NFL Week 17 thread -- Lumps of coal for you

[tapintoamerica]

I'm coming at this from a different place than many on here. It's different when you're jilted by a team that leaves the city of your birth and childhood and relocates hundreds of miles away.

 

[Bubbler]

Most people have a fixed amount of discretionary spending for dining out and entertainment. If they spend it on gameday, they won’t spend it the other six days of the week. So it’s not new money, but shifted money, being spent.

Stadiums Shift Spending Patterns, Don’t Boost Local Economies

The big hole in that premise is that discretionary spending is fixed or static. It gets proven time and again that it isn't. Entertainment options constantly change people's spending habits.

Favorite band announces a concert date? Oh ****, where I can find some money to go!

My wife and my daughter went to go see "Wicked" the first weekend it came out. They aren't going to see anything else in its place.

A small example of my own. As I walked out of the NBA arena I was in last night, I remarked that while I wouldn't get season tickets, I might consider a small sample-size package. Not an option I would consider for anything but sports.

A bigger example is when Local Team hits the jackpot. Take Indiana football, which can be applied to a pro sports equivalent. They went from 30K in the stadium, at best, to legitimate sellouts in a very short span. In addition, costs for ancillary, but necessary things like parking shot through the stratosphere. Expensive trips to the playoffs beckon for those who are so inclined and can pull it off.

Does anyone really think fans are line-iteming their other entertainment desires to follow their passion? Some will, but many will just adjust their "discretionary" spending upward and deal with the consequences later.

Add to that as stadia go, the only other things that can have as wide of an economic impact at the scale of a sporting event are festivals and concerts ... and they don't occur as often. A baseball team that draws 20K for 81 dates? I can't think of any other entertainment option that can match that.

There's all kinds of economic hoodoo both good and bad as it relates to stadia and whether the public should pay for them, but I just find the notion they're economically neutral to just fly in the face of what we can see with our own eyes.

 

[HanSenSE]

I'm coming at this from a different place than many on here. It's different when you're jilted by a team that leaves the city of your birth and childhood and relocates hundreds of miles away.

And this is why I lost interest in the Raiders (although the terrible football helped). The first time, LA wasn't so bad, except it begat the Star Wars look. And where I was living at the time, they were usually on TV. But they played Oakland and Alameda County taxpayers like a fiddle when they returned and wrecked the Coliseum for baseball. No thanks.

 

[Shropshire Slasher]

That should be "lumps of big, clean, beautiful coal" to you.

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

OK, fraud check time.

 

[Inky_Wretch]

The big hole in that premise is that discretionary spending is fixed or static. It gets proven time and again that it isn't. Entertainment options constantly change people's spending habits.

Favorite band announces a concert date? Oh ****, where I can find some money to go!

My wife and my daughter went to go see "Wicked" the first weekend it came out. They aren't going to see anything else in its place.

A small example of my own. As I walked out of the NBA arena I was in last night, I remarked that while I wouldn't get season tickets, I might consider a small sample-size package. Not an option I would consider for anything but sports.

A bigger example is when Local Team hits the jackpot. Take Indiana football, which can be applied to a pro sports equivalent. They went from 30K in the stadium, at best, to legitimate sellouts in a very short span. In addition, costs for ancillary, but necessary things like parking shot through the stratosphere. Expensive trips to the playoffs beckon for those who are so inclined and can pull it off.

Does anyone really think fans are line-iteming their other entertainment desires to follow their passion? Some will, but many will just adjust their "discretionary" spending upward and deal with the consequences later.

Add to that as stadia go, the only other things that can have as wide of an economic impact at the scale of a sporting event are festivals and concerts ... and they don't occur as often. A baseball team that draws 20K for 81 dates? I can't think of any other entertainment option that can match that.

There's all kinds of economic hoodoo both good and bad as it relates to stadia and whether the public should pay for them, but I just find the notion they're economically neutral to just fly in the face of what we can see with our own eyes.

I trust the data cited by the economists who specialize in sports financing. They say folks who are spending X on tickets and whatever would have spent it anyway at another local location.

I do not trust economic impact studies released by municipalities that claim, for example, a mid-tier PRCA rodeo provides $1.5 million economic impact in my hometown.

 

[DanOregon]

Just once I'd love to see one of these stadium deals require the team to allow people to bring in their own food. THAT might help the neighboring businesses and bars (and help pay for the thing a little sooner). Instead these teams keep ALL the concession money, don't allow food in and in many cases are the landlords of the surrounding "stadium district."
It would also be nice if the team was required to "donate" one luxury suite on a game by game basis to a local non-profit. The team can sell the ticket, but the money goes to the non-profit.

 

[Bubbler]

I do not trust economic impact studies released by municipalities that claim, for example, a mid-tier PRCA rodeo provides $1.5 million economic impact in my hometown.

I don't trust that bull**** either. As ever, the truth is in-between.

 

[Shropshire Slasher]

The numbers can and often do send out a Fraud Alert, but at the end of the day let's see what a team does. Fraud Alerts were making me deaf in the lead-up to SB XXXIV (Rams-Titans).

 

[Brooklyn Bridge]

OK, fraud check time.
View attachment 21532

I've said before that the Bears schedule was Charmin soft. Let's see how they do in the playoffs. And to gear up for their playoff run, the Patriots are playing (checks notes) the Jets and Dolphins. Fraud.

 

[Brooklyn Bridge]

"But a new stadium means we'll get more events." Yes, but it will still sit empty 330 days a year.

 

[poindexter]

OK, fraud check time.
View attachment 21532

I've read this board long enough. Every team who loses a game is considered a fraud. It never fails.

 

[BTExpress]

I trust the data cited by the economists who specialize in sports financing. They say folks who are spending X on tickets and whatever would have spent it anyway at another local location.

My only quibble is that the "other location" need not be entertainment. Because of our opposite work schedules, we don't travel to places as much as we used to. So the discretionary money usually gets spent on splurges for the house (sunroom remodel, tile installation, etc.).

 

[brn623cl]

Deebo ain't playing like it doesn't matter.

 

[FileNotFound]

Wonder if Amazon has tried to get a refund on that Broncos-Chiefs game.

 

[MileHigh]

Uncle Al really will be disinterested tonight.

 

[tapintoamerica]

"But a new stadium means we'll get more events." Yes, but it will still sit empty 330 days a year.

Every new stadium gets one. One and done in most cases. Even Met Life got one. The NFL lucked out when a snowstorm came through about 12 hours after the game.

 

[brn623cl]

Every new stadium gets one. One and done in most cases. Even Met Life got one. The NFL lucked out when a snowstorm came through about 12 hours after the game.

Buffalo will probably be the only new stadium in this cycle that won't host an SB

 

[Brooklyn Bridge]

Every new stadium gets one. One and done in most cases. Even Met Life got one. The NFL lucked out when a snowstorm came through about 12 hours after the game.

Ah, yes. The league will grace the local taxpayers with a Super Bowl, whose tickets are notably affordable and available to the general fans. New stadiums are a boondoggle.

 

[Della9250]

Netflix going all out for this halftime show