TheWiz
07-08-2007, 08:31 PM
The San Francisco Gate made available two article today that are worth mentioning:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/07/08/INGAHQQ8C21.DTL
and
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/07/08/INGAHQQ8D91.DTL
I will respond to these two in order and add some of my own commentary to them.
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I was exceptionally critical of Mr Noll's last article. It turned a severe blind eye towards trickle down economic effects, relied heavily on economist jargon and theory which seemingly ignored the real world. In short, I was not an appreciative fan of his article. This time around I can at least say that he wrote a solid article and one with plenty of ideas and facts that I cannot refute. However, a lot of it I can take shots at for good reason. Mostly because they are in fact misrepresented in some manner.
- "More worrisome for the fans, the smaller Great America site would require a parking structure, which is less suited for tailgating and takes longer to enter and exit." First of all, any large stadium recently built has a parking garage on site, even in suburban locales. They often provide excellent handi-capped access, are closer to the stadium, and are weather free. So fans who are not capable of walking long distances and want to stay dry often are happy to have a parking garage. Also, garages offer a much better 'parking spaces per area of parking garage base' ratio. For examle, while regular asphalt parking may hold 200 spots, a simple 3 story garage can hold 325+ cars and with the use of elevators, create less distance to be covered by handicapped fans. The proposed garage is only 3 stories high to keep a stadium sight-line, would also serve Great America and the Convention Center on non-game days, and hardly is a detriment to tail-gating. Not all fans that park will want to tailgate and some will prefer shelter and a short walk.
- "The other proposed site, Great America, is near Highways 101 and 237, but lacks nearby mass transit." I'd like to know what defined mass transit. It's no more than 2 or 3 miles from the San Jose airport. It has light rail access going right near the stadium and a bus hub is nearby as well. Not to mention the 101 and 237 both easily connect within 5 miles to major highways to go up the east bay or south out of the bay area. Also, not only is there 1 easy to reach on ramp for both of those highways within 1 mile of the stadium, but also some small detours along very traffic-friendly local roads within a 2 mile radius lead to 4 other on ramps. I don't see how more "mass transit" can be involved unless it's built in the shadow of a major international airport or next to the biggest AMTRAK hub on the west coast. It's got more mass transit options than Hunters Point or Candlestick and as much as any other site you will find in the Bay Area.
- "Currently, the 49ers' fan base is centered in San Mateo County, with many from the North Bay. If the 49ers move to Santa Clara, the fan base would shift south, because travel times would increase for fans from San Francisco, Oakland and other points north." True, but unavoidable. Since the city has no really intriguing sites to offer, we either must move further north or south. Meanwhile if the team moves north, mass transit sites only shrink more.
- "In general, sports facilities are not good investments. Owners can add more concessions and high-cost seating such as luxury suites and theater-style reserve seats. But even during the robust early years of the stadium, these features bring in annual profits of only $25 million to $50 million -- not enough to justify an investment of $500 million." Yet in our proposal the team is giving all concession profits to the suggested Santa Clara Stadium Authority and all of our profits from concession rights are being sunk into paying for the stadium. The only thing we're looking at is increased ticket revenues and luxury box sales. At this juncture, one must also realize that it's not about getting a great rate of return. Candlestick in general is in such bad shape that repairing it is not a good investment so the team can only opt for the best of the bad investments.
-"So unless the 49ers have reached an understanding with fellow NFL members, there is some risk that this subsidy will not be forthcoming." It's up there with the risk of flying in a commercial jetliner. The G-3 Program instituted by the league was vastly popular and productive. It helped finance 300M of a brand new stadium for both New York city market teams and renovate an aging Arrowhead stadium. Stadiums it has helped build and renovate have helped increase fan attendance and owner revenue that has led to increased league profits which trickle down to the players and communities. The league found only excellent investments in the program and it's only a near certainty that it will be renewed.
- "Economic consultants working for teams typically claim annual benefits to a city of hundreds of millions of dollars, thereby implicitly offsetting even a 100 percent subsidy in a few years." Clearly not in our case! Sure, we're touting figures from not only our hired economic firm, but the city hired their own analysts who said our projections were even understated. Our economic impact is not contested by the city, we'd bring in tens of millions in economic activity and several thousands of jobs. Since the venue would belong to the city, they would be on the hook for scheduling and inviting non-football acts to the site so the stadium impacty largely rests on them doing so.
