that concerns people. Here’s a story that Mort has overlooked in his paper and if you are running for Senate Mort, this might be a good one for you.
The city of Mesa, Arizona has decided that it needs the Chicago Cubs baseball team needs to remain in the town to conduct spring training after the Cubs ownership lease with Mesa officials runs out at Hohokum Park after the 2012 spring training portion of the baseball calendar. Mesa officials reached a deal with the Cubs new ownership to build an $84 million stadium, which would be used by the baseball team for at the most 15 or 16 times a year, and the stadium would be funded by adding a seat tax on all spring training games played in the Mesa vicinity, places like Phoenix, Scottsdale, Goodyear, Glendale, Surprise, Maryvale, Peoria and Tempe. There would also be a rise in the Maricopa County car rental tax, which is sold to local residents as a tax on tourists, not them although a significant amount of car rentals are local.
The Cubs ownership would buy the land needed for the stadium and then swap the land back to Mesa in exchange for a stadium and the baseball team would also get the stadium naming rights and keep all of the signage revenues. Mesa voters would have to approve spending for bonds to fund the stadium in a referendum.
Needless to say, Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig and the owners of the Dodgers and White Sox (Glendale), the Indians and Reds (Goodyear), the Giants (Scottsdale), the Angels (Tempe), the A’s (Phoenix), the Brewers (Maryvale), the Mariners and Padres (Peoria) and the Royals and Rangers (Surprise) who are presently in the Mesa area and the Tucson-based Diamondbacks and Rockies who will conduct spring training on an Indian reservation starting in 2011 are not to thrilled about the proposal.
The ticket tax means those teams’ owners will get less disposable income directed at them.
The Goldwater Institute, a conservative think tank type entity, is not on board either. They think that the deal is illegal because of Arizona’s ban on giving gifts to private concerns.
Arizona is also broke.
Zuckerman should understand that as he has a piece of the National Football League’s Washington Redskins and he put up money or the Daily News did to help New York land the 2012 Summer Olympics. This should be an easy article for the Daily News to get. Sports, politics, economics, a Senator wannabe should be rather familiar with the issues.
Mesa elected officials came up with all sorts of goodies to support the argument that baseball fanatics who travel to Mesa and the Valley of the Sun should help pay for the new Cubs park. The Cubs baseball team has an annual impact of $138 million on the Arizona economy (which if believable would be a huge haul for a state that is selling government buildings and closing state parks because the state is broke --- another Zuckerman political issue to report on perhaps he can get Lupica on that). Cactus League attendance would drop 22 percent without Chicago Cubs baseball (Cactus League attendance should increase in 2010 with the addition of Cincinnati in the Phoenix area as Reds ownership has moved the spring training headquarters from Sarasota, Florida to Goodyear) and the Cubs baseball is spring training’s biggest draw as more than 203,000 people paid to see the team last year in Mesa and other Phoenix/Tucson area stadiums.
Arizona, through the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority (AZSTA), has been very aggressive in going after baseball teams and luring them from Florida. In recent years, the state has landed Cleveland and Cincinnati for Goodyear, the Chicago White Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers in Glendale, Texas and Kansas City in Surprise and has fought off an attempt by Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman to get team owners to move to the Nevada area. The AZSTA has a budget shortfall of $10 million and cannot help in the Cubs-Mesa stadium plan.
One of the teams opposing the seat tax is the Milwaukee Brewers. Milwaukee’s deal with Maryvale ends in 2012 and that could set up a battle between Arizona and Florida over building a spring training facility for the team.
Arizona and Florida are two of the hardest hit states in the economic downturn but somehow are trying to find millions of dollars to support stadium building despite being broke.
Naples and Collier County, Florida officials were ready to get on their collect hands and knees to build Wrigley Field South for Cubs owner Tom Ricketts with the hope of using a tourist tax, a hotel/motel tax to help fund the project. Perhaps they will turn to Brewers owner Mark Attanasio and give him the same offer if Mesa prevails and keeps the Cubs.
Perhaps Zuckerman, the New York Senatorial candidate, and his ace columnist Lupica, will follow the Cubs-Mesa story and all of the political elements that are involved. But then again, maybe not. There are still bimbos on the loose and fortune tellers’ stories to be told and they can play amateur psychiatrist and continue analyzing whether Tiger Woods apology was heart-felt enough for them.
evanjweiner@yahoo.com
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