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Lol no, a professional sports team is of little "joint benefit to society", at least not of the kind that seriously concerns the government. You may as well arg

Lol no, a professional sports team is of little "joint benefit to society", at least not of the kind that seriously concerns the government. You may as well argue that the government should be subsidizing new Marvel movies, or Call of Duty, because those are popular forms of entertainment too. > Also the only way to stop these gifts to private companies is likely with a new federal law banning them. It is simple game theory. These businesses will go where the profit is. Any city or state that refuses pay will lose out until every city or state refuses to pay. The best way to force that is with a federal ban. No. You can just...refuse to subsidize them. Seems to be working fine for Seattle, where IIRC the renovated stadium for their new NHL team was privately funded. And if they do go somewhere else, what's the downside? Seattle lost its NBA team a while back, which was a bummer for basketball fans, obviously, but otherwise what was the harm to the city or region? Plenty of high prestige world cities like Tokyo or London or Paris aren't known for their pro sports teams. They seem to suffer little for it. For a while, the Olympics were able to basically threaten their way into huge subsidies from even developed countries, but this seems to have mostly gone away now, as everyone collectively woke up from the delusion that the Olympics were a major economic boon worth investing in. Sports team stadiums could easily go the same way. edit: Okay, obviously I should've picked different world cities as examples, but even taking those: Tokyo's pro sports teams don't have anywhere close to the foreign popularity that London's EPL teams do. Does that seem to hurt it?

