Just a little over a year ago, the mayor of Miami lost a recall election by a tremendous margin. I think one of the key factors was the public funding of the new Miami (formerly Florida) Marlins baseball stadium, which must have pissed off a lot of people.
An article in today's NY Times about the new stadium, which is a real 21st-Century departure from all of the retro-looking parks that have been built since the opening of Camden Yards in Baltimore, rather off-handedly includes a link to a 2000 publication of the CATO Institute which shows that the supposed economic benefits of publicly-funded sports stadiums are almost always fictitious.
From that publication, I picked this quote:
“We play the Star Spangled Banner before every game
—you want us to pay taxes too?” —Bill Veeck
1 comment:
Doesn't that just sound like Bill Veeck. I miss those guys, like Charlie Finley. Now it is so sterile.
I have heard of those studies throwing doubt on the economic benefits of the stadia, but am reminded of some of the wise quotes about statistics.
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