There’s a long history of this behavior in sports. Team owners insist they need a new stadium or upgrades, threaten to move the team, and if they don’t get what they want, they move the team.
This is an old story, going back to at least Walter O’Malley in Brooklyn in the 1950s. Teams demand a new stadium, and if they don’t get it, they move.
Check out the link in post #3.
The Brewers are blatantly bribing members of the legislature—both parties.
This is organized crime.
Once the A's move to Las Vegas, MLB will lose that leverage.
Where will the Brewers move to? Salt Lake City?
The NFL is going to have a hard time to force teams to force teams to upgrade their stadiums now that there's two NFL teams in Los Angeles.
We've built all the stadiums in the '90s and early '00s. Now we are in a new cycle where the stadiums will have to be refurbished or entirely rebuilt.
Not just sports. All the major manufacturers do it. All their “exploring options” for where to put a new plant. The Amazon HQ2 “search” was the same thing. It’s a basic business concept, don’t pay for what you don’t have to. And as long as elected officials think “bringing” or “keeping” jobs in an area is a good way to get re-elected they will whore out their city to keep high profile businesses from paying for things.
The Braves were only in Milwaukee from 1953 to 1965. Then they moved to Atlanta in 1966, which was piling in teams as part of the civil rights revolution. The NFL Falcons were created the same year and they also stole the St. Louis Hawks basketball team.
The Seattle Pilots were created as an expansion team and moved to Milwaukee after one season in 1970. That’s the Brewers.
The best food I’ve ever had at a ballgame was in Chicago, then Milwaukee.
In defense of O'Malley, Ebbetts Field was truly a bandbox, in the vernacular. He saw Southern California as virgin territory where he would have a monopoly (until the Angels came into being) as opposed to New York where there were two other teams. And foresaw the growth that would happen in SoCal too. He was a businessman who made a business decision. I'm not up on the particulars of how Dodger Stadium got built but it seems to be standing the test of time.
And it’s all brought to you by Farmer John!
Extortion.