Excavating for a mine

[cyrano]

And while I'm reading the paper, which is alternately full of stories about Nancy Pelosi and the 49ers, can somebody tell me why San Francisco should be desperate to hold onto a professional sports team?
It is my impression that (whatever it might have been like forty years ago) now a city makes millions or billions of dollars in concessions--through building new stadia or forfeiture of property taxes or any number of other toothsome bonuses--to a sport club or some other city makes those offers, and then the citizens end up footing a huge bill for what does not seem to me to be a good financial return.
Is it just the prestige of being able to say 'We host a professional sports team'? Or is there some hidden benefit that I'm not seeing here?

(As an aside, I am ambivalent. If the 49ers move to Santa Clara then we inherit all the traffic and chaos and stupid which I expect will bloat geometrically with the Great America traffic and chaos and stupid. If the 49ers stay in San Francisco then there's a chance we'll end up with the 2016 Olympics, and the traffic and the chaos and the stupid.)

Comments

[kirbyk.livejournal.com]

Generally, you've got it. I've read detailed studies on whether or not professional sports teams actually can do what they say - revitalize downtowns, provide jobs, and so forth - and the math generally works out relatively neutral. Local sports dollars are largely coming from the same pool as other entertainment, so if they didn't go to the 49ers games they'd go to the movies or the ballet or whatnot, which also employ people. It's largely a giant corporate hornswaggle to transfer money from voters to rich team owners.

There is some civic pride, but how many dollars is that really worth?

If nobody gave away public money to sports teams, the net effect would be that they'd probably move more often, consolidate in the most profitable (ie largest) metropolitan areas, and make less money for the owners, which means less money for the players. People don't seem to be opposed to that (except maybe in marginal markets, like Kansas City or Milwaukee, that would lose their teams.) There's almost no corrolation between ticket prices and player salaries in the first place - that's driven by econ 101 supply and demand curves, and teams largely charge what people are willing to pay.

There'll still be plenty of profitability in pro sports without these tax freebies. They're a scam.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

You're so smart. I'm glad you're part of my brain trust.