bottom line is CFG has the money. cough it up, put some parkland and apartments somewhere and that's that. (obviously its more complicated i just hope the club isn't asking for any breaks in terms of funding/taxes/whatever else)
Stadium Discussion
- Thread starter Gene
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Private sector is also good at jumping on opportunities to take advantage of public overspending. With one-off events like the Olympics or World Cup, the local construction industry -- contractors and unions both -- collaborate with the non-local event organizers to drum up support and spending. Meanwhile local pols jump at the opportunity to get credit for spending more than the usual amount of other people's money and doling it out for favors. This is the reverse bribery of corrupt government that few people pay attention to. Everyone worries about undue influence on politicians through direct bribes, or donations, etc. But the politicians buy loyalty and votes by robbing Peter to bribe Paul, and it is completely legal.
Re the rest of your post there's a lot to unpack, most of it on point. I would add that when you don't have pro-rel (which I don't want), you have to have some mechanism by which teams move. I think we're in agreement that it's the extortion, not the simple fact of moving, that is the real scandal.
Finally I also always wonder why people complain about subsidies to greedy rich owners and ignore that in major sports the players usually get 40-55% of gross revenue, with no capital or operating costs. The public subsidies likely benefit players collectively at least as much if not more than they do the owners. And MLS aside, there ain't many players making middle quintile salaries. Just because the NFLPA and NFL ownership are opposed at CBA negotiations, doesn't mean they don't team up to lobby for maximum public subsidies that benefit them all. None of them are on your side.
I’m not arguing that it can’t work for the taxpayer... only that is typically hasn’t. I’m more optimistic about the stadium deals potentially working than I am about large singular events like WC or Olympics but the premise is the same and you basically proved the point- traditionally, the host city doesn’t get its money back. Because of the incompetence of elected officials, corruption, unrealistic optimisism or anything else- i’m not aware of one stadium financed even partially by a public entity that saw tax revenue increase enough to justify the cost once you have discounted for inflation and opportunity cost.
But I’m open to changing my mind if there are pertinent examples.
WC is completely different from hosting the Olympics IMO just due to the venues needed to be created all in one location. That said, when you have countries like Qatar building all these stadiums for the WC and you're not certain how much they'll be used after (also see Manaus stadium in Brazil), that provides a whole 'nother question of if its worth it.
IMO, the Olympics should be rotated every so many cycles through 3-5 cities around the world. That way you already have the facilities in place, should only need to spend money on maintenance/upkeep/upgrades and other incremental items.
Well the Qataris have already said that they plan to deconstruct the stadia afterwards and sell them to foreign teams to be reassembled elsewhere. I wish that was a joke. But hey, it's a way of recouping costs on infrastructure, I guess.
It's on record here that I have no love for the WC being sent to exotic countries with little football tradition nor experience of hosting major events. That said, rotating the Olympics between 3-5 cities is going too far IMO. There's a point at which you're trying too hard to send it to countries that can barely support the event, but there's also a point at which you restrict it so much that you make hosting it elitist, and to specifically make a rotation of a set number of countries would be to publicly set apart the "chosen" countries from the rest.
It would be a bit like MLS changing the rules so that any team could win the SS but only the same 4 teams got to contest the playoffs, regardless of performance. Granted my analogy goes a bit far, because there's no silverware for hosting the Olympics, but my point is I feel like it would create an artificial feeling of those who were considered to be "the real Olympic countries" and those who were just invited to guest appear.
Yeah, I get your point there and that is a very valid opinion that could arise from that and not one I considered.
My main point is, these host cities often incur lots of costs constructing these specific facilities that don't get used again. So why not leverage that in future Olympics down the road. Pick several cities around the world in different continents that can build them once, and then manage from there.
Definitely get the "elitist" sentiment that it could create though.
Yeah, I totally get why you said what you said. I think that if countries are willing to put up the expense, though, and if they are clearly the kind of country which people would agree carries the traditions of the sports, then go for it. If Portugal or Denmark wants to host a WC, let them. If Sao Paulo or Jo'burg wants to host the Olympics then fine. If that means they need to build half a dozen new venues, so be it. But if a country is clearly going to bankrupt itself doing so, and clearly has ulterior motives in wanting to host and likely cares more about the publicity than the sports they are hosting, then I'm less happy.
