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OPINIONS WE
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The Field of Schemes
Public responsibility flies out of the ballpark as sports moguls load the bases - with cash.

By Doug Collins
The Free Press


Do the Dodgers play in Brooklyn or LA? Where are the Giants playing next season? In true spite of the loyalty of local fans, big league teams are private businesses that have no loyalty to their "home" cities. With owners from Japan and only a single player who hails from Washington state, it's also quite natural that Seattle's own Mariners attempted to find a fancier mooring in another port.

And don't be surprised if, after the new retractable-dome stadium is built with public funds to keep the Mariners docked in Seattle, the absentee owners sell the team for a hefty profit. The business of baseball is a cycle of lucrative corporate welfare: operating a privately-owned team is typically a gradual money-losing proposition, but the resale value of a team increases dramatically with time, especially after its hometown is arm-twisted to shell out for a new stadium.
Says stadium opponent Christopher Van Dyk, "I don't give a shit if Ken Griffey can bat 40 homeruns in a season and earn millions for it if fans are willing to foot the bill. But the fact is he's working on a public subsidy. If the public is involved, Griffey shouldn't be paid more than your best high school teacher." Van Dyk has organized Citizens for More Important Things, a group which helped defeat the stadium initiative in King County, and is now mounting a court challenge to public funding for the stadium.
Our current system of pro sports teams is poised to cash in on civic pride, sucking from localities more often than benefitting them. A 1994 study by Lake Forest University economics professor Robert Baade, reported in the mainstream press, concludes that in 32 American cities which recently added sports teams, three experienced a negative economic effect, most experienced no change, and only one experienced a boost, as measured by personal income growth. Besides a few million dollar salaries, the great majority of jobs in the sports industry are low-wage and part time, generating no multiplying effect on the economy. Ticket sales are also no boon: consumers simply go to pro games instead of other entertainment, not both.
The sale of chewing tobacco probably increased in these cities, but apparently not enough to measurably boost their economies.
Despite evidence that sports franchises have struck out as job creators, local poobahs are lined up behind the Mariners like Reaganites behind the defense budget, and with the same yellow-ribbonish fanaticism.
In a letter from February 1995, King County Executive Gary Locke told Van Dyk that "if recommendations for a new stadium are advanced, I have promised that general tax dollars will not be used to build it unless approved by the voters." But after the stadium initiative was defeated, Locke supported the state legislature's bailout plan, which includes revenue from the state reserve fund as well as refunding the Mariners the sales and B&O taxes they pay, essentially exempting the private business from supporting schools and other public services. Public funding for a new stadium will amount to some $240 million, the lion's share of the construction cost, and the Mariners will keep all revenues generated from the facility, such as from parking, naming rights (the Seafirst Stadium?), indoor ads, and concessions.
So what's the use for the public to vote on an initiative if politicians simply override the public's decision? This move certainly fuels voter cynicism. Furthermore, the current financing deal could fuel a cost-overrun disaster for the King County budget in years to come, writes Fred Moody in the Seattle Weekly (Oct 25, 1995).
Although there was some welcome critical reporting by the Weekly and the local dailies, the Seattle Times also donated a full page ad in favor of a new stadium, an ad normally worth tens of thousands of dollars. As Weekly editor David Brewster points out, daily newspapers have a vested interest in pro-teams, because their sports page sells papers. The ad giveaway was also a clearly partisan action by the Times, a newspaper that claims objectivity.
Sports hucksterism is no longer just a good-old-boy malady. On the floor of the state legislature, the first action of "liberal" Pat Thibaudeau, newly elected replacement for Cal Anderson of the 43rd district, was to vote for the stadium. Fifty-five percent of voters in the 43rd had voted against it a few weeks previous.
After the votes were tallied for the final OK in the state legislature, leading state lawmakers Gaspard, Applewick, and others doffed their jackets and exposed Mariners uniforms they were wearing underneath. Stadium opponent Van Dyk muses about such stunts, "You gotta wonder what sort of people these are. Did they give the issue some careful study before they voted? The Mariners could demand anything, and you'd have legislators in Olympia saying we need it for our children."

Those interested in the ongoing fight against a new Mariners stadium can contact Citizens for More Important Things at 682-5228.

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Contents on this page were published in the December/January, 1996 edition of the Washington Free Press.
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