If you saw yesterday’s Super Bowl on TV and caught even a glimpse of Cowboys Stadium, then you understand Minneapolis-St. Paul’s predicament. The glitzy palace that owner Jerry Jones built (with help from the city of Arlington and the NFL) makes even a fully inflated Metrodome look like a high school gym. To think that the sad-sack Dome actually once hosted the Big Game (it was 1992) seems laughable now and offers a sobering reminder of how hard it is to keep up with the Joneses.
I’m not talking just about football but about the array of sports and cultural venues required to bolster the quality of metropolitan life in America today and to keep major urban centers competitive for the new jobs and prosperity that everyone wants.
Just since 1998, a dozen major sports and cultural buildings have risen in MSP at a cost of more than $1.7 billion in public and private money. A new Vikings stadium plus a new home for the Saints minor league baseball team and a renovation of Target Center, home of the NBA’s Timberwolves, could add another $1 billion to the total.
It’s not the money that bothers me (although most Minnesotans would probably disagree); it’s the political exhaustion. Feeling compelled to explain again and again the reasons for these investments gets to be a heavy load. With Minnesota facing a horrid fiscal dilemma (a projected shortfall that’s nearly 20 percent of its projected budget), it’s harder still to argue for these kinds of projects.
Sports and arts as community glue
Yet I can’t shake the belief that, like it or not, sports and culture are the connective tissue that holds us together as a community; that even if we detest the Vikings or never attend a Minnesota Orchestra concert we all benefit from their presence. If the new Guthrie had not been built, or the Walker, or the Science Museum, or Xcel Energy Center, or Target Field, or the new MIA wing, would MSP be as good a community as it is today? I doubt it.
Not only does the sports/arts glue improve our quality of life, it enhances our competitive posture. Look outside your window. Our climate is brutal. To retain high-quality jobs, attract new talent and achieve prosperity for the next generation we have no choice but to try harder than our competitors. San Diego and Tampa don’t have to lift a finger. Who needs a symphony orchestra or a top-notch art museum or an NBA team if you can attract talent with sunshine and beaches?
Many people try to separate the arts/sports amenity, usually along two lines. The first is what I call the “good arts/bad sports” analysis, which holds that the arts are uniquely uplifting and that artists are less apt than football players to beat up their girlfriends or carry unregistered guns. I think that sports have artistry and value despite their obvious flaws. The second line of criticism involves spending public money that benefits private business, namely sports. My view is that that shouldn’t happen in the best of all worlds, but that’s not the world in which we live. The market dictates a public/private split on the cost of most sports venues; the exact ratio is a proper matter for negotiation.
Compete or retreat?
Still, there persists the basic question: Why keep up with the Joneses? Who needs civic glue? Surely we can do without the NFL, the NBA and even maybe the MIA. Who cares about competing?
It’s a question I addressed in a book about the history, design and construction of Target Field, although it could hold true for all sports and arts venues. I’ll paraphrase:
Since the mid 1990s, the quest for a new ballpark (and other sports and arts venues) has been a kind of long-running morality play in which Minnesotans have asked tough questions about themselves and their place in the world. The global economy is flattening in a way that made people run faster just to stay even. To spend public money of any amount on pro sports venues hits a raw nerve and prompts an identity crisis of sorts: What kind of place do we want MSP to be?
Do we want to keep pace with the competition by making a slew of investments on prerequisites that seem to define a successful global city? Or do we want to jump off the treadmill and retreat to simpler times — to just escape to the backyard to grill burgers, chop wood and disengage from the mounting complexities that keep gnawing away at our pocketbooks? After all, as garage logic has it, MSP would be a good enough place without its fancy amenities.
Overcoming smugness
Yes, we like the national attention that sports brings and we like the reputation of being an artsy city. We understand the payoff. But there’s another side to our personality. Our agrarian roots, our pietistic values, our fierce populism, our disdain for conspicuous wealth, our steadfast belief that Minnesota is an exceptional place that doesn’t need to follow the crowd — all these traits work against these investments. Scandinavians sometimes call this force janteloven, a kind of inner tug against excessive pride or ambition or self-promotion.
But janteloven is a self-destructive trait in a super competitive world, especially now as metro areas try to jockey for advantage while pulling out of a deep recession. MSP has done well over the past decade to overcome its innate shyness. It has extensively and impressively updated its sports and cultural infrastructure. Now comes the next big step.
