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This is a more genteel, sociological way of saying that while grassroots opposition is nice, the only sure way of getting a real stadium debate is to have a billionaire corporation or two in your corner. (Hello, Cablevision!) Where the powers that be - business leaders, mayor, governor, city council - are all aligned in favor of a stadium, it's incredibly hard for any public groundswell to stop it. Knock a couple of chinks in that armor, though - as in New York, where many prominent elected officials are opposed, in addition to the city's largest cable operator - and suddenly the critics are allowed out of the woodwork. (Eckstein and Delaney note that both Newsday and the New York Times have also been publicly critical of the Jets stadium project, but that can be just as easily seen as a result of the lack of business/political consensus, not a contributing factor.)

The representative quote on all this continues to belong to longtime community activist Frank Rashid of the Tiger Stadium Fan Club, who told us this story that appeared in Field of Schemes:

On one occasion, Rashid recalls, he wound up calling the Free Press to complain about an inaccurate story about the Fan Club. He pointed out to a city desk editor that the reporter had printed inaccurate statements by the group's opponents about the Fan Club, statements that the reporter himself had to have known were untrue.

The editor, according to Rashid, replied with indignation, "What do you expect? [Then-Detroit Tigers owner] Tom Monaghan has made money. He's paid his dues. Who are you guys?"

"I really appreciated the honesty," says Rashid. "But, damn! None of us is disreputable. We're all people who are solid citizens, but we don't have money. Solid citizens without money don't count as well as somebody who's got a big corporation."