Quote:
Originally Posted by nfotiu
Tax breaks are one thing, but are there good examples of government directly subsidizing buildings to be used by private companies? Worth mentioning too is that public money spent on sports franchises has been demonstrated to provide about the worst economic value of all public spending. That money doesn't typically get paid back in things like increased tax revenue, job creation, and a good chunk of it leaves the community. The only real value is the mostly intangible value a sports franchise brings to the community.
The whole economics of sports is so distasteful. The most simplistic way to look at it is why should tax payers have to pay higher taxes so that 20 hockey players can make 70 million per year instead of having the team pay for their own building and paying the players 50 million a year. I have no issue with a hockey player making 10 million a year if that's what the public is willingly paying towards that entertainment. I do have a problem when 2-3 million of that comes from taxes that we are forced to pay (not to mention the $60 a year every cable subscriber pays for the RSN that 80-90% of them don't even watch).
But each city is not a vacuum and they have to compete against the other cities who are willing to subsidize their buildings. I just wish all the levels of government would get together and agree to stop this madness.
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I'm not sure on the building subsidies, but the saying "same sh#t different pile" applies here. In reality, it makes no difference if it's a tax break, subsidy on something else or a building, it's still either money going out or not coming in that as you mention costs the average citizen tax payer dollars.
I also don't agree that it's been wildly proven that sports investment is the worst. I'm not saying it's not, I don't know, but people on one side of the argument often just throw that out, and provide no back up. The best attempt at backing that argument I ever saw came from someone who posted some academic papers making this claim, but those papers had 0 math or business case attached to them backing it up. I think where often those thoughts go wrong is they focus on the employment created by sports teams (and bulk of payroll spent) going to athletes who spend little time in the city they are employed in, and therefore don't spend their "salaries" in the region.
While that is true, it's certainly not where the bulk of the benefit of a sports team benefit would be created for a city. Sports teams certainly don't create value for a community because they employee high paid athletes.
The bottom line, is it's impossible for the Calgary Flames not to create SOME value and benefit for this city. It will come from 4 main pillars IMO:
1. Direct employement from the team - Not the players, but the jobs created to run the team and facility.
2. In-Direct business creation and employement - The number of business that survive and exist because of game / event traffic (Restaurants and Bars that require the event to drive people into their establishments, stores like the Fanatic)
3. Quality of life benefits - what I mean here, is the benefit the region get in being an appealing place to live because the city can offer things that people want (like sports teams, concerts, art, plays, etc...) and therefore people want to locate their businesses or offices here and create jobs.
4. Charitable contribution back to the community - Flames foundation etc..
As you can see, as you go down the above list, the benefits start to become more arms length, and therefore more subjective and difficult to measure.......but a benefit to the city and region still surely exists.
Now, what I will say, is I have no idea what the above is worth, and don't pretend to. It might be very minimal, minimal to the point that any substantial public money towards a new arena or the Flames in any fashion might not make sense. But the fact remains, the city benefits from the Flames, at least a little, and because of that should have some "stake" in making them viable to stay. What level of "stake" and whether some of the numbers being thought of on this arena project are even reasonable, that is certainly another question and up for debate.