Something so monstrous and showy as Cowboys Stadium doesn’t fit our personality. Something that’s elegant and integrated into the city — something like Target Field — would fit better. Keeping up with the Joneses isn’t always agreeable. But over the long haul it’s probably the right thing to do.
MAJOR MSP SPORTS/ARTS/CULTURE PROJECTS SINCE 1998
• Xcel Energy Center (Minnesota Wild hockey), 1998.
• Science Museum of Minnesota, 1999.
• Children’s Theater, 2001.
• Walker Art Center expansion, 2005.
• Guthrie Theater, 2006.
• Minneapolis Central Library, 2006.
• Minneapolis Institute of Arts expansion, 2006.
• MacPhail Center for Music, 2006.
• TCF Bank Stadium (University of Minnesota football), 2009.
• Target Field (Minnesota Twins baseball), 2010.
• Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts, 2011.
• Orchestra Hall expansion, 2013.
• Vikings stadium, ???
• Target Center expansion (Minnesota Timberwolves), ???
• Minor league ballpark (St. Paul Saints), ???
Bravo!
This is one of the most perceptive pieces I have seen on the Minnesota character and how we sometimes get in our own way in today’s hypercompetitive world.
An objective look at the current situation reveals that states are competing aggressively to lure talent. Yet we cling to the notion that we need to keep the Minnesota good life a secret from the rest of the world, that hordes of people are clamoring to come here, and that the state and its Minnesota-born workforce must be protected against them. (And I don’t just mean immigrants from other countries; anyone who moves here from another state can testify that the “oh, you’re not from here—what are you doing here?” stigma attaches to them, too).
We need to get over ourselves, quit marinating in self-congratulation, and stop resting on long-faded laurels from the 1970’s or we will be left farther and farther behind other states.
“Bread and circuses” were paid for by the wealthy and free to the commoners in Roman times to keep the locals distracted and fed.
In our times, the commoners bread is ever-rising in cost, and the circuses are priced beyond commoners incomes but still are paid for by taxes on the commoners. And the wealthy push for greater lowering of their own “burden”.
Somehow it seems that we are on a faster track to a fall than the Roman model–they lasted about a thousand years.
I think Mr Berg overlooks a primary argument against a new stadium or against sports facilities in general. It isn’t good arts/bad sports, his convenient simplification. First a new Guthrie costs far less than a new stadium. Second, the point of a new Guthrie isn’t to cover getting Tom Cruise to come here and play Hamlet. I doubt many Guthrie actors are making over 100K let alone a million. I doubt some billionaire’s net worth didn’t double when he moved his acting company there.
The NFL and the players and the owners push these new stadiums and 150 million dollar refurbs not because they want to help the fans or continue their ability to offer us entertainment. They do it to make money, bottom line. Zigy and the NFL could more easily afford this than the state or city could. Major league sports have probably been less effected by the recession than any other part of the economy. But they have more clout. Zigy can call Dayton and get a return phone call but I can’t. And Zigy has a million beer-swilling couch potatoes in purple jerseys ready to back him up.
If we are a public family, one of the offspring is getting the big allowance, the new car, the tuition to Harvard, and the other offspring are walking to school and working at Burger King. Sports are nice but not that nice.
Finally, maybe the dome doesn’t rate with the billion-dollar palaces anymore but it is totally adequate for its many other community uses and should be preserved as is for now.
I am still somewhat of the good arts/bad sports mindset, and I think #3 does a good job of expanding this simplisitic model. However, I have taken a softer line on them lately for the reasons Mr. Berg suggests: I think that community projects do have value, and if some of them need to be sports facilities, so be it. The new Twins stadium, with its restraint, elegance, and integration into the city really helped make me amenable. Football is a tougher sell. There is the problem both of the botched opportunity to share with the University and the fact that it will host only eight games a year. One thing that helps make the new Twins stadium a public good even to non-fans is it livens downtown Minneapolis every other summer night. I’m having a harder time seeing the justification of a billion-dollar leviathan that sits dormant 98% of the year.
For me, the issue is one of entertainment.
16 Sundays in the fall, the Vikings offer an enjoyable diversion from everyday life. It’s a chance for friends or family to get together and share a common rooting interest.
