not a fan, think they are overpayed and run by a group that wants to extort as much money as they can from the public
force the cities to spend more money than should be allowed to keep a team and threaten to move if they don't get their way..........next time you see the colts play at home see what 725 million dollars to build and about 30 million more per year to maintain than budgeted (oops we forgot it would cost more then the dome) dumba**es. This was to be a big moneymaker and something Indy really needed.
If you come to Indy for any reason you will pay one of the highest Hotel, taxi and food taxes anywhere in the country....................THANKS FOR HELPING PAY FOR THE NEW STADIUM
I would have been more than happy to help load their crap in a mayflower trailer and move them anywhere but here
With all pro sports many timeouts and calls are for commercial breaks and just read this past week that the TV dictates that the Colts will play the Patriots during sweeps week every year......... BULL SH*T
Now Jim Irsay is a Billionaire. Doubt he has ever had to work a real job a day in his life, Daddy bought the team and left it to him.
Now how many more games can the Colts win this year?
Politics at work. For ages Jesse Ventura in MN wouldn't fund new stadiums for the Vikes or the Twinkies, now a new governor, new arenas. How much of our TARP money went to Citibank
after they spent millions for the naming rights for the new stadium for the Mets? Ask the city of Baltimore how well Camden Yards "revitalized" that area, or Detroit and the new ballpark there.
Then we have the trickle down effect. The rhetoric of the owners and the politicians would have you believe that a new taxpayer funded stadium will "revitalize" an area to an extant that people will come. And smaller cities are falling for it. Elmira, NY, was one such city. We were promised an AHL hockey team while the taxpayer funding was being put in place to build the First Arena. After the funding was set and the construction began, the teams owners found excuses to not buy into the AHL, but instead went the cheaper route and bought into the UHL.
While the politicians of Elmira were making promises of "revitalization" the area landlords were raising rents with the expectations of businesses wanting to jump on the bandwagon of being close the arena and putting in restaurants and bars and the such. The rents became unaffordable and the businesses which were there, left. No restaurants or bars came because the rent went through the roof. This area has been economically repressed since the flood of '73, when a lot of the businesses closed in downtown and decided not to open again. All new construction is happening ten miles away, near the mall, restaurants and stores are going there, not moving into the old style department store buildings which are near the arena.
Now with the arena still being funded by taxpayers, the property taxes have increased to the cover the costs, the parking meters in front of the arena and all those area store fronts still exists and the cost on them have gone up. The nearby parking garage has seen a rate increase. In the meantime, anything but "revitalization" has happened. Store fronts are still empty. People are still going to the mall. It's been five or six years, but nothing great has happened as far as making downtown great again, like it was back in the day. For the politicians and the owners of the teams it's all a lie which hasn't played out in the real world. Sport Illustrated did a nice article on this some time ago looking at areas like that which surrounds Camden Yard all the way down to lowly little venues like 30,000 populated Elmira, NY.
As for the hotel fees, don't even get me going on that. Because of Watkins Glen International, and the fact that Schuyler County, where the track is actually located, doesn't have enough hotel rooms to accomodate the number of people who come to watch the NASCAR race, the hotel tax is spread to the three neighboring counties. And Schuyler County, where the track is actually located, doesn't get the biggest share of said tax and is still the second poorest county in the state of NY. Even though the track brings in an estimated $300M worth sales tax each year. Even though Schuyler County and Watkins Glen spent millions hooking the track, which is seven miles from the Village, to the municipal sewer and water, even though there's enough property there to drill several wells and dig several septic systems, all because the France family, which is a billionaire family, threatened to take the NASCAR race away from the track (which the France family owns, by the way.)
As to the athletes being overpaid? My way of thinking has always been that if someone wants to pay you the money to do what you do, then why not take it? I mean, if someone came along and offered me a six or seven figure a year salary to work on cars, I'd be stupid not to jump at it wouldn't I? Would I be overpaid? Maybe so, but I wouldn't be so stupid as to stand there and say, "I'm not worth it, so just pay me the mininum." I'm not going to begrudge pro-athletes the money, especially NFL players, whose life expectancy isn't the same as another healthy man of the same age. When the commentators say the such-and-such is putting his body on the line to make a play, the person making that statement is usually right. We as the fans usually don't see the effects of that play when the pro NFL athlete retires and is off the field. Effects many have after having too many concussions, or spinal damage which doesn't allow a man to walk like other men in their 50s, or fingers which are so damaged a man can't hold a fork without some kind of aid. All because they wanted the money or loved the game? Or is it a love of the game which brought the money? Because if you didn't love something so much to stay good at it would the money have come? Not all are like that, but some are.
You also have to take into account those athletes who employ others with some of that money. Not just the lawyers, accountants, and agents, plus all the staff those may have, but in the charitable foundations some will set up.