- "Typically, stadiums are exempted from property taxes. Facilities do generate sales tax from tickets and concessions, but most of this goes to the state. Local governments are not likely to collect more than a few million dollars per year in new revenue, which is not sufficient to justify an investment of $100 million or more." Well, we'd be building on city-leased land and they'd own the stadium itself and be free to sell its use to anyone they please. All concessions profits will go to maintaining the stadium itself, which will cost very little for the first decade. The city is more or less buying an extra 4k jobs and a 30M+ annual economic impact for its ~180M investment. This is outside the impact a likely SB invitation could bring about and the investment has a longer lifespan than just about anything the city could invest in. Education, public safety, roadwork, and so on all have much shorter lifespans and even weaker returns. Even if you want to measure against quality of life or saving lives, doesn't entertaining the public also add to quality of life?
- "Notwithstanding the limited local economic benefit of a sports team, citizens still may regard a public subsidy as worthwhile. But the basis for this conclusion must lie in the consumption value of having a local team, rather than the return on public investment. Cities invest in many cultural and recreational facilities that do not earn much return on investment, such as libraries, playgrounds and high school sports facilities. Whether stadiums for pro teams fall in this category is up to citizens to decide for themselves." Now that Mr. Noll is a paragraph worth applauding and I agree whole-heartedly. Where was this level of writing and even-handedness when you were leaning entirely on a crutch of economic ideals? It is entirely up to the city of Santa Clara. While I definitely disagree with your opposition to trickle-down economic effects, the actual value of such investments are of course up to the individual municipalities.
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On the other hand Mr. Zirin posted an article steeped in politics and buried underneath tales of the nation's capitol and Katrina. One which has very little relevance to the 49ers or even any of the recent stadium deals in the bay area. In fact, it's so filled with political commentary and targets specific cases and trying the make the minority of the incidents appear worthy of being sample cases that reflect stadium deals as a whole. In short, it's scare tactics.
- "Imagine my shock when the city announced it would be spending more than $500 million on a new baseball stadium. Clearly when it comes to the needs of billionaire sports owners, there always seems to be money available to be thrown." I'm sorry, the Yorks became billionaires when? Instead of opening supposedly billion dollar bank accounts, they're willing to sell away team profits? The team's current package has us using all stadium advertising, naming rights, concession rights, parking fees, concession sales profits, and even construction rights (such as Panasonic HDTV screens or Bose speaker systems) to build the stadium. These are profits we could have but are necessary to build the new stadium because tales of billions of tales are non-existant. Not every owner is worth billions and many teams are owned by groups which scrimped and reached to even buy the team. They run year to year and don't have even more than a few hundred in immediate assets to run the team with yet alone pay for the 700M+ it costs now even in cheaper regions to build an NFL stadium.
- "The stadiums are presented as a microwave-instant solution to the problems of crumbling schools, urban decay and suburban flight." Since when? I can't recall any single claim by this team or any bay area team saying a new stadium would improve schools, living conditions in urban areas, or anything of the sort.
- "In the past 10 years, more than $16 billion of the public's money has been spent for stadium construction and upkeep from coast to coast." This is among the types of statements I hated in Mr.Noll's first article. 16 billion across the entire nation, really? So all of the NHL, NFL, NBA, and MLB teams are involved in that? Of course, MLS deals are included as are AFL teams, minor league baseball teams, and on a much bigger level, community and public colleges and high schools. I doubt that among the top 3 sports: NFL, MLB, and NBA that they ate up all of that themselves. It's a broad stroke which also fails to include any numbers on returns. Some political institute probably did the research to find the total spent publically yet no real follow-up in terms of return has been or can be made.
