Diamonds Aren't Everyone's Best FriendBy Daniel Chanin Team owners and city legislators try to sell new baseball stadiums as if they are the perfect elixir for a diseased franchise and an underachieving area. However, the mass orgy of ballparks erected in recent years suggests that's not always the case. Owners entice us with splash landings, gourmet foods and more intimate settings, while mayors rave about the jobs it will create and the Land of Oz that will subsequently come with it. They hope that all of this glamour and encouraging rhetoric will distract us from the reality of the situation: they've created a monster. Sixteen cities have opened a new venue for their respective baseball teams since 1991. The average age of each of these cities's former parks is 43 and that figure drops to an "ancient" 37 when Comiskey Park (80) and Tiger Stadium (87), the two oldest parks, are removed from the equation. The promises of a thriving downtown area in these regions have, for the most part, been unfulfilled. Overpriced bars and restaurants frequently accompany the stadium and the faithful consume accordingly. The long lines out the door of these businesses suggest a brilliant moneymaking addition that can help the area rise from its ashes and generate a chain reaction throughout the rest of the city. However, this appearance is deceiving. For instance, supporters of Cleveland's Jacobs Field will break out their power point presentation and show stadium naysayers that 40 new businesses blossomed around the area in the ballpark's first eight seasons. These supporters "forgot" to mention that the resurgence of businesses surrounding the stadium merely steals money from other industries that formerly served the territory. In other words, the revitalization of Prospect Avenue (one of the streets encompassing the stadium) came at the cost of losing value on Euclid Avenue, one of Cleveland's main streets prior to stadium construction. These stadiums are far from magic beans that encourage economic growth throughout the city. It would probably be more accurate to compare a new ballpark to David "Snack" Wells because both are overpriced, provide no help and gobble up everything in sight. What about the great jobs the Mayor raved about in his stadium proposal? Indeed, the structure will create thousands of "dream" jobs such as seat Nazi, nacho cheese guy and crusty souvenir dude; but again, these developments only destroy a city's former foundation and rise from its ashes. The boosters of Cleveland's Gateway sports complex (which includes the Cavaliers' Gund Arena) promised 28,000 new jobs. Yet only 2,000 jobs surfaced in the entire downtown area between 1994 and 2002, according to a study conducted by Oakland city legislators who investigated stadium deals around the country. "It turns out that whatever job gains took place in the immediate neighborhood of the ballpark were swamped by job losses in the same area resulting from massive levels of retail business closures," George Zeller, a senior researcher with the Oakland group told the Oakland Tribune. Even the stadiums that have had seemingly positive statistical effects on their surrounding areas can be deceiving. Denver's Coors Field went up around the same time the nearby LoDo District bloomed, but some local residents view this relationship as more of a coincidence than a miracle. "A lot of people will tell you the ballpark turned around the area, but it didn't," Tom Noel, a professor at the University of Colorado, Denver said to the Oakland Tribune. "The neighborhood was already on the upswing." City owners and legislators will dismiss these facts and rally behind the cause that the stadium deal won't cost the taxpayers a dime. Yet San Francisco's SBC Park is the only one of the sixteen stadiums built in this crazy ballpark era that was primarily financed by private capital. In fact, 95 percent of the park's cost was funded outside the public's offering plate, according to a report in St. Paul's Knight Ridder Newspapers. Nevertheless, the Metropolitan Sports Commission shows the average budget for the sixteen new stadiums is 29 percent private and 71 percent public money. Sometimes this money is pulled from the public without their consent. Three of the sixteen stadium deals were executed without support from public voting. In these cases, city legislators went ahead with tax increases nonetheless. Moreover, some stadiums, including Coors Field, got enough backing from suburb voters to compensate for a lack of support from urban residents. The Coors Field situation underscores a fatal flaw in the ballpark scheme. People living in the suburbs can typically afford private schools and other luxury expenses. Therefore, they can survive the increased tax hikes triggered for stadium finance. This tax spike transfers money allotted for public education into the ballpark deal. Consequently, urban residents, who usually send their children to public schools, must cope with a financially strapped school system so a stadium selling tickets out of their price range can be built with their money. "Baltimore (the first of the new age ballparks) set a terrible precedent," former Maryland state senator Howard Denis told the Tribune. "These ballparks have soaked up a lot of taxpayer money around the nation... funds that should have been used to deliver essential services, such as education and transportation." The ballpark brotherhood gives the impression that they are building a fresh, sexy venue for these blue collar folks. In reality, ownership is dumping the underprivileged faithful in favor of wealthier and mostly baseball illiterate "fans." Owners must find a way to maximize profits and that means adding a plethora of luxury boxes and persuading local CEOs to buy out entire sections. The lower and middle class fans don't really factor into this equation and the strength of a team's fan base suffers accordingly. The Bay Area is one market in particular that reeks of this distasteful effect. Prior to the opera house atmosphere at SBC Park, the stands at Giants games felt more like the Attica prison riots. There were punches thrown; f-bombs dropped and more royal rumbles than anything Vince McMahon could ever cook up. Obviously, this wasn't an ideal day at the ballpark, but these people knew their baseball and were willing to do whatever it took to help their team win. That's how you build a solid fan base and ensure that your home field really is an advantage. Today, Giants fans don't fight mostly because they're too busy tasting wine and comparing business cards. A vast majority of the sold-out crowd can't tell a baseball from a palm pilot. These people spring to their feet when Barry Bonds hits a routine fly ball and mysteriously, they continue to cheer even when the centerfielder camps under the ball. (Cue Napoleon Dynamite: "IDIOTS!") Across the bay, A's fans enjoy $2 tickets and dollar hot dogs every Wednesday. This bargain decorates the stands with more vocal, green afro, yellow-chested hooligans and fewer six-inning, suit and tie, corporate whores. After all, is there anything better than 55 thousand people screaming team pride? So why do our local cronies insist on building a new stadium with our money? The Knight Ridder reported a study by two University of Dayton economists found that higher ticket prices and attendance generate enough dough to offset construction costs. The stadium buffs know they can find a way to build their cash crop, regardless of whether the public wants to or not. Ultimately, fans just want owners to build a contender and not a 30 thousand-seat V.I.P. club. A downtown stadium may be enticing, but in the end, the city finds itself in debt and a plastic park stands above a mushroom cloud of tradition and passion.
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