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The NY Yankees has reportedly asked city for $350 million more in public financing for its new stadium. The $1.3 billion project is currently under construction, and the urgency for additional funds in the form of tax-free bonds ranges from Assemblyman Richard Brodsky saying "the Yankees said they couldn't complete the Stadium without additional financing" to the NYC Economic Development Corporation president saying the Yankees are just making "informal inquiries."
An NYC EDC spokesperson said that the Yankees can't get the additional financing because of an IRS rule that "prohibits more public debt to be incurred for the stadium," but the city is trying to help the Yankees--not to mention other sports teams--get around the rule. However, Good Jobs New York director Bettina Damiani told the Post if the IRS reverses that regulation, the "floodgates" would open, "It defies all fiscal common sense to subsidize wealthy sports teams."
Yankees team president Randy Levine sought to calm things down by explaining, "This issue does not affect completion of the Stadium," noting the organization always considered "additional bonding." Keep in mind that the Yankees have already received $900 million in tax-free bonds (the Mets received $500 million in tax-free bonds for CitiField). Here's The Motley Fool on what bonds are and here's Wikipedia's entry on new Yankee Stadium financing. More recently, residents near the stadium have complained the new stadium has robbed them of their park space.
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Absolutely not. The city shouldn't even fund one bit of it other than infrastructure.
The Yankees have plenty of money.
Maybe they'd have enough money if they didn't pay their inept players so much.
I get really annoyed when people defend the athletes' salaries as being the result of a free market. A free market would be if the teams had to support themselves without handouts from government and cable TV. If you have YES on basic cable you are helping to make rich guys richer even if you never watch a game.
I call bullshit on this need for more money.
Why should the Yankees get $350 million. That could go for schools, transportation, infrastructure upgrades, parks, and other things of actual value.
Uuuuh, City of New York? I'd like $100 million so that I can provide an essential entertainment service to the community. It would have...uh...fun...bocce ball tournaments, yeah...and and and...uuuuh, yeah. Can I have my tax free bonds please?
The city will cower and come up with the $350 million (sure to be even more before it's all finished).
And you can bet the parks promised to the residents around Yankee Stadium, as replacements for parkland lost to the new stadium, will not be completed on time nor constructed as originally planned.
Complete bullshit-this fucking stadium will make the team owners richer-make them pay for it. Give them nothing more-NOTHING
A free market would be if the teams had to support themselves without handouts from government and cable TV. If you have YES on basic cable you are helping to make rich guys richer even if you never watch a game.
I don't understand the cable TV argument.
A Gallup poll shows that less than half of Americans are baseball fans. Assuming that even fewer New Yorkers are BB fans because we have more alternative sports, more foreigners and then factor in that half of New Yorkers are Mets fans how can one justify doling out all that money is a fair deal for New Yorkers.
Screw the Yankmee's need for our tax money.
Are the Yankees going to let NY'ers in for free? Or at leas at a discount. No friggin way that will happen.
I am tired of this subsidation of private business with taxpayer money.
If they do get it they should have to pay it back. With intrest.
This bullshit model of businesses being subsidezed by taxpayer money, but do not share the profits back. Should be done away with.
Have that asshole Steinbrenner pay for it.
I don't understand the cable TV argument.
If you subscribe to basic cable you get about a dozen sports channels whether you watch them or not - ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNNews, ESPNU, SNY, MSG, YES, etc. A portion of your monthly bill ends up in the hands of professional sports through no choice of the consumer. Cable rates have gone up twice the rate of inflation since the mid 90s. Cable enjoyed a government granted monopoly for decades, Satellite came along to offer "competition" but interestingly offers almost the exact same packages for the same price.
Privatize profit socialize risk- free market capitalism in the USA.
If the Yankees get subsidized money, then the Mets should, too. Both stadiums are on city property (Department of Parks of Recreation), so if one benefits from city subsidies, so should the other.
If you subscribe to basic cable you get about a dozen sports channels whether you watch them or not - ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNNews, ESPNU, SNY, MSG, YES, etc. A portion of your monthly bill ends up in the hands of professional sports through no choice of the consumer. Cable rates have gone up twice the rate of inflation since the mid 90s. Cable enjoyed a government granted monopoly for decades, Satellite came along to offer "competition" but interestingly offers almost the exact same packages for the same price.
To get onto the basic tier, though, is decided on by the Time Warners and the Cablevisions, not the government.
Sure, I want full de-regulation in media and telecommunications---no FCC on cable, and work our way toward abolishing it all together.
I just can't blame YES, SNY, NESN, or any other team's cable network with taking our money. We don't have to buy cable TV; it's not a public utility.
The Yankees don't need one more cent from the city. This is already a giveaway of epic proportions, and they shouldn't get anything more.
Fuck them, the city has given them enough.
The new stadium has FEWER seats, so fewer of us will be able to go to games... so why should we pay more to build the place? Ask the skybox holders who they sacrificed those seats for.
They should ask A-Rod for the money.
if the city says yes... they should tell those a-holes to put a dome on that sucker!!!
I get really annoyed when people defend the athletes' salaries as being the result of a free market. A free market would be if the teams had to support themselves without handouts from government and cable TV.
Agreed. If it was really a free market, they'd make the people attending the game pay for the whole shebang. And if they're not willing to pony up the $250 per seat necessary to cover those outrageous salaries, then obviously the sport and the stadium just aren't worth it. It's not the responsibility of all the taxpayers in New York who don't give a damn about baseball to subsidize the stadium because some people claim it's an inalienable American right to be able to afford attending baseball games.
agreed. the city should call their bluff and deny them. i think the only thing that would change my mind is if the city could get ownership in the team. then we all benefit.
Yankees 2007 attendance: 4,271,867
Public Financed: 34%
* Information is based on $450 million public finanicing of the $1.3 billion total. That does NOT take into account the value of the tax-free bonds (money diverted from other projects without interest).
Browadway 2007 attendance: 12,300,000
Public Financed: 11%
* Figure based on 1999 report, which is old but I highly doubt that number has jumped even close to 23% since then.
I'm not saying only fund the arts- the city has a strong interest to fund public work projects. But funding obviously isn't being given out evenly and it only sings worse beacuse we know those pin-stripes are just getting rich off it too!
No. Fucking. Way.
What a bunch of greedy bastards. The Yankees need to pay for this themselves.
Hey Steinbrenners, howzabout you, and your primadonnas, and your peons all just take a pay cut! That ought to pay for 3 stadiums. Ey, howzabout dat.
Yankee stadium is not part of the commons. You have to pay to get in. I have an idea for a popular restaurant, you guys buy it build it and staff it for me and I will collect the money. I am an entrepreneurial genius! The Yankees would not be the yankees without New York, let them move to Peoria if they can't make money here. If I buy that stadium I want free access and power to make trade deals.
Make Billy Crystal cover the shortfall.
He's still working, right?