A playground and community pool can be used by all families at no cost at any time it is open. A stadium is used by people who buy tickets (in some cases at extravagant prices, limiting it's use to a small segment of the population) and performers who are well paid very few times a year. The community does get plenty of benefits from A stadium and it's not unfair for the owners to ask and receive, moderate public support. Support should be limited mostly to infrastructure investment, potentially generous pilot arrangements, and in our scuttled case, the elimination of bondholder debt that the City will never recover anyway.
Like stadiums, it's not unusual to see public community investments become a total boondoggle. They are generally on a much smaller scale, and don't typically benefit billionaires, so they don't get the scrutiny and negative public reaction that stadiums get.
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I guess my point is that, like a park or a community center, a stadium is something that becomes a selling point in your community. It draws visitors and new residents and new businessss. Maybe NYC is unique because of the saturation of teams and stadia, but professional sports, regardless of the stadium boondoggles have become integral parts of the growth of cities from Nashville to LA
Totally agree. It's in places that are growing that need to attract new residents where people look for places to spend their money. Nashville is a great example
Of that
Well I just think that the WC is generally easier to host in more places.
Olympics are hosted in one city. I know sometimes that can kind of expand a little outward (i.e., Chicago summer bid included bike race in Madison, WI), but generally its in one city.
WCs are in entire countries (and sometimes plural countries). And a lot of these countries already have stadia in place that can be leveraged. Some countries that would build new stadiums to meet higher attendance demands, can have those stadiums used by local clubs.
Its a completely different scenario IMO.
The principle is the same... to rotate the Olympics in cities where the infrastecure is currently in place. Rotate the WC in countries where the infrastructure is currently in place, e.g. not Qatar or any country like it that has to build the network of stadia/roads/etc to accommodate a tournament.
In both cases, you’re trying to limit the financial damage left in the wake of massive public spending that almost never gets the expected return.
Well yeah, but in the WC example, there is a lot of that infrastructure already in place across the world, and countries have the ability to spread that requirement across multiple cities, and those requirements can be spread across multiple countries in a bid (i.e., South Korea/Japan and USA/Mex/Can). I agree that the Qatar one doesn't fit and you see what they are having to build. I'm skeptical that Morocco will be able to handle a WC all by itself, especially in the expanded format, but this is much easier for many other countries to handle.
I will say that the Brazil Manaus stadium is an interesting scenario, but that appeared to be Brazil wanting to showcase the Amazon and something that ultimately was unnecessary.
The Brazil stadium waste and corruption goes way beyond Manaus.
- They built a $900 million stadium in the capital of Brasilia which has no professional team. It gets used for semi-pro games. Government workers use the offices, and the parking lot is used as a bus depot.
- The stadium in Cuaiba seats 41k and hosts games between lower flight teams with an average attendance of 1,000. It cost $23o million.
- The stadium in Salvador cost $200 million. Its tenant threatened to leave and stadium operators were forced to renegotiate the lease on lesser terms. Average attendance 20k out of 53k.
- The stadium in Belo Horizonte cost $287 million. Atletico Miniero moved there from its previous ground which was built for the 1950 World Cup. But it had trouble filling the 61k seating and has gone back to the old stadium, which is its primary home, and uses the new one for select games only.
- Fortazela has 2 clubs. Its WC stadium cost $240 million. The stadium seats 44k. The clubs average attendance is 11k except when they play each other.
- The stadium in Curitiba cost $146 million. Its team averages attendance of 16k with 41k seats.
- The stadium in Natal which cost $180-450 million (they can't even come up with a reliable figure due to corruption) hosts weddings and children's parties to supplement its income.
This is in a large, soccer-mad country, with multiple leagues and dozens of teams. The model is broken. Unfortunately, probably only a handful of North American and European countries can host a WC with mostly existing infrastructure. You either freeze out most continents and the entire developing world, or let those countries host to their own ruin.
The people who run the government and FIFA affiliates in those countries want the WC. Nobody else does, and nobody else benefits. If anyone cared for the people in those countries they would make the hard choice and tell the politicians and FA functionaries to sod off.
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Exactly. We’re not doing the citizens of Qatar, Brazil or some other nations any favors by allowing them to host WC. Typically just diverts public resources away from other things that would actually do more good in the long run.
Excluding entire continents may be the result but that is a far less offensive action than saddling a crippled economy with insurmountable debt that will last generations to host a tournament that only lasts several weeks.