- "But our elected officials have been more like the children, as sports owners tousle their hair and set the budget agendas for municipalities around the country with a simple credo: stadiums first and people last." A great statement that you cannot back up. Each city has the right to make up its own minds. Whether by public voting on a matter or by council vote through elected officials, the public gives or denies its consent on each project proposal. If cities agree to bad deals its due to gullibility and ignorance and nothing else. Yet the idea of people first only leads to even worse investments in the long run. New school books get old within a few years in todays rapidly growing world. New computers for kids also get outdated fast. Bullet proof vests actually deteriorate in a few short years. Roads that are repaved will merely just crumble again and so on. As vain as it may be, the lives saved by bullet proof vests or fire-fighting equipment or dollars spared for motorists on a road through repaving never really become a good return on investment. Economists and now a politician bashes stadiums for terrible returns but yet most public investments are even worse.
- "Instead, it set off a 30-year path toward destruction for the Big Easy: a path that has seen money for the stadium but not for levees; money for the stadium but not for shelter; money for the stadium but not for an all-too-predictable disaster." This is deplorable language at best. The author should be ashamed of this claim. First of all, the levees were neglected by many public entitees. The Federal Government, several of its programs in charge of these matters, as well as the city missed the target on this. To even consider that not building the Superdome, forgoing its regional economic impact and tourism draw, and so on AIDED the storm that destroyed the area is a serious faux-pas. No proof exists that even better levees could have spared the city and yet the team's recent performances has served as a major regional spiritual uplift.
- "It's going to be seen historically as an awful folly, and it's starting to be seen that way now, but historically that will go down as one of the real crimes of American government, national and local, to allow the funneling of people's money directly into the pockets of a handful of very wealthy individuals who could build these stadiums on their own if it made financial sense. If they don't make financial sense, then they shouldn't be building them." First of all, how is the federal government involved? Maybe I'm just ignorant on this topic but since when has the federal government paid for a stadium? Secondly, it's entirely true that money is funneled into the pockets of the wealthy to build stadiums. Of course owners could afford new stadiums without subsidy. It's called ticket prices. No one, despite level of wealth, will invest in anything without return. Without public subsidy most of the time, owners cannot afford to build as much as homeowners can afford to do so. With escalating realty costs and building costs, someone looking for a home is as much hurt as an owner trying to build a new stadium. Hey, if the public doesn't want the extra tourism then stadium owners will be happy to start using $300 ticket prices for the upper decks to pay for the eventual 3 billion dollar stadium that may be needed in 2042.
- "Bouton went on to say, "If I was a team owner today, asking for public money, I'd be ashamed of myself. Ashamed of myself. But we've gone beyond shame. There's no such thing as shame anymore. People aren't embarrassed to take -- to do these awful things." " So we should trust the opinion of a well-paid author and MLB all-star on what the poorest of America should think? Personally I wonder how he could even see the other side of the proverbial coin. Should an owner pay hundreds of millions, bring an economic renaissance into a city, pay property taxes, and generate millions in local profits for other businesses while the city profits big time from someone elses expenses? One would think that cities would be so happy to create that type of impact that they'd be happy to pay a proportion of the cost to entice a team to build there. Wait, holy cow! I've just found the justification for public finance that ever started it all. The fact that cities and states have caved politically is their mistakes, not current owners. In fact, this team has gone beyond the call of any regional owners on this matter. The city of Santa Clara bears no risk for construction or maintenance costs and all the team is asking for is percentage-wise, a minimal public involvement. A local business oversight comittee even thinks it's a great idea and a city-paid research group even decided that we undershot our proposed economic impact.
Overall I don't like the tone of this article because it deals with politics and nation-wide impacts moreso than our deal alone. Even Mr. Noll's article acknowledged that the actual value is to the public to decide as many public investments are not any better in return. This article on the other hand uses Katrina, politically and in a very ill-manner, to suggest that a single public dime spent on a stadium may cause earthquakes or the death of a young child in the middle of the night. Yet nowhere does it ever suggest the fact that public subsidies were born from the fact that stadiums are such positive forces financially that cities offered money to get a new stadium. While cities have been confused and duped into bad deals and some jump into deals with no thought does not de-value the original idea behind the practice. Each city still has its own ability to decide and also make informed decisions.
