[Lanny_McDonald]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

Corporations provide ancillary benefit too.

No one is arguing that.

Look at how many businesses have gone under downtown from the collapse in office jobs.

And how many people gave a rip? How many people cried over the spilled milk of the lost money used to lure some of those businesses here or the incentives given to them to remain?

My point is corporations provide more tangible benefits than a sports team. It's not particularly close.

In some regards, yes. In others, no. One of the things that is very difficult to quantify is the civic pride, community spirit, and the uniting force of a local sports team. What is the tangible benefit of that? To me, this is like trying to explain the cost of reputation to the executive of any company when you're talking about risk mitigation. The hard dollars and numbers are easy for them to understand, but the value of reputation is a much more difficult concept for them to understand. It is these unifying forces that a sports team provides which is that immeasurable value that we have to consider. As important as a corporation is to the city, I've never seen a big corporation pull a city together and get people from all walks of life, take pride in the same thing, in the name of the city where they live. That's a pretty valuable thing IMO.

Using incentives to keep large employers is more financially worthwhile than incentives for sports teams.

So you're saying it was okay to continue to throw money at losers like Sears or Zellers, because they were big employers? I think there is a balance, and you have to place a value on the company. I think you are blinded by your lack of understanding of major league sports in thinking the value from these franchises is small. I think you have read a few too many of those reports that suggest building facilities is a losing proposition and extrapolated that to me operations is also a losing proposition. I think you would be surprised at the tax revenues generated by the Flames, and the shortfall we would feel if they were removed from the tax base.

If incentives for sports teams provided anywhere near the benefit some claim, wouldn't cities be tripping over themselves to lure sports teams?

Cities are tripping all over themselves to lure teams away from each other. You have to appreciate that there are very few of these teams, and the commitment to building a viable facility is huge, so that limits the market, but the back-and-forth happens every year. For example, Justin football:

Oakland Raiders moved from Oakland to Los Angeles, then back to Oakland, and are soon to be off to Las Vegas.

Los Angeles Rams moved to St. Louis, and then back to Los Angeles.

San Francisco 49ers just moved to Santa Clara.

Baltimore Colts moved to Indianapolis, spurning an expansion team in the NFL.

Cleveland Browns moved to Baltimore, spurning an expansion team in Cleveland.

Houston Oilers moved to Memphis, spurning an expansion team in Houston.

San Diego Chargers moved to Los Angeles.

All of these were a desire of a city to have, or reclaim, a team. And all of them have resulted, or will result, in new stadiums. The value of having these teams is high, and the municipalities know it. This is why they continue to build arenas and stadiums, in hope of coercing one to come to their fair city.