Especially with the obscene millions the players and teams make. I am fine with them making as much as they can. But it should be also their own expense to supply the venue.
Nothing crony about it. It's capitalism. Cities competing with stakeholders against each other to make a profit. It's zero-sum. Once they've all made their profit, why would they give a shit about whether you use the stadium or not?
I was in Brazil when Rio was selected to host the Olympics. My mother and I were the only ones in our circle of friends who said it would be a disaster. Years later it became one of the central points surrounding the massive corruption scandals which led to riots, broke up the government and divided the nation. And, naturally, aside from the metro system which was improved a little, just about everything else stands unused: it was a colossal waste of money which bankrupted the city.
Georgia went Nuts when they were selected to host the Summer Olympics a long time ago saying we were all gonna be Millionaires. Then came the Attack & the Richard Jewel Fiasco, and even before their Estimates were wrong right off the bat. I wonder if they've recouped all the Massive Losses Georgia suffered, even at this late date
Is it? His argument seems to be that anyone attending the game would otherwise be spending the money in the local economy. So it evens out there, but what about the away team spending money in town? Is a city technically not richer having an away team, broadcasters, fans, etc coming into their city to spend money? I worked in the hotel industry and let me tell you, it requires a lot of hotel staff and food to take care of the visiting team. That is just from the games themselves. What about the value brought to a city outside of the stadium? I’m not even a huge fan of sports and I feel a deep connection to other people in my city because of the sports teams. Economists love to consider trade-offs. So it is important to keep in mind stuff like the away team and the intangible benefits as well in our assessment.
I've witnessed two Olympic games in my country and the pattern is always the same: 1. Politians before the games say there is no money for anything and budgets are tight. 2. When Olympics come around all kinds of money is suddenly available and politicians are talking about building lavish facilities. 3. Committees are set up to organize the construction and games. Funny thing is all the old friends of the politicians are on those committees with lavish salaries. (Kind of like watching pigs at a feeding trough) 4. The Olympics come to town and mysteriously everything costs more than they predicted and the games are losing money. 5. The government now has no choice but bail out the Olympics committee WITH YOUR TAX $$$! 6. The games are over and there's this big useless structure that hardly anybody uses and is costing taxpayers money just to maintain. 7. The government is even more broke than before and is now forced to raise taxes. Politicians keep saying how there's no money.
OMFG! The Olympics in Chicago? Are you out of your ever loving mind? About the only kind of "games" you could have in Chicago would be The Running Man.
Public money being spent to benefit the few. This is one of the biggest scams of all times. Public money should be spent to benefit the greatest number of people, high quality roads, wastewater treatment, clean drinking water, education, jobs skills training. These are the investments that drive economies.
Exactly, I feel the Olympics is a HUGE scam, just a huge transfer of wealth. Wasn't Russia only suppose to spend a couple billion but ended up spending around 50 billion on things they don't use. Certain groups got super rich, most got shafted.
We already have clean drinking water but most people buy bottled water hahah. Education has been turned into a scam by the government. Why is it that the lectures on the internet are better than those at school? Why can't I CLEP 80% of courses? Why do we need to waste gas go to a class room why don't the teachers and students hang out on 2nd life, VR Chat, or some other sound MMO?
All Olympics are a waste of money. Only a few have cities have ever profited off of. The people who run the Olympics make out and the leader of the city looks good at the time of getting the Olympics but it is usually the next leader who has to clean up the mess
@@josephmorabito6992 Look at Athens..billion dollar facilities rotting away-never to be used again. How many people practise the "sport" of white water kayacking in Greece? I suspect zero. Plus, the builders who put these structures up usually build them shoddy-and pocket the money.
@@genekelly8467 yes, like I said Olympics are a waste of money. The ioc makes and takes millions. They should be footing the bill. Screw the Olympics no city or country should have to foot the bill for kids game. Money can be spent on much better things
Why not hold the Olympics in the same stadiums every four years or this way there will be no fighting, no wasting taxpayer and funds. Hold them in Greece,
I'm sorry that you are still hurting from that, it really isn't fare that you get stuck with the bill even after all this time. The people in charge would take a pay deduction to make up for their choice to bring the olympics to your city. We here in Utah got lucky and actually made money from the olympics... in fact we are the only ones ever to make money instead of losing money in the history of the olympics... this needs to be changed.
