That was a busy week, considering it’s the middle of August and everybody is supposed to be on vacation (but not to Sicily, probably). In fact, be honest: You’re not even reading this, are you? Or if you are, you’re just scrolling back through old posts in September sometime, catching up on what you missed. If so, can you let me know how it all turned out? That would save me a lot of time, thanks.
- After the Buffalo News reported that the Bills owners were seeking $1.5 billion in state money, $1.1 billion of it for a new football stadium, and a team spokesperson said the $1.1 billion stadium price tag was “pure fiction,” and then the News said the owners were seeking $1.4 billion, all of it for a new football stadium, now the Associated Press says that the stadium price tag is indeed $1.4 billion, but the taxpayer share is “up for discussion.” I think maybe let’s just go with the technical term for this range of prices, which is “a megabuttload.”
- The Bridgeport city council, faced with a dispute with the Islanders minor-league team where the city said the team owed it $750,000 in back rent and the team said the city owed it $837,596 for back repairs and maintenance, have compromised on the city spending $28 million on arena upgrades in exchange for a ten-year lease extension. That doesn’t sound like a very good compromise at all, but at least $2.8 million a year as a lease extension price is a hell of a lot better than the $19 million a year Cleveland is considering for the Guardians.
- Fresh arena renderings for the Calgary Flames! If people being waited on at small outdoor tables doesn’t convince you that Calgary needs to spend $300 million on this thing, I don’t know what will.
- If you’re wondering what’s happening to the stadium in the cornfield that MLB built for last night’s Game in a Cornfield Inspired By an Old Movie That Apparently Still Needs the Publicity, the bleachers and lights and locker rooms are getting disassembled, but the field itself will stay put and be used by Little League or high school games, maybe, which the field next door already was, but seriously, there’s got to be some synergy here, right? Right?
- This is a couple of months old, but I missed it at the time: Economist J.C. Bradbury followed up his paper finding that the Atlanta Braves stadium had no measurable impact on sales-tax receipts in Cobb County with one finding that it had no measurable impact on property values. Synergy!
- Nobody wants to host the Olympics anymore, because it’s too damn expensive. Hey, didn’t I say that already?
- The Tampa Bay Rays stadium may be built on a burial ground, that would explain a lot, really.
NdM,
Is it possible that in the future NO city/country bids for the Olympics? And if so, then what happens?
In an infinite multiverse, anything is possible. But no, it looks like we’re a long way from “What if they held an Olympics and nobody bid?”, as nice as that sounds. Even Milan/Cortina ended up agreeing to the IOC’s cost guarantee in the end.
The only way the Olympics MIGHT work is if all (or at least 90%) of the facilities are already built. I am going to guess LA in 2028 should be okay (I guess a cycling velodrome needs to be built but that should be it). After that? The IOC better consider a permanent site for the games ( Winter and Summer) or just cancel them ( especially with the poor TV ratings).
They can reuse Olympic facilities by having a rotation of only a few host cities. It would be feasible to have a rotation with LA, London, Paris, Tokyo, and one city from the southern hemisphere, likely from Australia (Sydney, Melbourne, or Brisbane). This way, each city hosts once every 20 years.
As long as there are egotistical leaders in a nation there will be an Olympics. I’m just waiting for the first Middle Eastern summer Olympics where the athletes have to compete at 2 AM.
They should ask Putin about Sochi sometime. It might change their mind
I wonder if the person who drew the renderings for the Calgary Flames’ arena has ever been in Calgary during hockey season?
Right? In Canada in the middle of winter? I’m not sitting outside for any length of time and especially not for over an hour, waiting for someone to serve me.
Or just read the latest climate forecasts.
To be fair, those folks are probably attending the Stanley Cup finals, which are now played in the middle of summer.
The Fox boys (sports, not….) were saying last night that MLB likely intends to use the field again next year. Or, if gate receipts were insane enough and advance sales can be arranged, perhaps later this year…
It was an interesting experiment and I’m sure they fleeced lots of people out of lots of money.
Will it be the White Sox again next time? Hosting Kansas City (playing in Monarchs unis?), or maybe the Cardinals and Cubs?
