Falcons owner wants new stadium to replace decrepit Georgia Dome

Not if my federal law is passed. Then, horror of horrors, professional sports franchises will be forced to succeed or fail, sink or swim, to build beautiful new facilities or play in shitty old ones, strictly on their own success in the financial marketplace. Like the huge, huge majority of all other businesses in the U.S.

 

I'm curious as to the designated lifespan of a stadium. The IRS has depreciation ranges for everything on the planet, and I wonder where stadiums fall into that equation.

 

But how would it apply to stadiums "Owned" by the taxpayers, but "managed" by the team. Most are/

 

I don't disagree necessarily with Starman but it's not a case of building just the stadium. What about the attendant infrastructure? Would you make the team pay for things like upgrading the roads, adding off-ramps, etc to the new stadium? (Like the Ottawa Senators were forced to do when they built the then named Corel Centre out in the middle of a farmer's field)

I know it's fashionable to get all worked up about sports teams getting taxpayers' money but hell, large multinational corporations get tax breaks and subsidies all the time.

We call them corporate welfare bums.

 

I guess that depends on the length and amount of the tax used to fund said stadium. If D-Bag Memorial Park costs $200 million to build, and Joe and Josie Taxpayer cough up $89 every time they rent a car, at what point is the stadium bought and paid for?

 

Of course, this would force Ludacris to replace the then decrepit "Fantasy" song, along with every other rapper who has ever mentioned the Georgia Dome.

 

I agree, but the idiot taxpayers have historically had plenty of help from sportswriters, who are all too willing to be cheerleaders for new stadiums, touting incredibly bogus "economic impact" studies, etc.

 

I'm still pissed that Atlanta built a beautiful Olympic stadium and then, a month later, knocked down half of it to make Turner Field.

 

It's racist to deny Michael Vick a new stadium to demonstrate his ability to re-define the game of football

 

In most states, businesses get tax breaks for either coming to town or expanding their local operation.

Usually the tax incentives include a rebate on property taxes. In some cases, sales taxes on purchases of equipment are rebated/exempt.

Is it corporate welfare? Perhaps. But if you don't offer incentives, you lose the tax revenue from a few hundred (or more) jobs and the reciprocal tax revenue that would come from the employees' spending. And that amount of money is always more than what the incentives themselves.

I applaud teams that privately finance all or most of their stadiums. However, in some cases, the stadiums and arenas aren't just used by pro sports teams. They're used for concerts, conventions and other events that bring people to those cities. Those patrons then pump additional tax revenue into the communities. It only makes sense for governments to invest in them.

 

But how much money did Atlanta save by doing it that way?
No one needs an 80,000 seat baseball stadium.

 

Let the Falcons play in Turner Field.

And I don't buy this stuff about domes degrading quicker than non-domed stadiums. The seating, the walls inside the building, other structures are protected from the elements, and thus you'd think such items have longer lifespans.

So much for The House That Deion Thinks He Built.