Thhe team owners go to the politicians and they threaten to leave if they don’t get a subsidy, and they leave for a better subsidy, like the Browns/Ravens did. You don’t blame them? Do you blame welfare recipients? Public employee unions? They all use political clout to get government subsidies. So do professional sports team owners.
We fought off a government subsidized stadium for ten years until the local muck mucks caved. Pittsburgh and the surrounding counties voted down a sales tax to build a new sports complex, after which the owners (Obama supporter, I’ve heard) went to the governor, and got the whole damn state to pay for their playpen.
You ant to call me an ass, go ahead, knucklehead.
The exact same thing happens in tons of businesses. Every car factory that’s been built in the last 20 years had multiple candidate sites and various “deals” (tax incentives, free land, whatever they can think of) offered by the local politicians. Saw it right here where I live, Microsoft was talking about putting a support center somewhere in the country other than Redmond, bidding war ensued, Tucson “won” by offering 5 years tax free and made a big deal in the press about how once a support center was here MS was sure to put high paying dev jobs here. Six months after they opened the doors MS subcontracted out all support, the other company took over, after the tax waiver expired they outsourced half the staff to India.
All they’re doing is taking advantage of an existing system. As the street crowd used to say “don’t hate the playa hate the game”, as long as state and local politicians are willing to act like prostitutes somebody in corporate America, in all industries, will take them up on the offer. If you want it to stop the place to fight it isn’t sports, it’s government. It’s a behavior that needs to stop across the board, not just with stadiums but factories, retail outlets (WalMart is amazing at getting land deals), call centers, you name it. As long as there are politicians that think crowing about how many jobs they “brought in” by using our money to lure businesses this will continue. Focusing on the sports angle is complaining about a symptom and ignoring the problem.