At no point has this team made any sort of unreasonable request. We've had sit downs with city residents and groups, discussed matters openly with the city in a public forum, and made many facts available online. Whether the 160M direct investment for a team over the next 30 years is worth the investment is up to elected officials and the public at large to decide.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/07/08/INGAHQQ8C21.DTL
and
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/07/08/INGAHQQ8D91.DTL
I will respond to these two in order and add some of my own commentary to them.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
I was exceptionally critical of Mr Noll's last article. It turned a severe blind eye towards trickle down economic effects, relied heavily on economist jargon and theory which seemingly ignored the real world. In short, I was not an appreciative fan of his article. This time around I can at least say that he wrote a solid article and one with plenty of ideas and facts that I cannot refute. However, a lot of it I can take shots at for good reason. Mostly because they are in fact misrepresented in some manner.
- "More worrisome for the fans, the smaller Great America site would require a parking structure, which is less suited for tailgating and takes longer to enter and exit." First of all, any large stadium recently built has a parking garage on site, even in suburban locales. They often provide excellent handi-capped access, are closer to the stadium, and are weather free. So fans who are not capable of walking long distances and want to stay dry often are happy to have a parking garage. Also, garages offer a much better 'parking spaces per area of parking garage base' ratio. For examle, while regular asphalt parking may hold 200 spots, a simple 3 story garage can hold 325+ cars and with the use of elevators, create less distance to be covered by handicapped fans. The proposed garage is only 3 stories high to keep a stadium sight-line, would also serve Great America and the Convention Center on non-game days, and hardly is a detriment to tail-gating. Not all fans that park will want to tailgate and some will prefer shelter and a short walk.
- "The other proposed site, Great America, is near Highways 101 and 237, but lacks nearby mass transit." I'd like to know what defined mass transit. It's no more than 2 or 3 miles from the San Jose airport. It has light rail access going right near the stadium and a bus hub is nearby as well. Not to mention the 101 and 237 both easily connect within 5 miles to major highways to go up the east bay or south out of the bay area. Also, not only is there 1 easy to reach on ramp for both of those highways within 1 mile of the stadium, but also some small detours along very traffic-friendly local roads within a 2 mile radius lead to 4 other on ramps. I don't see how more "mass transit" can be involved unless it's built in the shadow of a major international airport or next to the biggest AMTRAK hub on the west coast. It's got more mass transit options than Hunters Point or Candlestick and as much as any other site you will find in the Bay Area.
- "Currently, the 49ers' fan base is centered in San Mateo County, with many from the North Bay. If the 49ers move to Santa Clara, the fan base would shift south, because travel times would increase for fans from San Francisco, Oakland and other points north." True, but unavoidable. Since the city has no really intriguing sites to offer, we either must move further north or south. Meanwhile if the team moves north, mass transit sites only shrink more.
- "In general, sports facilities are not good investments. Owners can add more concessions and high-cost seating such as luxury suites and theater-style reserve seats. But even during the robust early years of the stadium, these features bring in annual profits of only $25 million to $50 million -- not enough to justify an investment of $500 million." Yet in our proposal the team is giving all concession profits to the suggested Santa Clara Stadium Authority and all of our profits from concession rights are being sunk into paying for the stadium. The only thing we're looking at is increased ticket revenues and luxury box sales. At this juncture, one must also realize that it's not about getting a great rate of return. Candlestick in general is in such bad shape that repairing it is not a good investment so the team can only opt for the best of the bad investments.
-"So unless the 49ers have reached an understanding with fellow NFL members, there is some risk that this subsidy will not be forthcoming." It's up there with the risk of flying in a commercial jetliner. The G-3 Program instituted by the league was vastly popular and productive. It helped finance 300M of a brand new stadium for both New York city market teams and renovate an aging Arrowhead stadium. Stadiums it has helped build and renovate have helped increase fan attendance and owner revenue that has led to increased league profits which trickle down to the players and communities. The league found only excellent investments in the program and it's only a near certainty that it will be renewed.
- "Economic consultants working for teams typically claim annual benefits to a city of hundreds of millions of dollars, thereby implicitly offsetting even a 100 percent subsidy in a few years." Clearly not in our case! Sure, we're touting figures from not only our hired economic firm, but the city hired their own analysts who said our projections were even understated. Our economic impact is not contested by the city, we'd bring in tens of millions in economic activity and several thousands of jobs. Since the venue would belong to the city, they would be on the hook for scheduling and inviting non-football acts to the site so the stadium impacty largely rests on them doing so.