Also remember, NOT A SINGLE stadium/sports complex for ANY reason has come in at the 'projected' cost. Many, if not ALL are 5-10X the estimate. After all, if the true cost was revealed up front, then NOBODY would go for it.
I realize that I'm late to this clip, but you missed the biggest "invisible" rip-off: the massive and expensive improvements to infrastructure necessitated by a new stadium. Streets, water & sewer lines, and emergency services all require gobs of cash to accommodate the new structure and many of these costs will snowball over the span of many years. Also, most of these places are not built anywhere near rail transit, creating new traffic peaks which can cascade across the region during otherwise non-peak periods. At least in DC the owner of the basketball team agreed to build the new arena downtown, atop an existing Metro station. That might have been worth a mention.
A city can spend $5 million on an exploration committee to study a possible bid for hosting the Olympics . That’s just a study. There’s no guarantee that their city will be chosen to host the olympics . What a waste of tax payers money.
The city of Chicago and the state of Illinois should send thank you cards to the IOC for NOT selecting Chicago for the Olympics given the current state of their finances.
You're looking at it the wrong way. They knew it wouldn't have any long-term effect for the city or the common people. It was the connected people that stood to make millions by selling THEIR land to build the venues. They either had the right land or would enact statutes to prevent others from profiting instead of them. Obama did it to help his cronies. This was documented widely at the time.
They'll never do that. Afterall, the leader elite that run that cesspool realize it isn't their money they'd be spending. The only people that would be saddled with the debt would be the poor and middle class with increased taxes. Up in their "Ivory Towers" the Elites would be protected as usual.
I lived in downtown Chicago when the IOC decision was pending and everybody in the city, except politicians, were ecstatic Chicago didn't make the cut!
"Economic stimulus? Thousands of new jobs? Revitalize the local economy?" Yeah right! The only stimulus felt is money disappearing out of your pocket, and reappearing in someone else's!
Taxpayer to Owner: You want us to pay to build your stadium and then charge us to get into it and watch events?! Owner: Yep. Almost all taxpayers but not me: Ok. Bunch of suckers.
You're not clever for opposing a sports stadium. Taxpayers oppose them literally all the time, and give owners the finger. Inform yourself next time before casting judgment on people you don't know.
Any sports team which can pay their employees millions for playing games can afford to build their own stadiums & arenas w/o having local taxpayers cover the costs.
and if they self fund, do you not think that cost is reimbursed by the same taxpayers walking through the turnstiles with their higher ticket prices? Stossel is projecting his own envy.
My hometown of Minneapolis increased the city’s sales tax from 6% to 13% and the state of Minnesota increased payroll taxes from 26% to 32% to pay for US Bank Stadium that the Vikings have only used 18 times since it was built in 2016. We recently had SuperBowl LII (I remember it very well considering that I worked 132 hours that week) and now the Stadium is mostly empty when it’s not football season.
"The Olympics can no more lose money than a man can have a baby." - Jean Drapeau, Montreal mayor 1976. Olympic Stadium budget: $134 million. Actual cost $1.1 billion. In 1976!
Here in Houston the Astrodome is still rotting away because the county doesn’t know what to do with it. It stopped being used after a newer baseball and later football stadiums were built.
"Should have kept Merkel in Pittsburgh where she couldn't have done any damage." Except to those of us here in Pittsburgh! Problem is, most people here loved seeing these "leaders" grace our town with their presence and would probably love to have her. (I was actually there at those protests where the tear gas was fired; more as lone observer than protestor, but I was glad at least someone was standing up.)
What is the biggest rip off is when they are replacing stadiums that aren't even that old. Like the Georgia Dome in Atlanta. Us the taxpayers get stuck having to pay for these monsters and then in less than 20 years they come back to us whining that they need a new stadium again.
dvferyance Atlanta abandoned the Georgia Dome and Turner Field, both of which were built in the 90s. At least Turner Field was turned into a college football stadium. The Georgia Dome was demolished
Even worse, the Braves has Sun Trust Field built with taxpayer money - without any approval from the citizens in Cobb County. There was no ballot, no vote, no nothing on it.