faichai 5y ago
Wat? London has Chelsea, Arsenal, West Ham, Tottenham in the premier league. People come from all around to watch them play. I say this as someone who cares little about football.
namdnay 5y ago
> Plenty of high prestige world cities like Tokyo or London or Paris aren't known for their pro sports teams. Not that I disagree with the general gist, I had to facepalm at that! I think the general risk is that a rival politician will promise to bring back sports teams, with some dodgy financial setup that conceals the true cost, and the electorate will gobble it up
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  Why? Tons of friends and family of mine have visited those cities, I've never heard of any of them doing it to see their sports teams.
  - yywwbbn 5y ago
    I’m sure that globally London and probably Paris (probably a bit more debatable) are much better know for their professional sports teams than any city in the US.
    - TulliusCicero 5y ago
      No London team even breaks the top 10 of most valuable sports team, but there are several US entries there, so that seems unlikely: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbes%27_list_of_the_most_valuable_sports_teams https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbes%27_list_of_the_most_val... I tried googling more directly for global popularity/famousness, but couldn't find any hard data. And of course there's the issue of "has well known sports teams" vs "well known for their sports team". The former you could probably get data on somewhere, but the latter, I doubt it.
      - Symbiote 5y ago
        Money isn't everything, and it's relative. Travel outside the USA and every kid you meet has heard of Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham. If I were French or Spanish rather than British, these kids would say PSG or Real Madrid instead. The fans don't have as much money as Americans, but there are 10-15x as many followers on Facebook. But I would argue England is well known for its sports teams rather than London. (There's also Manchester, Liverpool etc.)
        TulliusCicero 5y ago
        > Travel outside the USA and every kid you meet has heard of Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham. If I were French or Spanish rather than British, these kids would say PSG or Real Madrid instead. I think what you mean by "travel outside the USA" might be "travel in Europe". I'd bet that you'd get more recognition of the Lakers in, say, China than any of those Premier League teams. > But I would argue England is well known for its sports teams rather than London. (There's also Manchester, Liverpool etc.) That's fair, those two cities are probably known for their football teams moreso than anything else.
jackpirate 5y ago
You may as well argue that the government should be subsidizing new Marvel movies The US government actually does subsidize Marvel movies pretty heavily by giving them free/extremely cheap access to military equipment and personnel. Peace movements pretty heavily criticize these movies for this reason. See for example: https://www.cbr.com/captain-marvel-mcu-military-relationship/ https://www.cbr.com/captain-marvel-mcu-military-relationship...
- tim-- 5y ago
  Australia has put millions into filming Marvel movies. US provides many film subsidies, too. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movie_production_incentives_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movie_production_incentives_...
- yunohn 5y ago
  This is not the same as multi-billion dollar local municipality subsidies.
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  That seems quite a bit different, it's a marketing/PR move that probably doesn't actually cost the government very much. Not sure I'm for that kind of thing, but it's pretty radically different from a single city spending a hundreds of millions on a stadium that they'll see little benefit from.
  - afarrell 5y ago
    Marketing is a good framing here. It prompts questions like: How strong is the relationship between Fenway Park and the way that the city of Boston markets itself as a place to continue to live/work/play and pay tax revenue?
    - Kon-Peki 5y ago
      Fenway Park is actually a bit of an outlier. Wrigley Field also counts. Both of these stadiums are in dense urban neighborhoods and not surrounded exclusively by acres of surface parking lots. Publicly financing a stadium in that setting might actually be a net positive (plenty of other factors) because all of the spectators are walking through the neighborhood with all the shops, restaurants and bars just to get to the stadium. Baseball teams play 81 games per year in their stadium. American football teams play 8. That is also a huge difference. There are many stadiums that host both hockey and basketball and thus have 60-70 games per year - plus concerts and other events on top of that. Utilization matters! I don't know if they do anything in winter at Fenway Park, but at Wrigley Field there is a neighborhood ice rink in the winter time. The skate rental/lockers/bathrooms, warming station, concessions, and even Zamboni storage are all inside the stadium. Here's some rambling video showing what "hanging out at the stadium" looks like even when no sport is happening: https://youtu.be/-pgnR7FqkDo https://youtu.be/-pgnR7FqkDo
te_chris 5y ago
Nope, no one’s ever heard of Paris St Germain, Arsenal, Chelsea or Tottenham Hotspur.
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  I've heard of the London teams, but not the Paris one no.
  - gspr 5y ago
    Then you don't seem qualified to be making the statements that you are making.
    - TulliusCicero 5y ago
      I should've picked different cities. Well, Tokyo's probably fine, I don't think Japan's baseball league has the foreign popularity that Europe's football leagues do. My point was supposed to be less about major world cities having famous teams and more about the impact of those teams on said cities. Okay, Tokyo doesn't have world-recognized sports teams the way London does. Does that seem to hurt it?
benrmatthews 5y ago
London has 4X top flight football (soccer) clubs that are known the world over: Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham, West Ham. Paris has Paris St Germain, who currently own two of the most recent top international players on the world stage. Both cities also have lots of too-tier clubs from other sports, e.g. rugby. These cities do have plenty of other attractions beside sports though to attract tourists and investment, so without these teams the cities would likely be fine.
auggierose 5y ago
Well, the last champions league winner comes from London. But you might not know that about the most popular pro sport in the world.
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  Fair, I'm American and don't know who won the Super Bowl the other month, or even who played.
  - xxs 5y ago
    Right, we can all agree American Football is boring and interrupted too often. Seriously, though, if you are not into sports even slightly, why do you persist on making so many comments and statements about the popularity of sports and teams.
    - dagw 5y ago
      American Football is boring and interrupted too often I used to be on a torrent site that released edited versions of NFL games where they cut out all breaks, interruptions and uninteresting instant replays. The games were all under an hour and actually really fun and exciting to watch.
      - wccrawford 5y ago
        I'm not generally a fan of sports, but that sound pretty awesome. I'd definitely give that a try if I came across it.
    - TulliusCicero 5y ago
      Nah, I find it the most exciting of the popular pro sports. Most boring is baseball. > Seriously, though, if you are not into sports even slightly, why do you persist on making so many comments and statements about the popularity of sports and teams. Why not? It's an interesting discussion, even if I'm not into watching pro sports.
slg 5y ago
It is ok if you don't like sports (which is obvious from your comments about Tokyo, London, and Paris which all have notably big sports cultures), but you don't have to pretend that other people don't find value in it. A city with a sports team benefits in numerous intangible ways. These teams serve as marketing for a city, both internationally and externally. It is a marker of quality for a city, a stamp of approval. They help contribute to a public identity of a city. There is value in having a communal identity. It unites people and helps them work together on more serious problems. People also love following the local sports team. Yes, this is entertainment similar to other forms, but it can often be free. You don't need to buy tickets to a game to enjoy it. For example, every soldout NFL game is broadcast for free over-the-air in their local market. Marvel movies don't premier for free on the TV in my home.
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  > It is ok if you don't like sports (which is obvious from your comments about Tokyo, London, and Paris which all have notably big sports cultures) It's amazing how twisted adult mindsets about sports are. Notice how not caring about watching pro sports teams is, in your mind, "not liking sports." As if the primary function of "sports" is to be watched, rather than, y'know, played. > It is a marker of quality for a city, a stamp of approval. I really don't think so. It's more likely that causation works the other way: cities that are successful tend to attract sports teams to take advantage of the local market. Take Seattle: lost its NBA team, lost its NHL team until very recently. Was just found to be the most desirable city for new college grads anyway. Nobody's been thinking that Seattle sucks because they only had two of the four major US pro sports present in the region.
