A Wrigley Field Winner for Taxpayers

[question everything]

Has any local media outlet reprinted this, or a similar comment?

This one is from the WSJ from a few weeks ago

(snip)

Now the Cubs are showing a new wrinkle in their inclination to spend—one that brings none of the dread that once met the team's big player signings. Owner Tom Ricketts, an investment banker and the son of TD Ameritrade online broker Joe Ricketts, is planning a half-billion-dollar renovation of Wrigley Field. Remarkably, in an era when teams regularly blackmail cities and states for new stadiums or major renovations—pay us or we'll leave—the Cubs plan to foot the entire $500 million tab.

(snip)

Not that the team didn't try the usual gambit of demanding taxpayer help. In 2010, the Cubs insisted that Chicago contribute about $200 million dollars for the renovation. But the city held firm, resisting an economic trap that has snared many municipalities.

Chicago is clearly among the minority of cities not seduced by arguments that plowing taxpayer dollars into sports facilities will produce an economic windfall and lots of jobs. In a 2000 study examining sports franchises in 37 cities from 1969 to 1996, economists Dennis Coates and Brad Humphreys found that building a new stadium "will have no effect on the growth rate of real per capita income and may reduce the level of real per capita income in that city."

Crain's Chicago reported last year that "over the last 22 years, during which 125 of the 140 teams"—in five sports—"have built or refurbished home stadiums—most using public subsidies—evidence shows the facilities rarely, if ever, live up to their 'measurable economic boost' billing."

(snip)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323610704578628281448934930.html

(If you cannot open by clicking, copy and paste the title onto google)

[madrchsod]

1. no matter what they do....

the cubs will suck and the fans will come there to get drunk. there`s a big backlash by the folks who pay billions of dollars for a 1-2 room apartment in that neighborhood. they did pledge to get rid of the troughs in the men's bathroom.