Mayor Kills Plan For Soccer Stadium (finally a political leader sides with taxpayers)

AP - KUTV.com ^ | January 29, 2007

[EveningStar]

Calling it an "unsafe investment," the mayor of Salt Lake County said Monday that he won't support $30 million in taxes for a professional soccer stadium, a fatal blow to Real Salt Lake's plan to move to the suburbs...

[Hydroshock]

In fairness, Houston does have a viable AHL team the Houston Aeros. They have goo attendance, but as you know what it takes to support minor league hockey is less then the NHL.

[antiRepublicrat]

At least with a proven crowd-generating sport (like baseball or football,) you're virtually guaranteed a steady stream of fairly-high-attendance games

The Cato Institute had a paper about that.

[cowtowney]

I think the TV market for the NHL All Star game in Dallas this past weekend was 0.5. Wow!

[LexBaird]

I was going to ask, "County Mayor?" I don't think I've ever heard of a county mayor.

[TChris]

Good for the mayor. Sports stadiums should be funded privately.

Ditto that!

[EveningStar]

He has an institute?

[dfwgator]

Who was the marketing genius who thought holding the NHL All-Star game on weeknight was a good idea?

[antiRepublicrat]

It took a while for that to sink in...

[EveningStar]

It was a pretty bad pun. Sorry.

[Recon Dad]

I saw the city mayor giving his speech at the anti war rally in Washington Saturday. How did he ever get elected in Utah?

[chimera]

Maybe. My town tried to pass public bond issues for years to build a hockey arena in the hopes of luring an NHL franchise. No luck. Then the pols got smart and got a local private company whose headquarters is here to put up the money to build it. The company got to put their name on it, of course, but you pay the piper. And they got a team. It's lousy, of course, but, hey, their dream came true, Big League. Woo hoo... (not)

[ssaftler]

Not to mention it was on a cable channel (Versus?) that has about 3% nationwide coverage, and most of THAT is on the digital (read: pay) portion of the cable channels.

If NBCBS was semi-serious about giving the NHL a chance, they would have grabbed the game and moved it to a Saturday or Sunday afternoon.

[ssaftler]

The company got to put their name on it, of course, but you pay the piper.

Never heard of the "Blue Jacket" company, what do they do? :) Seriously, you guys now have the WORST team name in the NHL, if not all of sports, now that the Anaheim NHL team stopped naming their team after a kiddy movie.

[chimera]

Not on the team, the arena (Nationwide). Yes, the BJs stink, no question about it, and have stunk up the place for years. Kinda like being a Mets fan in the early '60s (which I was, insane masochist that I am). So what do you call the place behind the Blue Jackets' goal? The red light district...

[chimera]

Yes, the team name stinks, too. A local Indian Chief. There is a summer drama put on in the Dayton area called Blue Jacket, the man's name. A bit of local history. (And the team is still bad...)

[JRios1968]

I thought it was punny.

[Clemenza]

YES!

Remember, if you let your boys become soccer fans, they will grow up to shop at Pottery Barn and squat when they urinate.