I read that in CA, the last stadium financed with public money was the Padres ballpark. The SF Giants and 49ers built their own stadium. The Giants have paid off their loan that built their ballpark, I think it opened in 2000. The Warriors built their own arena. The LA Rams built their own stadium, with some money from the Chargers. Recently the NFL put Buffalo on notice that their stadium isn't up to NFL standards. You can bet that the Bills owner will blackmail Buffalo to build a new stadium, maybe even in downtown Buffalo.
Canada and the USA should team up with an agreement that ends these subsidies. Problem is right now if Miami won’t build a new arena/stadium someone else will...and owners play cities/states/provinces off one another. Remove that leverage and suddenly the subsidies should dry up.
Sports stadiums - whether for local teams or the Olympic games - are one of the stupidest things that government spends money on. There's absolutely no reason that you can't rely on the private sector to provide sports stadiums and events. If sports teams from different countries want to have an international competition, they can easily do that.
I can't speak for other summits, but I was going to the University of Pittsburgh when the G20 came to town. It was the ridiculous amount of police presence and overreaction that caused the most problems, not looters.
Last year when the G20 came to my city, Buenos Aires, there were bomb threats every day for 2 weeks prior to the event. The entire city centre was shut off and people could barely move around. Fortunately nothing serious happened and the event itself went pretty smoothly, but for everyone else it was quite annoying, not to mention there was no tourism for it whatsoever.
If the Olympics were held in Chicago, I would have opened a little kiosk. The item sold there: bullet proof vests with the Olympics logo on the front. It would have been a gold mine.
So true and I don't like John Stossel. But right is right. We had the Super Bowl in Miami recently and all the hotels were packed. My coffee shop was within 3 miles of 14 hotels. Hard Rock Stadium 12 minutes away. Business impact, zero. The NFL has found a way to keep most of the money by sponsoring events. The Olympics do the same. No impact on the local businesses. It's all a big lie. If it had been true I would have doubled or tripled my sales, but sales were same as before. So if any of these con men show up to your city, don't fall for the lies your local politicians will tell you.
One big thing stos does not mention is that stadium owners buy options to buy all the buildings surrounding the stadium site before the stadiums get approved which makes them billions. Owning the team is a rich man's trophy where if few teams exist or ever come up for sale, its a suckers game to get a new billionaire to buy it for even more. Sports teams and stadiums are scams.
W B The fact is there is one proven way to end poverty: give people money. It's so simple it sounds crazy. If we're throwing money around anyway (this video is about subsidizing stadiums) we can throw it at the people who might actually a) need it and b) spend it within our economy. Call it trickle-up economics :)
"who in their right mind can support welfare for the rich?" They do it all the time and a ton of gullible people support them such as bailouts, green subsidies and economic stimulus packages
One Brazilian economist put it perfectly what's all about hosting a colossal event like the Olympics or the Soccer World Cup: "Stealing a couple of billions is a huge crime. But out of like 80 billions? A glitch." That's it. A limitless kickback bonanza at the expense of blackholing public debt.
Same stuff happened where I live. Owner threatened to pull the team to another city and politicians and the public caved and paid for a new stadium. Left us massively in debt
The reason why Obama-Lama-Ding-dong failed to get the Olympics in Chicago was because the Olympic committee who were staying at a fancy hotel were denied entry because Obama-Lama-Ding-dong and the secret service were visiting the hotel and the committee could not get in their rooms. This flat out pissed off some of the committee members and in retaliation denied Barrack & Michael to have the Olympics at Murder Town Chicago. Hahahahaha !!! Thanks IOC you did good!
Now look at what happened to Rio after 2016. Those people who were cheering on the streets are now about to eat their own government alive for that boondoggle.
I lived in Atlanta in the years building up to the Olympics. On the two weeks the games were held, the downtown streets were deserted. The locals went out of town on vacation after hearing the media for months predicting gridlocked traffic, etc. The economic boom was elsewhere in the country I suppose. I actually was able to drive from North metro area straight into downtown within 20 minutes, and parked right outside the Georgia Dome to go see an event. This was a commute that on a good day takes 45 minutes because of traffic.