- "Typically, stadiums are exempted from property taxes. Facilities do generate sales tax from tickets and concessions, but most of this goes to the state. Local governments are not likely to collect more than a few million dollars per year in new revenue, which is not sufficient to justify an investment of $100 million or more." Well, we'd be building on city-leased land and they'd own the stadium itself and be free to sell its use to anyone they please. All concessions profits will go to maintaining the stadium itself, which will cost very little for the first decade. The city is more or less buying an extra 4k jobs and a 30M+ annual economic impact for its ~180M investment. This is outside the impact a likely SB invitation could bring about and the investment has a longer lifespan than just about anything the city could invest in. Education, public safety, roadwork, and so on all have much shorter lifespans and even weaker returns. Even if you want to measure against quality of life or saving lives, doesn't entertaining the public also add to quality of life?
- "Notwithstanding the limited local economic benefit of a sports team, citizens still may regard a public subsidy as worthwhile. But the basis for this conclusion must lie in the consumption value of having a local team, rather than the return on public investment. Cities invest in many cultural and recreational facilities that do not earn much return on investment, such as libraries, playgrounds and high school sports facilities. Whether stadiums for pro teams fall in this category is up to citizens to decide for themselves." Now that Mr. Noll is a paragraph worth applauding and I agree whole-heartedly. Where was this level of writing and even-handedness when you were leaning entirely on a crutch of economic ideals? It is entirely up to the city of Santa Clara. While I definitely disagree with your opposition to trickle-down economic effects, the actual value of such investments are of course up to the individual municipalities.
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On the other hand Mr. Zirin posted an article steeped in politics and buried underneath tales of the nation's capitol and Katrina. One which has very little relevance to the 49ers or even any of the recent stadium deals in the bay area. In fact, it's so filled with political commentary and targets specific cases and trying the make the minority of the incidents appear worthy of being sample cases that reflect stadium deals as a whole. In short, it's scare tactics.
- "Imagine my shock when the city announced it would be spending more than $500 million on a new baseball stadium. Clearly when it comes to the needs of billionaire sports owners, there always seems to be money available to be thrown." I'm sorry, the Yorks became billionaires when? Instead of opening supposedly billion dollar bank accounts, they're willing to sell away team profits? The team's current package has us using all stadium advertising, naming rights, concession rights, parking fees, concession sales profits, and even construction rights (such as Panasonic HDTV screens or Bose speaker systems) to build the stadium. These are profits we could have but are necessary to build the new stadium because tales of billions of tales are non-existant. Not every owner is worth billions and many teams are owned by groups which scrimped and reached to even buy the team. They run year to year and don't have even more than a few hundred in immediate assets to run the team with yet alone pay for the 700M+ it costs now even in cheaper regions to build an NFL stadium.
- "The stadiums are presented as a microwave-instant solution to the problems of crumbling schools, urban decay and suburban flight." Since when? I can't recall any single claim by this team or any bay area team saying a new stadium would improve schools, living conditions in urban areas, or anything of the sort.
- "In the past 10 years, more than $16 billion of the public's money has been spent for stadium construction and upkeep from coast to coast." This is among the types of statements I hated in Mr.Noll's first article. 16 billion across the entire nation, really? So all of the NHL, NFL, NBA, and MLB teams are involved in that? Of course, MLS deals are included as are AFL teams, minor league baseball teams, and on a much bigger level, community and public colleges and high schools. I doubt that among the top 3 sports: NFL, MLB, and NBA that they ate up all of that themselves. It's a broad stroke which also fails to include any numbers on returns. Some political institute probably did the research to find the total spent publically yet no real follow-up in terms of return has been or can be made.