  - slg 5y ago
    We are talking about the context of publicly funded professional sports stadiums. Unless you are a professional athlete, we are talking about watching and not participating in sports.
    - TulliusCicero 5y ago
srhngpr 5y ago
>Lol no, a professional sports team is of little "joint benefit to society", at least not of the kind that seriously concerns the government. You may as well argue that the government should be subsidizing new Marvel movies, or Call of Duty, because those are popular forms of entertainment too. Local governments do subsidize movie production with all sorts of funding and grants. In addition to the local population, many people travel to cities where sports matches, concerts, and other events (e.g., conventions, auto shows, etc.) are held in the stadiums. This also affects other businesses in the city that benefit from the spending done by those that travel into the cities. >Plenty of high prestige world cities like Tokyo or London or Paris aren't known for their pro sports teams. They seem to suffer little for it. Ever heard of... - London: Arsenal, Chelsea, or Tottenham (Soccer), Wimbledon Championships (Tennis) - Paris: PSG (Soccer), French Open (Tennis) Every major "high prestige world city" as you describe is a hub for multiple sports and various tournaments that invites both local and international crowds.
- michaelcampbell 5y ago
  > Every major "high prestige world city" as you describe is a hub for multiple sports and various tournaments that invites both local and international crowds. My gut says you have the causal relationship here backwards. The lack of those teams wouldn't ding the city much, if at all.
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  > Local governments do subsidize movie production with all sorts of funding and grants. Which is dumb, though I don't think the stupidity quite reaches "city spends a billion dollars for one particular team" level. > This also affects other businesses in the city that benefit from the spending done by those that travel into the cities. Again, the research on this is quite clear: the economic benefits there are meager at best. > Ever heard of... - London: Arsenal, Chelsea, or Tottenham (Soccer), Wimbledon Championships (Tennis) - Paris: PSG (Soccer), French Open (Tennis) I've heard of most of those, I guess I've just never heard of my friends or family going to see them, even though many have visited those cities (and myself as well).
  - 5y ago
grimoald 5y ago
Of course world cities like Tokyo, London or Paris are known for all sorts of things other than sports, that's why they are world cities. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure German cities like Dortmund and Leverkusen are primarily known because of their soccer teams (at least among those who are into soccer, and that is a lot).
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  That's actually a decent point, though I think it's debatable whether this is actually useful. There are probably otherwise-sad US cities with decent pro sports teams that help bring name recognition...but does that actually translate into anything productive? The data on economic benefits seems to indicate the answer is 'no'.
  - dagw 5y ago
    I probably couldn't find Green Bay on a map, yet I know the name thanks to their very famous and successful sports team. But as you say, I still have no interest in visiting.
    - trophycase 5y ago
      That may be true for you, but I know people who have been there purely because it has the sports team. Otherwise there is almost no reason to visit a Wisconsin town so far off of I94, even on a road trip.
      - sidr 5y ago
        And they visit, have a couple of beers, and leave. This influx is accounting for in the analysis of "is it worth it?" and the answer is a resounding "no". Well, it's a "no" for most large, dense cities, Green Bay could be interesting because it's not in a dense city. Green Bay is also a particularly bad example for this conversation, being a non-profit community owned team and all.
apexalpha 5y ago
>Plenty of high prestige world cities like Tokyo or London or Paris aren't known for their pro sports teams. They seem to suffer little for it. Ehhhh... What? I could follow your argument until this line but Paris and especially London are absolutely known for sport teams.
- lostlogin 5y ago
  How many days since one of their clubs was front page international news? Chelsea football club was near the front in New Zealand this week, I don’t follow football at all and I recall it. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/sport/463098/chelsea-now-owned-by-the-uk-government https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/sport/463098/chelsea-now-owned-by...
  - stdbrouw 5y ago
    I don't know if this is what you're getting at, but Chelsea is in London.
    - lostlogin 5y ago
      That’s exactly what I’m getting at.
  - deleted 5y ago
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  - KineticLensman 5y ago
    > How many days since one of their clubs was front page international news? Chelsea football club was near the front in New Zealand this week London-based club Chelsea has been front page news in the UK this week because its Russian owner (Roman Abramovich) has been targeted by sanctions imposed as a result of the invasion of Ukraine, throwing the future of the club (and its massively expensive players) into doubt. Some casual googling shows that this story has been covered by Fox News, Deutsche Welle in Germany, Italy 24 News and others
    - 5y ago
garbagetime 5y ago
>Lol no Genuine question: isn't it absurdly rude to respond to something somebody said in this way?
- roenxi 5y ago
  Yes. But a possible reason why it is relatively well received anyway is: 1) There are no new facts likely to come out any time soon & the situation is unlikely to change. 2) This is a question of public spending. 3) Joining dots, someone is being taxed to fund other people literally just entertaining themselves. Eg, say I don't like team sports and there are some homeless people living nearby. Why should I be paying taxes for an uneconomic football stadium? The people who use the stadium can pay for it. If they can't afford it, it shouldn't be built. There are real problems in the world that are more important than people distracting themselves. And from that perspective, downright contempt for pro-public-spending-on-stadiums seems a plausible position.
baq 5y ago
> Lol no, a professional sports team is of little "joint benefit to society", at least not of the kind that seriously concerns the government. You may as well argue that the government should be subsidizing new Marvel movies, or Call of Duty, because those are popular forms of entertainment too. can't believe what i'm reading. go read some cold war history, or even pre-WW2 history.
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  Most of the people here would probably argue against those too, so it doesn't really change anything about my argument.
meekaaku 5y ago
I agree with your basic point. Businesses (the sports teams are) should fund themselves, apart from common things paid for by taxes like roads, bridge and such infrastructure. But London/Paris are well known for their sports teams. London alone as Tottenham, Chelsea, Arsenal which are big Premier league teams. Others lesser known Watford, westham, Crystal Palace are all basically London teams. Besides all? of PL teams are city based, Manchester City/Utd, Liverpool, Leeds, Leicester etc.
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  Originally I wrote "particularly known" before removing the "particularly", maybe I should've left it in. Yes, the impact isn't zero, but I feel like the answer to the question of "How many people know about London" would change relatively little if you removed the pro sports teams. But yeah I probably should've picked better examples. I think Tokyo works fine, Japan's pro baseball league doesn't have nearly the same global popularity as the EPL. Maybe Berlin? I lived in Munich and don't remember Berlin's football team, if they have one, really coming up much.
- cycomanic 5y ago
  I would argue that London is actuallyba very good example. I would wager that a significant portion of non UK soccer fans would not even know that all these teams are in London (let's not even talk about non soccer fans). So yes the OP was correct London is not known for their sports teams. I think Manchester is probably an example of a city that is known mainly for its sports team.
deleted 5y ago
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mschuster91 5y ago
> Lol no, a professional sports team is of little "joint benefit to society", at least not of the kind that seriously concerns the government. As already the old Romans knew: panem et circenses is what you need to keep your population from uprising - aka, providing them with food and entertainment. > You may as well argue that the government should be subsidizing new Marvel movies, or Call of Duty, because those are popular forms of entertainment too. Movies, including blockbusters such as the MCU, are already subsidized. As for games - the European Union subsidizes developers since 2014[1], Germany runs an additional program since 2019 [2]. > For a while, the Olympics were able to basically threaten their way into huge subsidies from even developed countries, but this seems to have mostly gone away now, as everyone collectively woke up from the delusion that the Olympics were a major economic boon worth investing in. The subsidies for Olympic Games and FIFA World Cups were for a very long time mostly housing, public transport and the stadiums that were sustainably usable for many decades (just look at my home city of Munich if you want to see an example). Only after corruption took over decisionmaking and sponsors demanded special laws (e.g. in Brazil with beer [3]), liberal democracies decided to not participate in the racket, and so dictators bought their way in. [1]: https://www.treffpunkteuropa.de/wie-die-eu-die-entwicklung-von-videospielen-unterstutzt?lang=fr https://www.treffpunkteuropa.de/wie-die-eu-die-entwicklung-v... [2]: https://www.bmvi.de/DE/Themen/Digitales/Computerspielefoerderung/computerspielefoerderung.html https://www.bmvi.de/DE/Themen/Digitales/Computerspielefoerde... [3]: https://www.t-online.de/sport/fussball/wm/id_53306408/fifa-versteht-beim-bier-keinen-spass.html https://www.t-online.de/sport/fussball/wm/id_53306408/fifa-v...
