Hard Sell

Patrick

Patrick is a mid-40 year old geek with an undergraduate degree in mathematics and a master's degree in Information Systems. Nothing he says here has anything to do with the official position of his employer or any other institution.

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12 Responses

  1. Mike Schilling says:

    While Ballmer was quite willing to pay 2GB for the team, there’s no reason to think that, if it had only cost him 1.7GB, he would have been then willing to put 300MB into an arena. The former was the cost of outbidding the competition, which made him a winner the other would mean paying for what team owners generally get for free, which would make him a sucker. Wait until a city that has a shot at a major sports franchise says “no dice unless you pay for your own fishing stadium” before you declare the era of giveaways over.Report

  2. Will Truman says:

    Seems to me that Seattle needs to gussy itself up to attract a team in a way that Los Angeles doesn’t (to keep a second one).Report

    • Jesse Ewiak in reply to Will Truman says:

      Actually, I think it’s more likely that the NBA owners like Seattle around as a possible place to move to extract that sweet, sweet taxpayer money from their current homes like NFL ownership enjoys the spectre of a move to LA being held every marginal NFL team.Report

  3. Troublesome Frog says:

    Has there ever been a time when city officials worked out a sports stadium deal with a team of professional investors and without getting taken to the cleaners?Report

  4. Glyph says:

    Bill the Cat > Gene Simmons > Miley Cyrus > Steve BallmerReport

  5. Saul DeGraw says:

    From what I’ve been hearing voters are turning against funding sports stadiums and events like the Olympics.Report

  6. Damon says:

    Yeah, so I support stadium construction though higher taxes on something via a “public private” partnership, then go to the stadium, pay high fees to park, eat, entrance, etc. and it’s “good for the taxpayer”? BS.

    They should just end those damn deals.Report

    • North in reply to Damon says:

      Politicians seem to think that the voters will toss them out if they play hardball with sports team owners, alas. Believe me I despise it as a Minneapolis resident looking bitterly at our Baseball and now football stadium boondoggles. I don’t make idiot sports fans pay for my hobbies.Report