12/21/24
March 05, 2022
New York Governor Backs New Bills Stadium: A deal for a new Buffalo Bills stadium should be reached by the end of March, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said. The new stadium will cost an estimated $1.3 billion to build and the Bills want the public to pay 60 percent of it. There's no stadium design decided yet for the facility that could open in 2026. The Buffalo News covered some possibilities in December.
I'm glad Buffalo is securing its NFL future but these kinds of public cost/private gain megadeals should add $5 to the cost of a ticket for every event until the public debt is repaid.
I have family in Arlington paying the increased taxes to support Jerryworld and they can't afford to go to games.
posted by rcade at 10:26 AM on March 06, 2022
And as always, my favorite detail related to the cost of Jerryworld:
At the time when tax funding was committed to the stadium project, Arlington TX was the largest municipality in the US without a public transportation system.
posted by beaverboard at 01:01 PM on March 06, 2022
I will never understand why taxpayers foot the bill for fancy new football stadiums. Just don't get it, conceptually.
posted by Goyoucolts at 06:25 PM on March 06, 2022
Taxpayers are indoctrinated into the ways of capital expenditure at the local level.
Our regional school district wanted a turf field put in at the high school at great expense.
Along with lighting and seating upgrades and a swank new concession stand etc.
The selling point was that the upgrades would allow the district to host lots of moneymaking events like regional football and soccer tournament games etc. The turf field would see a lot of use and be a money making machine.
But they failed to mentioned a key point - the revenue from the usage would be going to the school district, not the funding municipalities.
Not only that, the revenue would not be earmarked to help pay down the debt. It was straight income to the district funded by bonds issued by the towns in the district.
The discussion never was about what would happen to the revenue. It was always only about whether or not the taxpayers would vote to spend the money.
The school superintendent was a clever bastard. He got voter approval for the shiny object turf field. Then he shortly came back with another proposal to upgrade the high school classrooms and science labs, which were substandard. That need had never been mentioned previously.
The taxpayers were maxed out and tired of spending money and voted against the classroom upgrades. The super knew that he needed to submit the proposals in that order to make sure he got the new field. If he had asked for the classrooms first, that would have passed and the field would have gotten voted down. He needed a gleaming capital improvement project on his resume and once he got it, he left and moved on to the next job. That's how those people operate.
posted by beaverboard at 07:16 PM on March 06, 2022
High taxes aren't the only issue in Cowboy Country.
Dallas also currently leads the nation in the percentage of McDonalds franchises with broken ice cream machines.
According to the tracking website McBroken, 27.6% of the machines in Dallas are out of order, which is twice the national average.
If you haven't followed the saga of the broken McDonald's ice cream machines, it's a dive that's too deep for Oliver Stone. And one not worth taking right now, with everything else that's going on.
posted by beaverboard at 02:50 PM on March 07, 2022
If it's going to be right next to the existing stadium, they'd better change the orientation and design. The current stadium is oriented roughly east-west, and the wind and weather off the lake comes howling right in through the west end of the facility.
Site it from SSE to NNW and build the ends of the stadium as high as the main sections. For that kind of money, add a retracto roof.
If I was an Erie County taxpayer, I'd tell them to go play their home games in the dome at Syracuse.