- "But our elected officials have been more like the children, as sports owners tousle their hair and set the budget agendas for municipalities around the country with a simple credo: stadiums first and people last." A great statement that you cannot back up. Each city has the right to make up its own minds. Whether by public voting on a matter or by council vote through elected officials, the public gives or denies its consent on each project proposal. If cities agree to bad deals its due to gullibility and ignorance and nothing else. Yet the idea of people first only leads to even worse investments in the long run. New school books get old within a few years in todays rapidly growing world. New computers for kids also get outdated fast. Bullet proof vests actually deteriorate in a few short years. Roads that are repaved will merely just crumble again and so on. As vain as it may be, the lives saved by bullet proof vests or fire-fighting equipment or dollars spared for motorists on a road through repaving never really become a good return on investment. Economists and now a politician bashes stadiums for terrible returns but yet most public investments are even worse.
- "Instead, it set off a 30-year path toward destruction for the Big Easy: a path that has seen money for the stadium but not for levees; money for the stadium but not for shelter; money for the stadium but not for an all-too-predictable disaster." This is deplorable language at best. The author should be ashamed of this claim. First of all, the levees were neglected by many public entitees. The Federal Government, several of its programs in charge of these matters, as well as the city missed the target on this. To even consider that not building the Superdome, forgoing its regional economic impact and tourism draw, and so on AIDED the storm that destroyed the area is a serious faux-pas. No proof exists that even better levees could have spared the city and yet the team's recent performances has served as a major regional spiritual uplift.
- "It's going to be seen historically as an awful folly, and it's starting to be seen that way now, but historically that will go down as one of the real crimes of American government, national and local, to allow the funneling of people's money directly into the pockets of a handful of very wealthy individuals who could build these stadiums on their own if it made financial sense. If they don't make financial sense, then they shouldn't be building them." First of all, how is the federal government involved? Maybe I'm just ignorant on this topic but since when has the federal government paid for a stadium? Secondly, it's entirely true that money is funneled into the pockets of the wealthy to build stadiums. Of course owners could afford new stadiums without subsidy. It's called ticket prices. No one, despite level of wealth, will invest in anything without return. Without public subsidy most of the time, owners cannot afford to build as much as homeowners can afford to do so. With escalating realty costs and building costs, someone looking for a home is as much hurt as an owner trying to build a new stadium. Hey, if the public doesn't want the extra tourism then stadium owners will be happy to start using $300 ticket prices for the upper decks to pay for the eventual 3 billion dollar stadium that may be needed in 2042.
- "Bouton went on to say, "If I was a team owner today, asking for public money, I'd be ashamed of myself. Ashamed of myself. But we've gone beyond shame. There's no such thing as shame anymore. People aren't embarrassed to take -- to do these awful things." " So we should trust the opinion of a well-paid author and MLB all-star on what the poorest of America should think? Personally I wonder how he could even see the other side of the proverbial coin. Should an owner pay hundreds of millions, bring an economic renaissance into a city, pay property taxes, and generate millions in local profits for other businesses while the city profits big time from someone elses expenses? One would think that cities would be so happy to create that type of impact that they'd be happy to pay a proportion of the cost to entice a team to build there. Wait, holy cow! I've just found the justification for public finance that ever started it all. The fact that cities and states have caved politically is their mistakes, not current owners. In fact, this team has gone beyond the call of any regional owners on this matter. The city of Santa Clara bears no risk for construction or maintenance costs and all the team is asking for is percentage-wise, a minimal public involvement. A local business oversight comittee even thinks it's a great idea and a city-paid research group even decided that we undershot our proposed economic impact.
Overall I don't like the tone of this article because it deals with politics and nation-wide impacts moreso than our deal alone. Even Mr. Noll's article acknowledged that the actual value is to the public to decide as many public investments are not any better in return. This article on the other hand uses Katrina, politically and in a very ill-manner, to suggest that a single public dime spent on a stadium may cause earthquakes or the death of a young child in the middle of the night. Yet nowhere does it ever suggest the fact that public subsidies were born from the fact that stadiums are such positive forces financially that cities offered money to get a new stadium. While cities have been confused and duped into bad deals and some jump into deals with no thought does not de-value the original idea behind the practice. Each city still has its own ability to decide and also make informed decisions.
At no point has this team made any sort of unreasonable request. We've had sit downs with city residents and groups, discussed matters openly with the city in a public forum, and made many facts available online. Whether the 160M direct investment for a team over the next 30 years is worth the investment is up to elected officials and the public at large to decide.