Moreover, over the course of the entire year, the Vikings offer a conversation piece, something to read about, chat with strangers about, think about. I know it is a silly game but still, they are there, and enjoyable to follow.
I suppose that theoretically, families and friends could still get together on Sundays in the fall without the Vikings, and I could talk to strangers at the bus stop about world events and politics. But the football team definitely makes that process easier.
The point is, I get a substantial improvement to my quality of life because of the football team. I don’t think it would be the same if they left.
Which means that, I guess, that it is something I should be willing to pay for. I say we should just get it over with.
I really like this article. It’s well articulated. But, I disagree with some of your sentiments:
quote: …the political exhaustion. Feeling compelled to explain again and again the reasons for these investments gets to be a heavy load.
I like your point about arts and culture being the connective tissue of a community. However, in a time when any spending means money is taken away from something else, the “political exhaustion” needed to justify spending is totally necessary. You can make just as good an argument for spending money on public education, health care, transportation. At the end of the day, it all has to be paid for. With out that political exhaustion that you’re so tired of, we’ll probably just have irresponsible spending, because there’s very good reasons to spend money on lots of things. In light of your aversion to this process, I’m glad you’re a journalist and not a state politician. The issue isn’t whether stadiums improve the city. The issue is whether stadiums improve the city more than all the other things (health care, transportation, education, etc ).
To add to a previous comment on the Romans…
The Romans left great colosseums that people still visit for the ruins. That’s such a pathetic legacy in my view. In the future, is Minnesota going to leave behind the ruins of grand stadiums because the cost of debt service is too much?
Can fiscal stability be a selling point to lure talent to the state?
Geez…you went over the part about sports and arts being basically the same so quickly that I’m a little confused.
Which billionaire owns the Guthrie Theater?
When did the Minneapolis Central Library threaten to move to Los Angeles?
Which of the publicly-supported venues you mention were built when the state was more than $6 billion in the hole?
How much money will private ownership make when the Minneapolis Institute of Arts gets sold?
Seriously, though…I don’t disagree that sports are part of the ubran landscape and are at least arguably worth SOME level of public subsidy. However, the Wilfs’ offer to put up one-third the cost of an open-air facility isn’t worth debating. The conversation shouldn’t even start until that ratio is reversed.
We should also ask ourselves if the Twin Cities really need all four major professional sports…when so many other comparable metropolitan areas get by with fewer. Football, which plays only a fraction as many games as the other sports, but which requires the priciest stadium solution, might just be beyond our budget…even in the best of times. Which these are not.
Finally, you mention having written a book about Target Field. Bravo. Books are good and authors deserve every penny they earn. You’d have every right to do one on a new Vikings stadium and good luck on it if you do. But I would also hope that any such personal stake in the stadium debate would be disclosed in a piece like this.
#3 has it exactly right. The reasons for building sports facilities is mainly for the enrichment of the owners and league, as opposed to a benevolent enrichment of the community. They really don’t care where they play. The players play wherever they’re paid. The local link is a sham. And even more importantly, their goods and services are eminently ephmeral.
Who remembers the details of a Vikings game from 1970? The details run together, they’re not really important, and the grand overarching thematic element of any game or season is only created in retrospect through the bombastic and ultimately false assembly of highlight films that very few people care about or see. There is no new theme that has not been seen or known or expounded on repeatedly by numerous sports commentators. It is entertainment, but it has no staying power beyond the next game seen.
It has a place, but it is limited in its societal benefit. So why should some of our larges public investments be placed in their hands?
Now, for contrast, how many plays survive and remain unforgettable and immediately relevant from Grecian times? How many millenea of arts? Music? etc.,
I want to know, where is the National Arts League pushing for new theaters, threatening to take their plays and actors to a better venue?
Steve Berg writes
” If the new Guthrie had not been built, or the Walker, or the Science Museum, or Xcel Energy Center, or Target Field, or the new MIA wing, would MSP be as good a community as it is today? I doubt it.”
Missing from this sentiment is a critical detail: what are we getting for our money? Put simply, it is easy to claim that we are a richer community for having a full complement of sports franchises. Much more difficult is placing a value on that enrichment. If we could keep the Vikings for a $1 public investment, its a no-brainer. Up it to a million and the answer is the same. But for $100 million? A billion? Lets not be so quick to succumb to sentimentality over a sports franchise, assuming the money will be found somewhere & that there is no more deserving investment we could make.
