John Oliver to sports fans: Make owners pay for new stadiums

[Simeon Salus]

Inspiring, rousing locker room speech by Coach John Oliver to all those citizens tired of allowing sports franchises to extort public money out of communities in order to extract vast profits on the backs of taxpayers.

"Make Them Pay!" indeed.

[Archae]

1. A-MEN!

The city of Milwaukee got shaken down for Miller Park, home to the losing Milwaukee Brewers.

Now the Milwaukee Bucks losing basketball team is shaking down the city of Milwaukee again for a new "sports complex."

[PoliticAverse]

2. Why do you hate the <insert favorite team that wants a free stadium here>?? n/t

[daleanime]

11. You dropped some thing...

Have a good day.

[SamKnause]

3. K&R

Excellent piece on how the tax payers once again

are getting screwed by the wealthy !!!!

[niyad]

4. YES!! it is time the taxpayers stopped having to subsidize major sports.

(google tax-payer subsidized sports stadiums, a very depressing, eye-opening exercise)

[niyad]

5. when malcom glazer bought the tampa bay football team (at that time, as I understand it,

at the bottom of the league), he got himself a subsidized new stadium, at a time when the state was so strapped for funds that students had to share textbooks, and basic services were being cut.


there were a number of people who ended up boycotting his restaurant chain, houlihan's, because of this. (sadly, as I see, the chain is still operating)

[asiliveandbreathe]

6. The old saying holds true "Private Profit,

Public debt" -

FYI - the reason AZ Cardinal stadium is in Glendale (AZ) because we in Mesa fought them off - Univ of Phoenix...(wait for it - may have to change stadium name..if U of P continues downward spiral)

Wriggleville - Baseball winter camp - in Mesa AZ - whoops..$80M from general fund...can you say over runs....

[navarth]

7. I was wondering if he would cover Mike Ilitch

Owner of The Red Wings and (former) Tigers.

I call them the former tigers because, we the taxpayers got forced to pay for his new stadium, whereupon he took the team from our beloved Tiger Stadium (a beautiful, intimate classic stadium where played Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Al Kaline, and all the others) and moved them to his plastic shithole Comerica Park (named after a corporation that abandoned Detroit and moved its headquarters to Dallas). This killed my enjoyment of major league baseball. And I had to help pay for it. I will never forget.

-Navarth, contributing member of the now-defunct Tiger Stadium Fan Club. Members included the great Ernie Harwell.

[daleanime]

10. +1

I hear you, although I was a Jets fan, kind of giving up on pro sports.

[navarth]

12. Still not cured of the NFL obviously

It would be apparent by my avatar, I would think...DIEHARD Lions Fan. I'll be cured of that once they do some winning. And the moral foundation of the team is a completely different story from the (former) tigers.

[McKim]

8. Portland Oregon Baseball Interests Pushing for Ballpark

And it continues here in Portland, baseball fans (owners) want taxpayers to pay for their new venue while our streets are full of homeless and 40% of our children are on free federal lunch program. Give me a break!

[daleanime]

9. K&R.....

[hatrack]

13. God, this is brilliant!

John Oliver is The Man!