The stadium scam: Read 'Field of Schemes'

Don't believe any promises about a Providence stadium deal being "revenue neutral.''  All deals for professional sports stadiums are overwhelmingly for the benefit of the team owners. This note was sent along to me to respond to the attempt by Rhode Island House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello and his pals to cheat the public with a   deal to put a baseball stadium in prime land in downtown Providence. They have thought  that Rhode Islanders were too stupid and/or passive to stop this special-interest scam.

"A message for those elected officials still supporting the PawSox stadium deal: With all the data and analysis now available ) a ‘yes’ vote on a stadium deal allows for only one explanation. You can no longer run your mouth about it being good for business (see Forbes, see WSJ). And you can no longer pretend it will encourage development in the neighborhood and benefit anyone but the owners (see sports economist Victor Matheson and John Oliver.) -- and, ultimately, their political friends.

"Still not convinced and need a book for the beach? Try “Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public Money into Private Profits” by Neil deMause and Joanna Cagan. It came out in 2008!''

"Field of Schemes is a play-by-play account of how the drive for new sports stadiums and arenas drains $2 billion a year from public treasuries for the sake of private profit. While the millionaires who own sports franchises have seen the value of their assets soar under this scheme, taxpayers, urban residents, and sports fans have all come out losers, forced to pay both higher taxes and higher ticket prices for seats that, thanks to the layers of luxury seating that typify new stadiums, usually offer a worse view of the action.''

Pro sports teams steal from the public

  Please read Froma Harrop's fine, fact-filled column about how professional sport teams owners loot the public.

The outrageous proposal to build a baseball stadium on very valuable public land in downtown Providence with massive taxpayer assistance to a small group of rich guys is yet another example of this special-interest sleaze.

I'll take the proposed Providence trolley line any day in place of a stadium -- at least that would be something everyone could use and that could actually help the economy.

Casinos are another racket for taking money from poorer people and giving it to richer ones, but at least it's a voluntary impoverishment of a community.

-- Robert Whitcomb

When stadium is empty all year, not just 5 months

After reading this piece, check out this link, which includes one of the insiders in the deal below, Tom Ryan. To add to the idiocies (for the public) of a proposal by a small group of rich political insiders to put a Minor League baseball stadium on land in the middle of Providence, may I remind people that companies have little loyalty these days to their employees or loyal customers. The loyalty in the current version of American capitalism is mostly one way -- the loyalty of the owners and senior execs to themselves.

Remember when one of the insiders, Terry Murray, moved Fleet Financial Group  from Providence to Boston so he could be a bigger player?

When the new Pawsow owners get a a nice offer (as they will one day) to move the farm team to some other  sucker burg (Omaha, Duluth, Ocala, Fla.?) they will do so promptly, leaving an empty stadium on land where there could have been hundreds of high-paying, year-round jobs.

Instead of having the taxpayers fork over  millions a year for this boondoggle, why not increase Governor Raimondo's new $1.3 million "Real Jobs RI" project to better train and place workers.?

Employers cite the lack of skilled workers as the biggest impediment to moving to, or expanding in, Rhode Island. The lack explains much of why the Ocean State economy lags behind that of most of the Northeast.

Meanwhile, of course,  staggeringly myopic (or just cynical) state  union leaders push to build the stadium because of the construction jobs. When those jobs disappear in a year or two after construction starts, the only jobs at the stadium will be a few dozen minimum-wage positions --- for perhaps seven months of the year. The rest of the time the taxpayers will have to pay them unemployment compensation and help cover their Medicaid.

But the six-months-and-a-day residents of Florida involved in this project won't have to worry about that, as they laugh all the way to the bank with tax money from poorer people and get to show how masculine they are by associating themselves with a sports team.

Bread and circuses, and government by deal, march on.

-- Robert Whitcomb