While I agree we do need to be competitive with our public amenities to keep and gain residents, I can’t imagine a glorious sports facility is on the top of most people’s lists. I’ve never heard anyone say, “that’s a really great job offer, but the stadium in that city is so old I don’t know I can move there.” Or, “I’d move there, but they don’t have their own football team — kind of a deal breaker.”
What public amenities do influence people moving/staying here: schools, crime rate, clean streets, transportation, parks and outdoor recreation. I’d rather see public money focused on features like these that offer value beyond entertainment.
Some years ago I was on a tour of ancient Athens with a guide from National Geographic conducting the tour. She stated that the strength and vitality of ancient Athens was based on the city having 4 “pillars”. A place of worship, a theater (hence the Greek tragedies), an Agora (term for marketplace/trade), and a stadium. I am not sure who paid for the stadium – but the spirit of the Olympics rose from the idea. The guide’s name was Eleni. She was born and raised in Athens. Her comments resonated with me and the formula for a great city still seems relevant.
Good point, #10. Who would move here if our schools were #50 but our stadium was #1? Maybe #5 who thinks a billion dollars is a small price to pay for an engrossing water cooler ocnversation. When I was a kid I was a Green Bay fan before the Vikings came along. With no Vikings in the playoffs I didn’t quit watching football or cheering for a team or BSing with the guys at work. But I got to cheer for a team that someone else had to foot the bill for.
My quality of life actually would improve without the Vikings. I could still talk football on Mondays instead of working. I’d still have a reason to lay on the couch all day Sunday. And the state would have another billion dollars to pay for things like schools, reduce property taxes, increase public safety, provide for the homeless.
Somehow I think that if the Vikings were a non-profit like the arts/cultural institutions on the list, people wouldn’t have a problem supporting a new stadium. That’s the fundamental difference. We may complain that Joe Dowling or Jerry Kill make too much money, but at least they work for organizations which exist for the purpose of providing value to our region instead of for building equity in an investment.
Can we at last lay to rest the idea that a new stadium would be used only a few times a year? The Dome had something going most days. There’s no reason to think a new stadium will attract fewer events. Even without the Twins, the Dome hosts hundreds of baseball games, besides the rock concerts, monster truck rallies and rollerdome. I don’t get monster truck rallies, but I get that they bring in a bunch of people. Now look at the Target Field plaza, and realize that a stadium can be a public space. Build it to be such at the design stage, rather than trying to make it work after it’s up like the Dome.
Very interesting article, Steve. And very interesting comments from all. Some of your commenters appear to be showing the janteloven you cleverly describe. #7 says the Viking’s offer of 1/3 cost of open-air stadium isn’t worth debating and the conversation shouldn’t start until ratio is reversed. I think the conversation has started, and all ideas should be on the table.
Three stand-alone stadium for the Gophers, Twins, and Vikings was not the way to go. Not only should the Vikings and Gophers have partners on a joint use stadium, but the Vikings and Twins could have partnered on side-by-side stadiums that could have shared a common retractable-roof, land, infrastructure, etc., etc..
And to top things off… we even got the “pecking order wrong”… It should have been Twins>>>Vikings>>>Gophers NOT Gophers>>>Twins>>>Vikings.
If I were a betting man, my money would be on the Vikings playing their home games in LA starting in 2012.
It was of course ridiculous to build a football stadium that made economic sense for only the Gophers to play in. I think it’s useful to ask, how and why that happened? What are the social, political and economic reasons why bad policy decisions are made?
That said, there is no going back. The Gophers have the monument to football ineptitude they craved, and the Vikings Stadium issues remain unanswered. The question is, where do we go from here?
Hiram, why do stadium lovers insist that the vikings stadium question remains unanswered. There is an answer and the answer is no.
#14, the dome is totally adequate, even nice for the monster truck relays, high school football games, Twins fest and all the rest. The billion for a new stadium will benefit no one but the vikings/zigy/nfl.
#16, the conversation hasn’t just started. That is the “clever” way stadium lovers describe it. A conversation requires listening, not just talking, and for years the public has said in poll after poll that they don’t want to pay for this monstrosity. LISTEN!
I’m sorry but Berg’s premise is simply ridiculous.
