Oakland lawmakers have stood firm, refusing to pay a dime in public money toward a new stadium for the Raiders. Because this is how things work now, rather than obtain private financing, or sell the team, or continue to play in the Coliseum, owner Mark Davis is waiting to be wooed by relocation options. And Las Vegas is throwing itself at him. A proposal by 22nd-richest man in the world, casino magnate and owner of the Las Vegas Review-Journal Sheldon Adelson would fund a domed stadium in Las Vegas with $750 million in municipal bonds. According to Bloomberg, that would be a new record for public contributions to an NFL stadium, surpassing the $620 million in tax money that went to build Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
Owners of major professional sports franchises are a lot like spoiled, petulant children: give them an inch, and they’ll take a mile even as they bitch and moan about not getting more. Since not every major American city has an NFL team (and more than a few want one), owners have learned to use that scarcity as leverage to extract (more accurately, extort) the best deal possible from their current home city.
Oakland won’t commit tax dollars to building a start-of-the-art Palais de sport for the Raiders? That might be a principled (and admirable) stand…but it may well result in losing their peripatetic NFL franchise to Las Vegas. Sin City, which has done everything short of showing up at Mark Davis’s front door with a pair of knee pads, a half-dozen Swedish prostitutes, and a kilo of Bolivian marching powder.
The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. Thank you very much.
- Gordon Gekko, Wall Street
What’s about to happen to Oakland is symptomatic of what’s wrong with professional sports in America these days. Not even the stench of corruption is enough to keep cities from pursuing owners who avarice and greed are exceeded only by their lack of scruples. They’ve created a system in which they can squeeze their team’s home city for subsidies few other business could hope to be awarded…because if they don’t get it at home, they’ll go somewhere else.
Any other business, when denied a public subsidy, would look at alternate means of raising the funds needed to move forward. The Raiders? They’ll do what they’ve done before- move to where the grass is greener- this time to Las Vegas, which is looking at using $750 MILLION to subsidize a new domed stadium for the team.
The richest one percent of this country owns half our country’s wealth, five trillion dollars. One-third of that comes from hard work, two-thirds comes from inheritance, interest on interest accumulating to widows and idiot sons and what I do, stock and real estate speculation. It’s bullshit. You got ninety percent of the American public out there with little or no net worth. I create nothing. I own. We make the rules, pal. The news, war, peace, famine, upheaval, the price per paper clip. We pick that rabbit out of the hat while everybody sits out there wondering how the hell we did it. Now you’re not naive enough to think we’re living in a democracy, are you buddy? It’s the free market. And you’re a part of it.
- Gordon Gekko
Ponder that for a moment. Three-quarters of a BILLION dollars of public money- tax money paid by residents and businesses in Las Vegas- going to build a gleaming Palais du futbol Americain that will sit empty most of the time.
I admire Oakland’ principled stand, refusing to be extorted by the owner of an NFL franchise accustomed to using other people’s money to make money. In the end, though, it will likely prove a Pyrrhic victory, because their beloved Raiders will end up moving to Sin City.
The biggest part of the problem (after the rampant greed and associated corruption) is that taxpayers are complicit in allowing extortion by team owners. If voters revolted at the idea of using public money to subsidize (and in some cases assume the risks) of a private business, the environment would change overnight. Fans don’t want to lose their teams, though…no do elected officials wants to have to go before voters and explain why they allowed their team to move.
Don’tcha just love capitalism…or, more accurately, oligarchy?
