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.''