- TulliusCicero 5y ago
  I’m aware that some movies and games are subsidized, but most people here are probably against those too, especially when it’s big budget efforts. That’s part of why I chose the examples I did — people are more likely to object to subsidies for things that are already hugely successful and profitable on their own, than, say, little indie efforts.
cameronh90 5y ago
I don't even like football, but I find that in the UK, football is so intrinsic to our culture that some aspects of it should be considered almost like infrastructure. Governments pay for roads, why not for sports stadiums? For example, it would be totally unacceptable to large parts of the country for Manchester United to go bankrupt and be sold off in parts as would happen in a normal business. I don't even really care and I think I'd find it outrageous too. The political sphere here is well aware of the value communities place on their FCs and protecting that system is commonly a part of political debate. I feel like treating sports as a regular business is questionable. If we wouldn't allow a business to fail, it's not a real business, and looking at what literally just happened with Chelsea, it's clear we won't allow it to fail in the same way as a normal business.
- Chris2048 5y ago
  > so intrinsic to our culture You could say the same about monarchy, religion and, not long ago, smoking. I couldn't care less about football. I doubt as many women care as men as well. "large parts of the country" can pay for their own shit.
  - lostlogin 5y ago
    The idea that anyone would defend the British monarchy at the low point it has now reached is hilarious. However I’m certain you are correct. Imagine a taxpayer bailout to support the settlement a paedophile is having to make.
jsemrau 5y ago
> should be subsidizing new Marvel movies, or Call of Duty, because those are popular forms of entertainment too. Government subsidize movies and art for their cultural value.
ianai 5y ago
At least in the US the actual infrastructure has been failing for decades. Infrastructure actually pays out with a multiplier for years after the investment and upkeep. I’d like to see cities expend billions there before any burning of money on stadiums.
ansible 5y ago
> No. You can just...refuse to subsidize them. Seems to be working fine for Seattle, where IIRC the renovated stadium for their new NHL team was privately funded. This also works for the Green Bay Packers (American Football). To raise money for an upgrade / expansion of their stadium, they just issued more ownership certificates, and the fans of the team bought them. GB has a unique ownership model compared to the rest of the NFL though.
criddell 5y ago
> Plenty of high prestige world cities like Tokyo or London or Paris aren't known for their pro sports teams. They seem to suffer little for it. There are counter examples as well. The New York Yankees? The Dallas Cowboys? Toronto Maple Leafs? Take away the sports franchises from those cities and it would definitely be a huge economic and cultural hit to those cities.
- nemo44x 5y ago
  The Yankees could disappear over night and 90% of the city wouldn't notice or care. NYC is too big to have any 1 thing actually affect it much.
lordnacho 5y ago
Well I agree with your point but not the supporting argument. The thing about world cities is that they are world cities because everything can be found there, they are simply that large and diverse, and losing any one thing would not make them less important. Someplace like NYC isn't on the map because the Giants are there. Now it's also true that there are only a handful of cities that don't need to care about having a sports team (but have them anyway). Maybe the more apt example is Green Bay, a city that would otherwise be a total unknown. Mid-tier cities like Indianapolis as well. There's a number of other cities like Liverpool that are known for the Beatles and a sports team. For those cities, you can see why the mayor might think it's worthwhile to help out the local sports team. Nonetheless, it's still likely the case that it's really a waste of money.
jimbokun 5y ago
> Plenty of high prestige world cities like Tokyo or London or Paris aren't known for their pro sports teams. Not disagreeing with your overall argument, but London is the home of several Premier League clubs, with Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham having global followings. Paris has PSG, which is infamous for spending seemingly limitless money to bring in superstars like Messi, Neymar, Mbappe and others. Their ownership by a Qatari sovereign wealth fund is the subject of constant conversation among those who follow football. Tokyo I will grant you. They have the baseball Tokyo Giants, but I don't think they are closely followed outside of Japan.
GuardianCaveman 5y ago
I cannot recall where I read this but isn’t there a connection between a professional sports team and reduced crime? I believe there was a study showing it decreasing when a team was formed and increasing when a city lost its team.
raspberry1337 5y ago
>Plenty of high prestige world cities like Tokyo or London or Paris aren't known for their pro sports teams. What a beautiful way to shoot down your own post, well done.
cbm-vic-20 5y ago
> You may as well argue that the government should be subsidizing new Marvel movies, or Call of Duty, because those are popular forms of entertainment too. The state of Rhode Island burned a huge amount of cash on by funding a loan for a video game company. That didn't pan out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/38_Studios#Bankruptcy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/38_Studios#Bankruptcy
seanmcdirmid 5y ago
It’s all about the money. American cities make money on sports teams, so would rather have them than not. It isn’t a social benefit but an economic one consisting of tax revenue and knock on effects for businesses around the stadium. They aren’t throwing money away on a stadium, they are investing $100 million now to make $30 million more a year in tax revenue for 10 years. But what I really want to know is who pays $200 for a sports ticket and $20 for a beer? There is money to be made hand over fist, but I just don’t understand why that is true at all. I’d rather not have these sports teams either if only for the traffic they generate on game days. But if you want to blame someone, blame the customers for this stuff, not the local government that is just giving them what they want. Also, Tokyo is a really bad example of you are failing against prestige boondoggles. How many sky trees and Tokyo towers does the world really need?
- tanjtanjtanj 5y ago
  Tokyo Skytree was privately funded and I believe Tokyo Tower was as well. Both of them serve the function of increasing sightlines for broadcasting to reduce the number of towers needed throughout the city. This serves as a public good in a city where space is at such a premium. Not to say there wasn't additional expense added into the skytree for the prestige factor, it really didn't need to be that tall.
User23 5y ago
> Lol no, a professional sports team is of little "joint benefit to society", at least not of the kind that seriously concerns the government. Distracting and pacifying the populace with athletic spectacle is a trick governments have used for longer than history has existed. Major league sports are just the latest iteration in a long line of bread and circuses.
JohnWhigham 5y ago
I can't imagine how boring and bereft of life cities would be if rational HN nerds ran them. Trees? Parks? Where's the return on them? We don't need them!
- nemo44x 5y ago
  The trees and parks are available to everyone to enjoy though and can be used for many different things, almost surely to appeal to everyone in some way. A sports team and a stadium have a very narrow appeal and is inaccessible to a large segment of the population either due to disinterest or lack of funds. I get your gist here but I think it's pretty easy to make a distinction between these things. Even the most hardened Libertarian would agree that public spaces like parks are a net good.
aiisjustanif 5y ago
> Plenty of high prestige world cities like Tokyo or London or Paris aren't known for their pro sports teams. They seem to suffer little for it. You are kidding yourself if London and Paris are not known for sports. Baseball is big in Tokyo. Have you been to State de France? You think Wembly stadium, Arsenal, Chelsea, and Tottenham aren’t a global brands and icons?
bo1024 5y ago
> Plenty of high prestige world cities like Tokyo or London or Paris aren't known for their pro sports teams. They seem to suffer little for it. For a while, the Olympics were able to basically threaten their way into huge subsidies from even developed countries, but this seems to have mostly gone away now Tokyo - 2020 Olympics London - 2012 Olympics Paris - 2024 Olympics

