Falcons owner wants new stadium to replace decrepit Georgia Dome

What happened in Seattle is that the football stadium was approved directly by he voters of Washington. Referendum 48. On the other hand, the baseball stadium lost in a referendum but after the Mariners reached the ALCS in 1995 (beating the Yankees in the divisional round), Seattle politicians put together a deal. If Seattle residents were unhappy they had the oppoortunity to vote out those who hoisted the stadium upon them. If they didn't vote them out (and I'm not going to bother looking up who voted for the stadium and then won or lost in their next elections) then they must not be too upset. If they did vote them out, then they got their say.

So, first off it's inaccurate to say that Seattle residents got stuck with TWO stadiums they didn't want. The football stadium referendum passed. And it was a state-wide referendum, so the whole state is paying for it, not just Seattle residents.

Bottom line, the people get plenty of say.

 

One problem with the referendums is that if the people in power are for a stadium, 90 percent (or more) of the ``information'' regarding the issue comes from its backers. In the Cowboys example, the second paragraph of the economic impact study says the reasearch firm didn't do an actual analysis (there wasn't time for that because Jerry Jones pushed Arlington to rush the item into the November ballot) and instead used numbers and data provided by ... the Cowboys. Not surprisingly, the study found that the stadiunm would make a huge profit. That little tidbit barely got a sentence in one story in the paper and was not heard from again. Meanwhile, voters were flooded by slick direct mailings telling them that stadium would allow the city to improve the roads and build new parks, etc. The media backed the party line, mostly because the opposition didn't have the money to get its message out. Again not surprisingly, the referendum passed.

 

Exactly. You get nothing but hot-air boilerplate bullshit about what an incredible gold mine the new stadium is going to be. (Which it is, for the franchise owners.)

 

AA, I don't disagree at all. LA's status on the national landscape doesn't change one iota with the loss of the NFL. However, what happens to the status of Green Bay if the Packers relocated? (I understand this will likely never happen, but I'm just trying to use it as an example.)

Green Bay's existence on a national level ceases to exist.

The same goes for Jacksonville.

 

So? So Jacksonville doesn't show up on a bottom screen ticker, or byline. Who cares? Are they missing out on tourism? Or is it just the hurt feelings of the locals, because they aren't "big time" anymore?

 

Funny how the foofs for public stadium construction are always quick to bring up the "prestige" and "community pride" attendant to having a major-league franchise in town, yet the owners never hesitate for a second to deprive the community of all that prestige, pride and team spirit, by moving the team out of town if they can make $10 more profit anywhere else.

Owners look on fans, communities and taxpayers, as dimwit dupes, sheep to be sheared, cows to be milked, and cattle to be led to the slaughter.

 

Maybe my words were misinterpreted. I am opposed to publicly funded stadiums. Hell, even the local MLS team is dropping the majority of the money on the stadium with the County chipping in just for some clean-up and roads.

Public stadiums are shit and should never exist.

Now, having said that, owners take advantage of the smaller cities that like the idea of having a "major league" team in their town, whether it is football, basketball or baseball.

Green Bay, Jacksonville, etc haven't changed. Those that live there may feel as though they will lose out should the team relocate. Owners take advantage of this.

I'm not saying that Green Bay is receiving any tourism now, but you can bet that nobody will know it exists if the team wasn't there and its residents know it.

 

There's also a huge difference between giving incentives to get an auto plant to come to the state and buying a new stadium for a rich ass owner. The auto plant will create thousands of jobs that pay good wages -- about the only jobs at the stadium are for guys selling hot dogs and beer. Some economist in Louisiana came out with a study when Tom Benson was begging for a new dome and found that New Orleans would see similar economic benefits from a new Winn Dixie as from a new stadium. And there have been researchers who found that new stadiums don't draw new residents to a city.
The politicians who endorse these stadium deals ought to be ashamed of themselves. And all the cheerleaders who support these deals are dumbasses. And the owners who put forth those proposals are greedy and shameless. Someone ought to ask Arthur Blank if he would favor a tax hike to give $500 million in welfare benefits -- after he sputters about how bad the idea is, say "But that's exactly what you're asking for!"

 

And if a team ever does go to San Antonio, within 2-3 years they'll be wanting a new stadium there. The Alamodome is about as old as the Georgia Dome Ibelieve.

 

The Alamodome is older by a few years. However, the fact remains that there is one common denominator - GREED.
Fact is that in Georgia, the Falcons are the third best drawing team behind the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech. The product has never been great, even when the team went to the Super Bowl. In time, a new facility may be needed but talking about it now may be a bit premature. Stadiums have a short lifespan. Greed, however, doesn't.

 

If you're counting average home attendance, the Falcons would only trail UGA. The Dome seats 72,000 and the games have been attended near capacity pretty much since Blank took over the team; Bobby Dodd Stadium seats 55,000 and half of Tech's home games are significantly less than full.

If you're counting total cumulative attendance, there's not another team in the state that draws even a third of what the Braves draw. Of course, then there's Atlanta Motor Speedway, which seats about 140,000 and probaby averages between 120,000 and 130,000 for its two Nextel Cup races. But that's not really a team.

Just sayin

 

See also: "Los Angeles, National Football League And"