Or Yankees/Orioles (playing as the Browns, naturally)?
You know it’s going to happen. Just as soon as MLB can determine the best way to extract maximum revenue from everyone involved. Hey! Maybe it’s time to demand the city of Dubuque cough up ten million or so… after all, you can’t just give away all this promotion…
How is selling tickets to willing buyers “fleecing”?
Ticket sites had prices in the $1300-1500 range. Buck and Smoltz talked about people paying $3,000 per seat (I assume in Dubuque or thereabouts).
The fact that people are willing to pay it does not mean the prices are fair or equitable. MLB can put any price they want on tickets (here or anywhere).
Would you also consider store owners selling flats of bottled water for $40 in advance of a hurricane a willing seller/willing buyer arrangement?
There are actually laws against doing so.
And it’s not a “necessity” argument either. People could save their empty bottles and fill up with tap water before the coming disaster. They just don’t.
The comparison is ridiculous. Sure people COULD have loaded up with water in advance but maybe they had to do other stuff, maybe they didn’t have the empty bottles, or a whole host of reasons. Either way when a hurricane is coming it becomes a necessity. So its absolutely a necessity argument.
Baseball tickets are entertainment and whoever bought tickets got exactly what they paid for. Its not like it was a shortened game or they wound up sending the minor league players etc. Its no different than someone paying $30K to fly in one of those sky condos on the Etihad. Is it conspicuous consumption? Absolutely. Are they being fleeced? Not at all
“The fact that people are willing to pay it does not mean the prices are fair or equitable.”
Sorry, John, but that’s exactly what it means.
The “necessity argument” is valid because everybody needs water, nobody needs to sit in a cornfield watching a baseball game.
Hey, hey, people, let’s not fight over microeconomics! Can’t we all just agree that $3,000 tickets are a sign that America has too many hyper-rich people who need to be put up against the wall when the revolution comes?
Yes Neil I agree with that. It is insane that some people have that much to drop on something like this. Clearly taxing the wealthy is something that needs to happen.
Keith: No need to be sorry, we simply disagree on this point.
The fact that there are some people willing to pay $3,000 for a ticket to baseball (or $30,000 for a kidney, for that matter) does not make it fair market value.
You simply cannot have fair market value when there are artificial restrictions on supply (as with the kidney. You can’t save kidneys in advance. You can save and bottle fresh water in advance. In fact, FEMA and regional emergency agencies generally conduct media blitzes advising you to do that very thing before “known” disasters approach. So there’s a big difference between the two).
There is exactly one (so far) FoD game in a cornfield between two major league teams.
There’s no such thing as free or fair market pricing when dealing with a transaction involving a category of one item.
Yes, the people who paid that are stupid (or so rich that they just don’t care). And yes, they are being fleeced. The fact that they voluntarily agreed to be fleeced does not mean they aren’t being fleeced.
Neil: I thought microeconomics only existed to provoke arguments????
If you are voluntarily playing for something and you get exactly what you were told you were getting, then you aren’t being fleeced. Fleeced involves some sort of fraud or deception. Are people who buy Maybachs getting fleeced? They spend $400K on a car that’s obscene and austentatious but not getting fleeced
Move along, folks. No fleecing to be seen here! https://www.federalpay.org/paycheck-protection-program/go-the-distance-baseball-llc-dyersville-ia
Does Fubon Financial Holding Company ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fubon_Financial_Holding_Co. ) have ©️issue, court case for Cleveland appropriating brand, name Guardians? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fubon_Guardians Just asking for a friend.
The ticket prices just prove Barnum’s dictum. At least it was a good game and the uniforms looked sharp.
What I found odd about the Iowa game was the shameless pregame media shilling for the concept.
I can get the interest in the NHL outdoor stadium games. But announcers going on for two hours about a contrived game in a cornfield? Commemorating a movie? That’s Play-off game treatment.
I guess if that’s what it takes to be relevant to 18-30 year olds…
If Shoeless Joe or Midnight Graham played though…
If there’s one thing that 18- to 30-year-olds love, it’s Kevin Costner, amirite?
Young people love the throwback jerseys and hats.
Maybe there’s an untapped 18-30 market for throwback actors?