faichai 5y ago

Wat? London has Chelsea, Arsenal, West Ham, Tottenham in the premier league. People come from all around to watch them play. I say this as someone who cares little about football.

namdnay 5y ago

> Plenty of high prestige world cities like Tokyo or London or Paris aren't known for their pro sports teams. Not that I disagree with the general gist, I had to facepalm at that! I think the general risk is that a rival politician will promise to bring back sports teams, with some dodgy financial setup that conceals the true cost, and the electorate will gobble it up

TulliusCicero 5y ago
Why? Tons of friends and family of mine have visited those cities, I've never heard of any of them doing it to see their sports teams.
- yywwbbn 5y ago
  I’m sure that globally London and probably Paris (probably a bit more debatable) are much better know for their professional sports teams than any city in the US.
  - TulliusCicero 5y ago
    No London team even breaks the top 10 of most valuable sports team, but there are several US entries there, so that seems unlikely: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbes%27_list_of_the_most_valuable_sports_teams https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forbes%27_list_of_the_most_val... I tried googling more directly for global popularity/famousness, but couldn't find any hard data. And of course there's the issue of "has well known sports teams" vs "well known for their sports team". The former you could probably get data on somewhere, but the latter, I doubt it.
    - Symbiote 5y ago
      Money isn't everything, and it's relative. Travel outside the USA and every kid you meet has heard of Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham. If I were French or Spanish rather than British, these kids would say PSG or Real Madrid instead. The fans don't have as much money as Americans, but there are 10-15x as many followers on Facebook. But I would argue England is well known for its sports teams rather than London. (There's also Manchester, Liverpool etc.)
      - TulliusCicero 5y ago
        > Travel outside the USA and every kid you meet has heard of Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham. If I were French or Spanish rather than British, these kids would say PSG or Real Madrid instead. I think what you mean by "travel outside the USA" might be "travel in Europe". I'd bet that you'd get more recognition of the Lakers in, say, China than any of those Premier League teams. > But I would argue England is well known for its sports teams rather than London. (There's also Manchester, Liverpool etc.) That's fair, those two cities are probably known for their football teams moreso than anything else.

jackpirate 5y ago

You may as well argue that the government should be subsidizing new Marvel movies The US government actually does subsidize Marvel movies pretty heavily by giving them free/extremely cheap access to military equipment and personnel. Peace movements pretty heavily criticize these movies for this reason. See for example: https://www.cbr.com/captain-marvel-mcu-military-relationship/ https://www.cbr.com/captain-marvel-mcu-military-relationship...

tim-- 5y ago
Australia has put millions into filming Marvel movies. US provides many film subsidies, too. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movie_production_incentives_in_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movie_production_incentives_...
yunohn 5y ago
This is not the same as multi-billion dollar local municipality subsidies.
TulliusCicero 5y ago
That seems quite a bit different, it's a marketing/PR move that probably doesn't actually cost the government very much. Not sure I'm for that kind of thing, but it's pretty radically different from a single city spending a hundreds of millions on a stadium that they'll see little benefit from.
- afarrell 5y ago
  Marketing is a good framing here. It prompts questions like: How strong is the relationship between Fenway Park and the way that the city of Boston markets itself as a place to continue to live/work/play and pay tax revenue?
  - Kon-Peki 5y ago
    Fenway Park is actually a bit of an outlier. Wrigley Field also counts. Both of these stadiums are in dense urban neighborhoods and not surrounded exclusively by acres of surface parking lots. Publicly financing a stadium in that setting might actually be a net positive (plenty of other factors) because all of the spectators are walking through the neighborhood with all the shops, restaurants and bars just to get to the stadium. Baseball teams play 81 games per year in their stadium. American football teams play 8. That is also a huge difference. There are many stadiums that host both hockey and basketball and thus have 60-70 games per year - plus concerts and other events on top of that. Utilization matters! I don't know if they do anything in winter at Fenway Park, but at Wrigley Field there is a neighborhood ice rink in the winter time. The skate rental/lockers/bathrooms, warming station, concessions, and even Zamboni storage are all inside the stadium. Here's some rambling video showing what "hanging out at the stadium" looks like even when no sport is happening: https://youtu.be/-pgnR7FqkDo https://youtu.be/-pgnR7FqkDo

te_chris 5y ago

Nope, no one’s ever heard of Paris St Germain, Arsenal, Chelsea or Tottenham Hotspur.

TulliusCicero 5y ago
I've heard of the London teams, but not the Paris one no.
- gspr 5y ago
  Then you don't seem qualified to be making the statements that you are making.
  - TulliusCicero 5y ago
    I should've picked different cities. Well, Tokyo's probably fine, I don't think Japan's baseball league has the foreign popularity that Europe's football leagues do. My point was supposed to be less about major world cities having famous teams and more about the impact of those teams on said cities. Okay, Tokyo doesn't have world-recognized sports teams the way London does. Does that seem to hurt it?

benrmatthews 5y ago

London has 4X top flight football (soccer) clubs that are known the world over: Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham, West Ham. Paris has Paris St Germain, who currently own two of the most recent top international players on the world stage. Both cities also have lots of too-tier clubs from other sports, e.g. rugby. These cities do have plenty of other attractions beside sports though to attract tourists and investment, so without these teams the cities would likely be fine.

auggierose 5y ago

Well, the last champions league winner comes from London. But you might not know that about the most popular pro sport in the world.