For one thing as has been pointed out many many many times the comparisons between pro-sports stadiums and other “arts” is absurd. The pro-sports subsidies are not millions, or even tens of millions of dollars more than anything any theater, museum, or golf course gets, they are hundreds of millions. Furthermore, the idea that something like baseball or football are some kind of cultural glue is laughable. You want to know what MN or the Twin cities would look like without pro baseball or football? Look around, it would look exactly like today. The idea that we need a publicly funded football stadium to put a city on the cultural map is flat out obtuse. Need I point out that L.A. has not had no pro-football team or stadium for what- 20 years? London, Paris, Amsterdam, Tokyo… all cultural wastelands because they don’t have pro football or baseball stadiums or teams?
Beyond that I would argue that rather than functioning as a glue, these pro-sports stadiums are divisive and detrimental to our cultural and civil life. The stadiums themselves distort our civic and financial priorities, drain resources, divert civic energy and resources from legitimate public concerns into private bank accounts. Sports, rather than promoting good life lessons and civic cohesion promotes win at any cost, winner-loser, black and white selfishness. The so-called sports idols and role models yield little beyond controversy and disappointment. And the public obsession with sports and sports figures makes informed democracy nearly impossible.
I argue that we would be culturally and civically better off without these teams, the antics of the players, and the financial burden of their stadiums. Far from becoming unglued I think the loss of the Vikings would usher in a cultural and civic renaissance in the Twin Cities and MN.
“why do stadium lovers insist that the vikings stadium question remains unanswered.”
I am not sure they do. Lots of stadium questions have been answered, it’s just that some folks don’t like the answer other folks have been given. Stadium proponents are much like needy children for whom the only final answer is yes. The Vikings stadium questions will not go away until it’s either built or the Vikings move away.
“The billion for a new stadium will benefit no one but the vikings/zigy/nfl.”
A Vikings Stadium would benefit lots of people. The dispute is whether the benefits are worth the cost. And a lot of that dispute comes down to the question of how do we define “benefits” and how we define “costs”.
“the conversation hasn’t just started.”
I agree. We have been talking about stadiums for decades and I haven’t heard a fresh idea in years. The arguments are always the same. The building of stadiums isn’t an exercise in persuasion, it’s an exercise in power politics.
“Sports, rather than promoting good life lessons and civic cohesion promotes win at any cost, winner-loser, black and white selfishness.”
Oh, I don’t know about that. My favorite tv show is “Friday Night Lights”, and it has lots of great lessons and is all about pulling a community together even when the school board insists on tearing it apart.
I do think we make too much of a deal of sports and sports stadium. Hennepin County made just about the worst deal imaginable to keep the Twins here, and I see no decline in the quality of life here that I can easily attribute to the opening of the new Twins Stadium.
I think being a fan is an exercise in selflessness, in caring about things which have no direct tangible return. I think in itself it’s not a bad thing, and when the going is good, it is something that binds us together as a community. A lot of people insist on viewing these issues purely in terms of dollars and cents, but how many important life decisions do we make in strictly those terms? Sports in it’s small, even venial way, reminds us that there is more to life than money.
I was a high school head coach for 15 years. Sports are fun to play, and it’s not difficult to see how and why people get enthused about them.
That said, sports are trivial. In the scope of human endeavors, sports are – at best – entertainment, and simply not very important. It seems odd to me that many of the same people who’ll insist that a rock star (“Money for nothing, and the chicks are free…”) or an actor is overpaid don’t even flinch at $180 million going to a young man – very pleasant, and apparently quite skilled – who plays baseball for the local team, or several million dollars being paid to an aging football star for less than a full single season’s work. In most cases, a career as a professional athlete will last a decade, or maybe 15 years at the outside, whether you’re Joe Mauer or Lindsey Vonn.
Except for the specific mechanics of a specific game (i.e., “Here’s how to hold the hockey stick / basketball / football / baseball, etc.”) there are no “life lessons” taught by sports, or their coaches, that cannot be taught equally well, and often better, in other venues and contexts.
For the most part, I side with the critics on the issue of a new Vikings stadium, but not entirely. I typically agree with Paul Udstrand, but I think he’s off the mark in asserting that “…the idea that something like baseball or football are some kind of cultural glue is laughable.” Sports are, or at least can be, a kind of cultural glue. I lived for half a century in metro St. Louis, where Cardinal baseball is closer to being a community-wide religion than any theology. Part of the reason for that, however, may be that Cardinal baseball was the only professional sport in the area for many years. Hockey, NFL football, etc., were all afterthoughts, and a professional basketball franchise tried to make money in St. Louis and failed.