No one wants to go to a stadium with a bank name or any other corp. Name on it. No one. To those stadiums, you don't care about the people. Those corps. Know it too.
700 million to remodel key arena in Seattle cant imagine what they charge to build a brand new stadium. then they will proceed to charge hundreds of dollars for tickets that the company profits from 100%
You'd think even leftists would want uber-rich billionaires to pay for these stadiums themselves. 99% of the time they have enough money to either finance it themselves or at least put a down payment on one and pay the bank back over the next few years. As long as tax payers aren't paying for it I'd be happy to see new parks go up for my favorite teams.
So many of the leftists are rich also, so do not want to have their Money spent when they can fleece the masses. Check out the wealth of the; Clintons, Sanders, Obama's, etc.! Definitely not the poor, and they do not share!
I'm a resident of Arlington Tx. I'm having to pay for the Cowboys Stadium and now the Rangers new ballpark. I'm sure by the time one is paid off they'll want a new one.
The problem I have is knocking down some of these stadiums after 20 or so years. Like Turner field in Atlanta or Globe life park in Texas. Here Shea stadium was used for almost 50 years before Citi Field was built. Yankee stadium was historic and they knocked it down with a crappy new version of it.
Call me an optimist, but I can see in the near future where cities are going to have little to choice but to say no to building sports venues and convention centers just because they are struggling or about to struggle financially to pay its bills thanks to ballooning pension payouts and rising municipal costs. Not to mention the cost of building a new sports stadium is skyrocketing into the multiple billions.
Sir, I hope you are right in that politicians will grow some brains (and maybe other body parts) and tell the billionaire sports team owners and others that it just is not worth it, and they will not put ONE PENNY of taxpayers' money into a scheme that will clearly benefit those who do not need such a benefit at all.
Yeah right...tell that to the people of Pontiac, Michigan with that white elephant euphemistically called the Silver Dome. Ask them if they EVER got their money out of that. Those stadiums NEVER "pay for themselves." If they did, they why wouldn't the owners of the teams build them and thus reap all of the profits for themselves. Football is the worst of them all. Ten home games (two exhibition and eight regular season) per year. The other 355 days (356 during leap years) it for all practical purposes sits fallow. Pays for themselves in less that a decade...uh huh... Guessing you work for a Consultant that pitches these boondoggles to Sucker Cities.
Our local baseball team plays in raggedy field on the outskirts of the ghetto, and has never had more than 100 people show up to their games- and this includes the players. The field still brings together the community; and we usually have to clean up the fields before the games from trash because our city can’t afford it.
Billions have been spent on stadiums and facilities for the game over the years. Many are left in ruins because once the games are done the people and $$ vanish. Many times it will actually attract crime because of the influx of potential victims. It's like spending a million $ for the privilege of losing 2.
in 1976 - Bi-Centennial Year - I was on a wandering trip from the UK, and stopped in New Orleans. The Superdome had not long been completed, but had no major league franchise. They were making more money from the tours I went on than the games. They had a random mix of seat colours throughout to make it look like the stadium was full during televised games, when it was almost empty. After all that has happened to it, I wonder if it ever paid its way.
They're right about how sporting facilities dont really create jobs. I was working at the local hockey arena running the concession stands. games were on wednesdays, fridays and saturdays but only two games every couple of weeks. But for my 2nd job at a pizza place, I couldnt be given full time hours because I needed to keep wednesdays, fridays and saturdays open, so my job at the arena was really holding me back. There were also about 1 or 2 other events each month such as concerts etc, and that made it harder to keep that job
Rubycon99 Amen to that. I remember overhearing one of the big wigs for the Minnesota Vikings bitching about how their newly-built stadium, which had been open for only two days, was ugly and he wanted it torn down and to start anew. Keep in mind that Minnesota taxpayers were bankrolling the stadium’s construction too and still are with even higher taxes than ever before.
In Toronto, they built Sky Dome Center, at a cost well over $350 Million dollars, at tax payers expense...then the government sold the center for a mere $12 Million dollars, to a National Telecommunications giant (ROGERS)..so much for your tax dollars benefiting you Eh!
Los Angeles gets 2028. I doubt there will be a lot of waste because most of the venues that will be used, have been in existence for years and will continue to be used ie Staples Center, LA Rams stadium, Stub Hub Center, UCLA, Memorial Coliseum, etc.
