Comments on: 55.7 Million Reasons to Reject Public Financing for Sports Arenas

By: Round – Twilight Puppies « The Heat Death Hour

Round – Twilight Puppies « The Heat Death Hour — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 21:42:35 +0000

[...] 55.7 Million Reasons to Reject Public Funding for Sports Arenas [No Third Solution] [...]

By: gilliganscorner

gilliganscorner — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:23:42 +0000

Yep.

We had the same thing occur here up in Toronto with our Skydome (I submitted the name “Condome” for a naming contest back when it was built…it wasn’t accepted. I wonder why?;) )

You can read my post here on it:

* Built over three years from 1986 to 1989 at a cost of $600 million dollars, paid for by three layers of government (federal, provincial, and municipal) and a host of private insiders. When it opened, it was $165 million dollars in debt.

* By 1990, the Skydome (or the “Condome”) was bleeding debt. Some say it was estimated that it would have to operate 600 days a year to book an unknown amount of profit. Personally, I think that number was simply “to break even”.

* By 1993, it was $400 million dollars in debt.

* In 1994, The provincial government issued a bailout by paying off all the debt with it’s extortion money taxes collected from it’s citizens and sold it to a private insider-connected cartel for $151 million dollars.

* In 1998, the cartel filed for bankruptcy protection.

* Another cartel (Sportsco) bought it out for $85 million in late 1998.

* Finally, Rogers (a cable and wireless company) bought it in 2004, for $25 million dollars.

* Note that all these numbers quoted have not been adjusted for inflation, so Rogers got it for much less. In fact $600 million dollars in 1989 converts to about $847,010,869.57 in 2004 dollars. Rogers bought the stadium for about 3% of the original cost of construction.

By: David Z

David Z — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 03:15:31 +0000

@Winston: great point!

Glad to hear from you again, it’s been a while!

By: winston smith

winston smith — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:21:46 +0000

and they keep naming the stadiums the name of their biggest donor for the stadium. even though we people put more money into it. we’ve got a stadium in my town called The State Mutual Insurance Company Stadium. doesn’t that roll off your tongue?

By: Brad

Brad — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:38:26 +0000

Did you see who the ring announcer was? It was Bob Eucher, better known as Harry Doyle from the Major League movies. Just a bit outside!

By: Don

Don — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:00:08 +0000

It’s appalling how the citizenry keeps falling for these stadium ploys over and over again. Right now in my hometown of Fort Myers, FL the local politicians are preparing the herd for a 3rd, yes 3rd stadium. There is no such thing as collective intelligence but there is collective stupidity.

By: theftthroughinflation

theftthroughinflation — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:58:57 +0000

Don’t forget the olympic starium in Montreal for the ’76 olympics! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Stadium_(Montreal)#Stadium_financing
We just paid it off in 2006! I won’t even talk about how random chunks of concrete fall off or the roof colapses.

By: David Z

David Z — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:39:20 +0000

I don’t think I’ve ever watched that before. That was awesome.

By: Brad

Brad — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:33:27 +0000

The only cool thing that ever happened at the Silverdome was
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CO6bJoowy9k

Brother

By: Zach S.

Zach S. — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:57:52 +0000

I always hate when politicians spout spending taxpayer money to promot jobs. What this means to me is “working welfare” and creating jobs that are NOT needed. If they were needed, they would have been or eventually would have been created by the private industry.

I HATE working welfare and if you are going to promote working welfare, at least do it right. The road contruction in Michigan is a perfect example.