I’m inclined to side with Hiram Foster in that the question seems to me to be not so much whether there’s any benefit to publicly-subsidized professional sports facilities, but whether the benefits significantly outweigh the costs. Others – Steve among them – obviously disagree, but my answer to that particular question is “no.” I don’t think professional sports are of no value whatsoever, but their value is relatively minor, and, as Paul points out, there are plenty of cities – in the U.S. and around the world – that are great places to live and work without professional sports.
Not much more than a century ago, a professional athlete was akin to a professional gambler – it was a way to make a living that carried with it the aura of something slightly disreputable. I’m not convinced we need to go back to that, but promoting professional athletes as heroes and role models is hard to justify. Professional sports are basically children’s games writ large – they’re played by young people – and the behavior of those involved is often encouraged to be perpetually child-like. In a grown-up society, with grown-up issues to deal with, promoting childish behavior is not a constructive approach to problem-solving. Let’s imagine a legislator, state or national, throwing a baseball-manager tantrum on the legislative floor every time a bill comes up that he doesn’t like.
The older I get, the more professional sports strike me as the “circus” part of the Roman “Bread and Circuses” technique to distract the public from more weighty matters. I really enjoy watching baseball – I’m far too old to actually play it any more – but it’s not nearly as important as figuring out how to balance the state’s budget.
I would point out Hiram that “Friday Night Lights” is a fictional show about sports, not actual sports, and it doesn’t subsist on a billion dollar public subsidy. I liked “Lost”, it was canceled, like FNL it was TV, not real life.
If you guys weren’t always demanding hundreds of millions of dollars of public subsidies for million/billionaire owners and players in order to keep your entertainment affordable; your claims that it’s not about the money would be a lot more convincing.
I’ll admit to some degree of rhetorical flourish but I stand by my assertion that pro-sports has now reached a point of social and civic toxicity. The mere fact that we are arguing about dumping a billion plus dollars into even more pro-sports pro-sports subsidies, while cutting health care and basic services is exhibit “A”. That’s not how you glue communities together, that’s how you tear them apart.
The idea that sport embodies life lessons and promotes values is largely a myth. Studies have actually shown for instance that the longer young people participate in organized sports the more likely they are to endorse winning is everything, it’s OK to cheat attitudes. Instead of learning “team” spirit kids become more egocentric and see sports a personal pathway to celebrity,and popularity. In the last few decades sport participation has become even more egocentric since it’s a huge component of extra-curricula requirements on resumes and college entrance requirements. The idea is to stand out, get noticed, not do your part as a team member. I could go on about the academic effects, drug use, stress, and the delusions of sports “careers” and scholarships etc. but I think I’ve made my point.
There’s a handy little book: “Lessons of the Locker Room: The Myth of School Sports” by Andrew Miracle and Roger Reese. Suffices to say whatever “lessons” sports may have the capacity to teach are readily available elsewhere. This is how the ancient Egyptians, and Chinese managed to build the Pyramids and the Great Wall without the benefit of football or hockey to teach them team work.
The toxicity of pro-sports is evident elsewhere. Our airways are crammed with obnoxious sports commentators that appear to specialize in denigrating and offensive behavior. I’m probably the only one here who can name my state and federal representatives but cannot tell you the name of the current Vikings coach or any of the quarterbacks. The mono-cultural nature of sports promotes civic ignorance, not civic participation. The fact that we’re talking about billion dollar subsidies for an multi trillion dollar industry while cutting funding for transportation, health care, and safety reveals a callus disregard for our fellow citizens. Instead of asking whether or not we can afford millionaire athletes and billionaire owners we’re debating if we can afford social security and unemployment benefits.
Sports ought to be fun to participate in, and entertaining to watch. It should be just one of many entertaining diversions. Instead it’s become a toxic influence on society, and a financial drain on communities. As the public subsidies grow, do do the toxic effects. It’s now reached the point where we’re better off without it.
//Sports are, or at least can be, a kind of cultural glue. I lived for half a century in metro St. Louis, where Cardinal baseball is closer to being a community-wide religion than any theology.