TulliusCicero 5y ago
Fair, I'm American and don't know who won the Super Bowl the other month, or even who played.
- xxs 5y ago
  Right, we can all agree American Football is boring and interrupted too often. Seriously, though, if you are not into sports even slightly, why do you persist on making so many comments and statements about the popularity of sports and teams.
  - dagw 5y ago
    American Football is boring and interrupted too often I used to be on a torrent site that released edited versions of NFL games where they cut out all breaks, interruptions and uninteresting instant replays. The games were all under an hour and actually really fun and exciting to watch.
    - wccrawford 5y ago
      I'm not generally a fan of sports, but that sound pretty awesome. I'd definitely give that a try if I came across it.
  - TulliusCicero 5y ago
    Nah, I find it the most exciting of the popular pro sports. Most boring is baseball. > Seriously, though, if you are not into sports even slightly, why do you persist on making so many comments and statements about the popularity of sports and teams. Why not? It's an interesting discussion, even if I'm not into watching pro sports.

slg 5y ago

It is ok if you don't like sports (which is obvious from your comments about Tokyo, London, and Paris which all have notably big sports cultures), but you don't have to pretend that other people don't find value in it. A city with a sports team benefits in numerous intangible ways. These teams serve as marketing for a city, both internationally and externally. It is a marker of quality for a city, a stamp of approval. They help contribute to a public identity of a city. There is value in having a communal identity. It unites people and helps them work together on more serious problems. People also love following the local sports team. Yes, this is entertainment similar to other forms, but it can often be free. You don't need to buy tickets to a game to enjoy it. For example, every soldout NFL game is broadcast for free over-the-air in their local market. Marvel movies don't premier for free on the TV in my home.

TulliusCicero 5y ago
> It is ok if you don't like sports (which is obvious from your comments about Tokyo, London, and Paris which all have notably big sports cultures) It's amazing how twisted adult mindsets about sports are. Notice how not caring about watching pro sports teams is, in your mind, "not liking sports." As if the primary function of "sports" is to be watched, rather than, y'know, played. > It is a marker of quality for a city, a stamp of approval. I really don't think so. It's more likely that causation works the other way: cities that are successful tend to attract sports teams to take advantage of the local market. Take Seattle: lost its NBA team, lost its NHL team until very recently. Was just found to be the most desirable city for new college grads anyway. Nobody's been thinking that Seattle sucks because they only had two of the four major US pro sports present in the region.
- slg 5y ago
  We are talking about the context of publicly funded professional sports stadiums. Unless you are a professional athlete, we are talking about watching and not participating in sports.
  - TulliusCicero 5y ago

srhngpr 5y ago

>Lol no, a professional sports team is of little "joint benefit to society", at least not of the kind that seriously concerns the government. You may as well argue that the government should be subsidizing new Marvel movies, or Call of Duty, because those are popular forms of entertainment too. Local governments do subsidize movie production with all sorts of funding and grants. In addition to the local population, many people travel to cities where sports matches, concerts, and other events (e.g., conventions, auto shows, etc.) are held in the stadiums. This also affects other businesses in the city that benefit from the spending done by those that travel into the cities. >Plenty of high prestige world cities like Tokyo or London or Paris aren't known for their pro sports teams. They seem to suffer little for it. Ever heard of... - London: Arsenal, Chelsea, or Tottenham (Soccer), Wimbledon Championships (Tennis) - Paris: PSG (Soccer), French Open (Tennis) Every major "high prestige world city" as you describe is a hub for multiple sports and various tournaments that invites both local and international crowds.

michaelcampbell 5y ago
> Every major "high prestige world city" as you describe is a hub for multiple sports and various tournaments that invites both local and international crowds. My gut says you have the causal relationship here backwards. The lack of those teams wouldn't ding the city much, if at all.
TulliusCicero 5y ago
> Local governments do subsidize movie production with all sorts of funding and grants. Which is dumb, though I don't think the stupidity quite reaches "city spends a billion dollars for one particular team" level. > This also affects other businesses in the city that benefit from the spending done by those that travel into the cities. Again, the research on this is quite clear: the economic benefits there are meager at best. > Ever heard of... - London: Arsenal, Chelsea, or Tottenham (Soccer), Wimbledon Championships (Tennis) - Paris: PSG (Soccer), French Open (Tennis) I've heard of most of those, I guess I've just never heard of my friends or family going to see them, even though many have visited those cities (and myself as well).
- 5y ago

grimoald 5y ago

Of course world cities like Tokyo, London or Paris are known for all sorts of things other than sports, that's why they are world cities. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure German cities like Dortmund and Leverkusen are primarily known because of their soccer teams (at least among those who are into soccer, and that is a lot).

TulliusCicero 5y ago
That's actually a decent point, though I think it's debatable whether this is actually useful. There are probably otherwise-sad US cities with decent pro sports teams that help bring name recognition...but does that actually translate into anything productive? The data on economic benefits seems to indicate the answer is 'no'.
- dagw 5y ago
  I probably couldn't find Green Bay on a map, yet I know the name thanks to their very famous and successful sports team. But as you say, I still have no interest in visiting.
  - trophycase 5y ago
    That may be true for you, but I know people who have been there purely because it has the sports team. Otherwise there is almost no reason to visit a Wisconsin town so far off of I94, even on a road trip.
    - sidr 5y ago
      And they visit, have a couple of beers, and leave. This influx is accounting for in the analysis of "is it worth it?" and the answer is a resounding "no". Well, it's a "no" for most large, dense cities, Green Bay could be interesting because it's not in a dense city. Green Bay is also a particularly bad example for this conversation, being a non-profit community owned team and all.

apexalpha 5y ago

>Plenty of high prestige world cities like Tokyo or London or Paris aren't known for their pro sports teams. They seem to suffer little for it. Ehhhh... What? I could follow your argument until this line but Paris and especially London are absolutely known for sport teams.

