Anyone who thinks the taxpayer should be paying for building new stadiums should spend a little more time studying the state of America the rest of us deal with. Build all the stadiums all you want. But pay for them yourself.
I lay most of the blame for this on the sport leagues, who helped the owners perfect the art of playing one city or region against another. Had the leagues either not condoned or shrugged at this kind of hard-nosed bargaining, we might never have seen local leaders dangling financial goodies in front of owners or engaging in the one-upmanship that so often comes when a team decides its old home wasn’t quite good enough (never mind the total disregard and disrespect for the long-suffering fans).
Team owners and sports leagues during the past 30 years have proven themselves masters of plundering the public coffers. America’s mayors and governors need to catch up. It should have happened a long time ago.
This column was provided by Bloomberg News.