I just have to point out that St. Louis Missouri was founded in 1764, and was the 4th largest city in the US by 1900. The Cardinals came into being in 1900. So what held the city together before pro baseball came along? Look at any major city and you’ll find the same story. The idea that these sports teams make a city is romanticism pretending to be cultural analysis and economic analysis. They don’t even call these things “teams” anymore, they call them franchises, what does that tell you? I’m clearly not denying that pro sports is popular, but the billion question is whether or not pro sports is essential and to what degree it is now positive or negative burden and influence on communities. I don’t think St. Louis would dry up and blow away if they were to loose a baseball franchise.
I’m staying agnostic as to the debate over the Vikings needs, and whatever you think of its financing, look at the Twins stadium as a huge improvement as a civic amenity. Rather, it’s at the national level I think the logic of our eternal need for new stadiums faces its most serious lack of intellectual foundation.
So what I truly wonder is why we haven’t seen a national organization emerge as a more potent voice in this discussion. An organization with the political clout to begin mounting a serious challenge to professional sports monopolies, promoting public ownership models like we see in Green Bay, and forwarding a coherent state and national policy framework for limiting the amount of public money that is diverted into financing stadiums.
Then, and only then, might we begin to make real progress uniting most Americans to reform an industry that most agree is broken in some very fundamental ways. I’m just not aware that any such organization exists.
“An organization with the political clout to begin mounting a serious challenge to professional sports monopolies, promoting public ownership models like we see in Green Bay, and forwarding a coherent state and national policy framework for limiting the amount of public money that is diverted into financing stadiums.”
Because pro sports aren’t that big a deal. It’s fun to think and talk about sports, at least for me. But let’s be honest here, in economic terms, pro sports are the smallest of potatoes. In the grander scheme of things, whether they are good or bad for our economy the impact is negligible. That’s why I have generally avoid a “principled position” on stadium issues. The issues just don’t matter enough to have principles applied to them.
Elsewhere I’ve suggested a 50% income rate on athletes and owners making more than $500,000 a year. The revenue would go to any city, state, or county that’s used public money to build a stadium or arena for pro sports in the last 20 years. That’s a national solution.
I would be fiercely opposed to any discrimination in income tax rates based on the kind of work someone does. Professional athletes, as it stands, pay a huge amount in taxes. They should not be asked to pay more.
As for the owners, they don’t make much from their teams because of the way their finances are constructed, both for tax and for public relations reasons, as well. While I would oppose discriminatory rates for owners as well, in practical terms it wouldn’t matter.
The cart is way before the horse. Zygi Wilf and other billionaire sports team owners have no right to ask the taxpayers to pay for a private business. Period, end of discussion.
Jon,
The point is the pro-sports industry generates more than enough revenue to finance it’s own stadiums and arenas. The reason they rely on public subsidies is the way they spend their revenue. Why is it OK to tax the public to build stadium but discrimination to tax the athletes and owners who get 95% of the economic benefit of the stadiums? Right now you literally have homeless people living in the shadow of the Twins stadium paying more than the multi-million dollar athletes who are playing there, how’s that fair? As for the owners, I don’t care how much they make off the franchises, I’m saying take 50% of their income regardless of it’s origin.
People keep saying that those who benefit the most ought to pay for the stadiums, well frankly this is the only to make that happen.
In any other arrangement involving a public bailout, and that’s what these public financed stadiums are… we extract concessions from owners and workers. Auto workers, textile workers, Government workers, Nurses, Teachers, all asked to take pay and benefit cuts in exchange for public dollars. But for some reason a bunch of people who literally play games for a living get billions of dollars of public money, and then get new multi-million dollars contracts to boot. Since professional sports is never going to reorganize it’s own economy, we need to do it for them. If they don’t like, they can build their own stadiums. We can’t afford to provide free money for a bunch of billionaires and millionaires anymore.
Some quick thoughts…
So, I moved to Minneapolis. From Cleveland. And I considered a lot of options: Boston, Portland (Maine AND Oregon), Pittsburgh, Ann Arbor, Seattle, New York. And yet, somehow, I picked Minneapolis. And I love it here.
And guess what things I did NOT factor into my decision: Professional sports and major arts venues! That’s right: I moved to your (now my!) city because of other factors entirely. In fact, I really don’t care that much about the Vikings. And I’ve only been to the Guthrie twice in four years.
Hmmm… Maybe people can indeed be attracted to a city for other reasons!