lostlogin 5y ago
How many days since one of their clubs was front page international news? Chelsea football club was near the front in New Zealand this week, I don’t follow football at all and I recall it. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/sport/463098/chelsea-now-owned-by-the-uk-government https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/sport/463098/chelsea-now-owned-by...
- stdbrouw 5y ago
  I don't know if this is what you're getting at, but Chelsea is in London.
  - lostlogin 5y ago
    That’s exactly what I’m getting at.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- KineticLensman 5y ago
  > How many days since one of their clubs was front page international news? Chelsea football club was near the front in New Zealand this week London-based club Chelsea has been front page news in the UK this week because its Russian owner (Roman Abramovich) has been targeted by sanctions imposed as a result of the invasion of Ukraine, throwing the future of the club (and its massively expensive players) into doubt. Some casual googling shows that this story has been covered by Fox News, Deutsche Welle in Germany, Italy 24 News and others
  - 5y ago

garbagetime 5y ago

>Lol no Genuine question: isn't it absurdly rude to respond to something somebody said in this way?

roenxi 5y ago
Yes. But a possible reason why it is relatively well received anyway is: 1) There are no new facts likely to come out any time soon & the situation is unlikely to change. 2) This is a question of public spending. 3) Joining dots, someone is being taxed to fund other people literally just entertaining themselves. Eg, say I don't like team sports and there are some homeless people living nearby. Why should I be paying taxes for an uneconomic football stadium? The people who use the stadium can pay for it. If they can't afford it, it shouldn't be built. There are real problems in the world that are more important than people distracting themselves. And from that perspective, downright contempt for pro-public-spending-on-stadiums seems a plausible position.

baq 5y ago

TulliusCicero 5y ago
Most of the people here would probably argue against those too, so it doesn't really change anything about my argument.

meekaaku 5y ago

I agree with your basic point. Businesses (the sports teams are) should fund themselves, apart from common things paid for by taxes like roads, bridge and such infrastructure. But London/Paris are well known for their sports teams. London alone as Tottenham, Chelsea, Arsenal which are big Premier league teams. Others lesser known Watford, westham, Crystal Palace are all basically London teams. Besides all? of PL teams are city based, Manchester City/Utd, Liverpool, Leeds, Leicester etc.

TulliusCicero 5y ago
Originally I wrote "particularly known" before removing the "particularly", maybe I should've left it in. Yes, the impact isn't zero, but I feel like the answer to the question of "How many people know about London" would change relatively little if you removed the pro sports teams. But yeah I probably should've picked better examples. I think Tokyo works fine, Japan's pro baseball league doesn't have nearly the same global popularity as the EPL. Maybe Berlin? I lived in Munich and don't remember Berlin's football team, if they have one, really coming up much.
cycomanic 5y ago
I would argue that London is actuallyba very good example. I would wager that a significant portion of non UK soccer fans would not even know that all these teams are in London (let's not even talk about non soccer fans). So yes the OP was correct London is not known for their sports teams. I think Manchester is probably an example of a city that is known mainly for its sports team.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

mschuster91 5y ago

> Lol no, a professional sports team is of little "joint benefit to society", at least not of the kind that seriously concerns the government. As already the old Romans knew: panem et circenses is what you need to keep your population from uprising - aka, providing them with food and entertainment. > You may as well argue that the government should be subsidizing new Marvel movies, or Call of Duty, because those are popular forms of entertainment too. Movies, including blockbusters such as the MCU, are already subsidized. As for games - the European Union subsidizes developers since 2014[1], Germany runs an additional program since 2019 [2]. > For a while, the Olympics were able to basically threaten their way into huge subsidies from even developed countries, but this seems to have mostly gone away now, as everyone collectively woke up from the delusion that the Olympics were a major economic boon worth investing in. The subsidies for Olympic Games and FIFA World Cups were for a very long time mostly housing, public transport and the stadiums that were sustainably usable for many decades (just look at my home city of Munich if you want to see an example). Only after corruption took over decisionmaking and sponsors demanded special laws (e.g. in Brazil with beer [3]), liberal democracies decided to not participate in the racket, and so dictators bought their way in. [1]: https://www.treffpunkteuropa.de/wie-die-eu-die-entwicklung-von-videospielen-unterstutzt?lang=fr https://www.treffpunkteuropa.de/wie-die-eu-die-entwicklung-v... [2]: https://www.bmvi.de/DE/Themen/Digitales/Computerspielefoerderung/computerspielefoerderung.html https://www.bmvi.de/DE/Themen/Digitales/Computerspielefoerde... [3]: https://www.t-online.de/sport/fussball/wm/id_53306408/fifa-versteht-beim-bier-keinen-spass.html https://www.t-online.de/sport/fussball/wm/id_53306408/fifa-v...

TulliusCicero 5y ago
I’m aware that some movies and games are subsidized, but most people here are probably against those too, especially when it’s big budget efforts. That’s part of why I chose the examples I did — people are more likely to object to subsidies for things that are already hugely successful and profitable on their own, than, say, little indie efforts.

cameronh90 5y ago

I don't even like football, but I find that in the UK, football is so intrinsic to our culture that some aspects of it should be considered almost like infrastructure. Governments pay for roads, why not for sports stadiums? For example, it would be totally unacceptable to large parts of the country for Manchester United to go bankrupt and be sold off in parts as would happen in a normal business. I don't even really care and I think I'd find it outrageous too. The political sphere here is well aware of the value communities place on their FCs and protecting that system is commonly a part of political debate. I feel like treating sports as a regular business is questionable. If we wouldn't allow a business to fail, it's not a real business, and looking at what literally just happened with Chelsea, it's clear we won't allow it to fail in the same way as a normal business.

