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The Yankees have opened their wallets and committed $243.5 million to two players this week. That’s nothing new for the club, who routinely lead the league in payroll by a wide margin. Coincidentally, the team also went to New York City this week and asked for $259 million in tax-exempt bonds to finish their new Stadium in the Bronx. This is on top of original financing of the $1.3 billion deal, which was also done almost entirely with tax-exempt bonds.
Meanwhile in Queens, the Mets, whose payroll is modest in comparison to the Yankees but still among the highest in baseball, have also received plenty of tax-exempt financing for their new stadium. On top of that, they will receive $20 million a year from Citigroup, an entity that U.S. taxpayers had to bail out a few weeks ago, for the naming rights to the new building.
In this current economic climate, the actions of both teams are offensive. It is bad enough that they have raised ticket prices to levels that ordinary fans can’t afford. But with huge deficits on the federal, state and local levels, their use of tax-exempt financing deprives the public of desperately needed revenue.
In light of this and in the spirit of the holidays, the Yankees should withdraw their request for additional tax-exempt bonds and sell regular bonds in the marketplace. It will cost them more, but they certainly can afford it. As for the Mets, they cannot in good conscience take $20 million a year from Citigroup and they should find a new partner to sell the naming rights to.
Economic times are tough—thousands of people are losing their jobs every week. Baseball is a wonderful game, but it should not take away from the public coffers. The Mets and Yankees have already received huge subsidies from the public. They don’t need any more.
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Hey, I'm broke too but you can't get caught up in the exorbitant ticket price hype. It's too easy to just scream about pricing without looking at the facts. 55 percent of the seats in the Yankee's new ballpark are going to be $45 or less. That's over 24,000 seats. I'm sick people jumping to conclusions. Ugh!
I think the Citi-bashing over the naming rights is extremely short sighted. It's in the taxpayers' best interest that Citi maintain themselves as a profitable business, and to do that they need to advertise. $20 million is a tiny part of their annual marketing budget, and they're going to spend it somewhere.
I think the Citi-bashing is called for.
No-one does their banking because of the name of some stadium.
It's stupid moves like this that gets businesses in trouble in the first place.
They should cut that 20 million out of their advertising budget or use it more effectively, or give it back to the taxpayers.
"It's stupid moves like this that gets businesses in trouble in the first place.
They should cut that 20 million out of their advertising budget or use it more effectively, or give it back to the taxpayers."
In any case, blaming the Mets for it is ridiculous. Blame Citi's management, or board, or the government regulators handing out bailout cash... but it's not the Mets management's responsibility to police Citicorp's spending.
Nice sports section op-ed.
Fred Wilpon says he's giving $500 million back...um,er, but we'll have to ask Bernie Madoff for the dough.
These teams did NOT need new stadiums. If anything the city needs better roads, schools, and education...
Why doesn't Patterson just impose an "obese sports salary tax" to get some money out of these goniffs?
In the old days, stadiums were built with private money using private land. Now they just are a leech on the taxpayers, most of them who will not even use the basically useless facility.
I feel dirty being a Mets fan.