Los Angeles is the rare exception where the Olympics can be held without needing a major building boom to host them. I grew up in LA and the '84 Olympics were amazing, we went to a couple of events and the city was full of awestruck foreign tourists. LA could host the games again at the drop of a hat. It's a shame we have to wait so long for them to return, Can't wait to take my kids to the games
@@jimcovington8022 I built and tan the McD at Museum complex. Millions were spent in that whole area. Meant nothing when over. Traffic jams didnt occur. McD set numerous world records. Wasnt worth the investmemt.
In Edmonton where I'm from . The tax payer of Edmonton spent over six hundred million dollars for a new Arena for a billionaire owner Daryl Katz . Citizens of Edmonton get nothing in return other than that the Edmonton Oilers must stay in the city for about 30 years . The taxpayers of Edmonton got screwed over in this deal .
Most basketball arenas also host hockey teams i.e. Madison Square Garden, United Center or Verizon Center. I also like how my favorite baseball team the Giants built there stadium without any government aid and it has been rated among the best ballparks in the MLB.
The only reason you built that stadium and didn't pay for the land was because of the state of California giving it to you and the tax breaks to leave New York don't act like without politics you'd still be in New York
We were told the same about the Pontiac SilverDome,... look at it now,.. opened in 1975, demolished in 2017. 56 million to build, and 18 million to demolish.
I live in Pittsburgh when the G20 came , 2009, they also let a lot of people out of jail to make room for the hundreds of protesters they thought they'd arrest. They made like 10 arrests, then had to hurry to fill the jail again, it holds 2800. I was lucky enough to have court and get sentenced to 9 months when any other time I probably would've gone home. My lawyer told me that.
This happened recently in Cleveland, the Q Stadium was in a plan to be upgrade with millions of dollars being used to upgrade it. Many Clevlanders were pissed and they made resistance on suggesting to put the money into the poorer parts of Cleveland, but nope they still updated the Q
For the record, the San Francisco thing was a best case scenario. Houston lost it's football team because the city wouldn't upgrade the Astrodome then the baseball team threatened to leave so they got a new stadium and then Houston had to bid for a new football team and promise the new stadium. Now the Astrodome (self proclaimed 8th wonder of the world) has been sitting there unused for two decades slowly falling apart.
A percentage of the big money allocated to sports stadiums is siphoned off to Cayman Island accounts for the politicians that approve of them. That is the real motivations for the politicians. That is why is will continue.
The Utah 2002 Olympic facilities have made money and stayed active and not mothballed. It seems that when they didn’t build a lot of new things and kept the new ones in places that they’d be used again and again. Now SLC is getting Olympics again in 2030.
The Grand Priz always kills business in downtown St Pete Fl, we suffer all week. The RNC in 2008 was a super bust, every table empty downtown. Only lonely protesters, it was kind of ironic, more bike cops than customers.
It is even worse than you point out here. In many cases a portion of the land is acquired through eminent domain, meaning individuals are forced to sell their property to make way for a sports arena they wanted nothing to do with. It has been used in Dallas, Atlanta, New York, LA, and DC just off the top of my head. In Atlanta, they forced the destruction of the city's oldest African-American Baptist Church, which tells you something about priorities.
It's one thing for a sports team owner to ask the government to deal with roads, water, sewer, and the like, while he pays for the costs of buying land and constructing the stadium. That's no different that a housing developer building houses, while the city builds the roads, puts in sewer and water lines, and installs the water meters. But, in the 1990s, the Art Institue of Chicago had a series of fall exhibitions, each with a different Impressionist artist, including Monet, Renoir, and Degas. They generally ran from Labor Day weekend to Thangsgiving weekend. In any given year, the amount of economic activity and tax revenue generated by the exhibit was greater than what was generated by the Cubs, White Sox Bears, Bulls, and Blackhawks, combined. Clearly, government support of the arts will create more impact in terms of economic activity and tax revenue than government support of sports. If I were looking to open a fine dining restaurant in Chicago, I would expect more business from people going to the Art Intitute, the Chicago Symphony, or the Lyric Opera than from pro or college sports.