Chris2048 5y ago
> so intrinsic to our culture You could say the same about monarchy, religion and, not long ago, smoking. I couldn't care less about football. I doubt as many women care as men as well. "large parts of the country" can pay for their own shit.
- lostlogin 5y ago
  The idea that anyone would defend the British monarchy at the low point it has now reached is hilarious. However I’m certain you are correct. Imagine a taxpayer bailout to support the settlement a paedophile is having to make.

jsemrau 5y ago

> should be subsidizing new Marvel movies, or Call of Duty, because those are popular forms of entertainment too. Government subsidize movies and art for their cultural value.

ianai 5y ago

At least in the US the actual infrastructure has been failing for decades. Infrastructure actually pays out with a multiplier for years after the investment and upkeep. I’d like to see cities expend billions there before any burning of money on stadiums.

ansible 5y ago

> No. You can just...refuse to subsidize them. Seems to be working fine for Seattle, where IIRC the renovated stadium for their new NHL team was privately funded. This also works for the Green Bay Packers (American Football). To raise money for an upgrade / expansion of their stadium, they just issued more ownership certificates, and the fans of the team bought them. GB has a unique ownership model compared to the rest of the NFL though.

criddell 5y ago

> Plenty of high prestige world cities like Tokyo or London or Paris aren't known for their pro sports teams. They seem to suffer little for it. There are counter examples as well. The New York Yankees? The Dallas Cowboys? Toronto Maple Leafs? Take away the sports franchises from those cities and it would definitely be a huge economic and cultural hit to those cities.

nemo44x 5y ago
The Yankees could disappear over night and 90% of the city wouldn't notice or care. NYC is too big to have any 1 thing actually affect it much.

lordnacho 5y ago

Well I agree with your point but not the supporting argument. The thing about world cities is that they are world cities because everything can be found there, they are simply that large and diverse, and losing any one thing would not make them less important. Someplace like NYC isn't on the map because the Giants are there. Now it's also true that there are only a handful of cities that don't need to care about having a sports team (but have them anyway). Maybe the more apt example is Green Bay, a city that would otherwise be a total unknown. Mid-tier cities like Indianapolis as well. There's a number of other cities like Liverpool that are known for the Beatles and a sports team. For those cities, you can see why the mayor might think it's worthwhile to help out the local sports team. Nonetheless, it's still likely the case that it's really a waste of money.

jimbokun 5y ago

> Plenty of high prestige world cities like Tokyo or London or Paris aren't known for their pro sports teams. Not disagreeing with your overall argument, but London is the home of several Premier League clubs, with Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham having global followings. Paris has PSG, which is infamous for spending seemingly limitless money to bring in superstars like Messi, Neymar, Mbappe and others. Their ownership by a Qatari sovereign wealth fund is the subject of constant conversation among those who follow football. Tokyo I will grant you. They have the baseball Tokyo Giants, but I don't think they are closely followed outside of Japan.

GuardianCaveman 5y ago

I cannot recall where I read this but isn’t there a connection between a professional sports team and reduced crime? I believe there was a study showing it decreasing when a team was formed and increasing when a city lost its team.

raspberry1337 5y ago

>Plenty of high prestige world cities like Tokyo or London or Paris aren't known for their pro sports teams. What a beautiful way to shoot down your own post, well done.

cbm-vic-20 5y ago

> You may as well argue that the government should be subsidizing new Marvel movies, or Call of Duty, because those are popular forms of entertainment too. The state of Rhode Island burned a huge amount of cash on by funding a loan for a video game company. That didn't pan out. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/38_Studios#Bankruptcy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/38_Studios#Bankruptcy

seanmcdirmid 5y ago

It’s all about the money. American cities make money on sports teams, so would rather have them than not. It isn’t a social benefit but an economic one consisting of tax revenue and knock on effects for businesses around the stadium. They aren’t throwing money away on a stadium, they are investing $100 million now to make $30 million more a year in tax revenue for 10 years. But what I really want to know is who pays $200 for a sports ticket and $20 for a beer? There is money to be made hand over fist, but I just don’t understand why that is true at all. I’d rather not have these sports teams either if only for the traffic they generate on game days. But if you want to blame someone, blame the customers for this stuff, not the local government that is just giving them what they want. Also, Tokyo is a really bad example of you are failing against prestige boondoggles. How many sky trees and Tokyo towers does the world really need?

tanjtanjtanj 5y ago
Tokyo Skytree was privately funded and I believe Tokyo Tower was as well. Both of them serve the function of increasing sightlines for broadcasting to reduce the number of towers needed throughout the city. This serves as a public good in a city where space is at such a premium. Not to say there wasn't additional expense added into the skytree for the prestige factor, it really didn't need to be that tall.

User23 5y ago

> Lol no, a professional sports team is of little "joint benefit to society", at least not of the kind that seriously concerns the government. Distracting and pacifying the populace with athletic spectacle is a trick governments have used for longer than history has existed. Major league sports are just the latest iteration in a long line of bread and circuses.

JohnWhigham 5y ago

I can't imagine how boring and bereft of life cities would be if rational HN nerds ran them. Trees? Parks? Where's the return on them? We don't need them!

nemo44x 5y ago
The trees and parks are available to everyone to enjoy though and can be used for many different things, almost surely to appeal to everyone in some way. A sports team and a stadium have a very narrow appeal and is inaccessible to a large segment of the population either due to disinterest or lack of funds. I get your gist here but I think it's pretty easy to make a distinction between these things. Even the most hardened Libertarian would agree that public spaces like parks are a net good.

aiisjustanif 5y ago

> Plenty of high prestige world cities like Tokyo or London or Paris aren't known for their pro sports teams. They seem to suffer little for it. You are kidding yourself if London and Paris are not known for sports. Baseball is big in Tokyo. Have you been to State de France? You think Wembly stadium, Arsenal, Chelsea, and Tottenham aren’t a global brands and icons?

bo1024 5y ago

> Plenty of high prestige world cities like Tokyo or London or Paris aren't known for their pro sports teams. They seem to suffer little for it. For a while, the Olympics were able to basically threaten their way into huge subsidies from even developed countries, but this seems to have mostly gone away now Tokyo - 2020 Olympics London - 2012 Olympics Paris - 2024 Olympics