This is our moment.
Our Super Bowl moment.
Sunday brings us
America’s most-watched sporting event.
Atlanta's politicians are excited that:
The world’s best
come to the world’s greatest stage
to give us what they’ve got.
And what will Atlanta give?
We’ll turn on the lights
and put on a show.
And pay for part of that show
with their taxpayers’ money,
hundreds of millions of dollars which
they gave to billionaire Arthur Blank,
owner of Atlanta’s football team,
to get him to build this stadium.
A showplace that Atlanta’s former mayor called,
"simply the best facility in the world."
Do the people of Atlanta at least get a
cut of the restaurant
and merchandising revenue?
No,
Falcons control all the money from parking,
restaurants, and merchandising.
Sweet deals like that are not unusual.
Twelve teams have actually turned a profit
on stadium subsidies alone.
Yes, they received more money
than it cost to build their facilities.
So taxpayers,
most of whom never attend a game,
subsidize billionaires.
Seems like a scam to me.
I don’t fault Arthur Blank for grabbing the money.
I even like the guy.
Blank improved our lives by founding Home Depot.
We’re both stutterers.
Here we are posing with actress Emily Blunt
at a stuttering charity event.
If politicians are giving money away,
Blank’s partners would consider him irresponsible
not to take it.
The problem is the politicians giving away your money.
I get why they do it.
They like going to games,
like telling voters, “I brought a team to our town.”
Here’s the mayor of Las Vegas.
We are so ready for major league sports in this town.
She and her political buddies
funneled 700 million tax dollars
to the owners of the Oakland Raiders
to get them to move the Raiders to Vegas.
Watch the politicians applaud themselves
while the governor signs the bills.
I’m glad this reporter put this question to the mayor:
Why should there be one cent of public money
when you have two guys who could pay for this
themselves?
I think it really is a benefit to us that
really could spill over into something.
Spill over into something?
Politicians always claim giving taxpayer money
to rich team owners will spill over to everybody.
And yes, the well-connected people
who pose with the shovels
at ground breaking ceremonies
do collect some of what spills,
but the way they justify the cost to taxpayers
is bunk.
This was a terrific investment.
They always call stadium subsidies good investments,
but it’s not a good investment.
It’s a bad one.
Politicians, teams, and stadium promoters
all highlight this extra business activity
that occurs when the football team plays at home.
But this happens fewer than a dozen days a year.
The stadium is also used for some concerts
and soccer games,
but most days, not much happens here.
Economists who study stadium subsidies say
little or none of the money makes it back
to taxpayers.
The problem is the seen versus the unseen.
We see the people at the games
and extra customers at some businesses
on game days.
Stadium promoters show us this.
But looking at this means we miss the unseen cost.
The unseen cost is that those people
would otherwise be spending their money elsewhere
in the local communities.
At the local bar there’s one less bartender.
There was one less waitress hired at another restaurant.
A movie theater that had one less theater full.
Right, a thousand little cuts.
But those ordinary businesses
don’t have the clout
that the big boys have.
Welcome to Super Bowl 53.
So, Sunday,
when Atlanta politicians brag about their stadium:
We are Atlanta.
And clueless media claim this created jobs.
4000 thousand jobs created to do this.
Let’s also remember all the jobs they destroyed
and the taxpayer money they squandered.