Under the guise of keeping the teams competitive and financially healthy, the owners are able to force cities to bid against each other for the privilege of having them in town. These deals almost always involve either the building of a new stadium or the remodeling of an older stadium, usually to add luxury box seats from which the team owner gets the income.
The cities sell bonds for the financing under the authority of the Redevelopment agency. Redevelopment agencies issue bonds without any voter approval; normally bonds require approval by two-thirds of the voters.
We are told these sports palaces won't cost the taxpayers anything because the bonds will be paid off out of increased revenues. Well, not one has been paid off yet. Every time a stadium gets a little frayed around the edges, the real sharks of the game-the owners-ask for a remodel or they will move to another town that is offering more.
This blackmail goes on all the time. The current shootout is in San Diego over an additional $18 million in stadium upgrades on top of a previously authorized $60 million. There is no way that money can be earned back before the next round of extortion. All to satisfy the Chargers and the NFL to keep the 1998 Super Bowl in town.
To think that San Diego's Redevelopment director is qualified to cut a deal with those sharks and come out whole is pure fantasy. Club owners are the kind of people where you count your fingers after shaking hands. Irwindale found this out when they paid Al Davis $7 million just for the privilege of talking to him, giving new meaning to the expression "a fool and his money are soon parted."
However, city officials are easy prey for the romance of chumming around with sport celebrities. The rip-off is that it's not the city officials' money, it's our money-all of us. For when these bonds are not paid back, the state is going to have to step in with even more taxpayer funds to bail out the good faith and credit of the cities.
Currently in Los Angeles, one-upmanship is going on between Inglewood and the Convention Center downtown. Los Angeles can't staff jails, their schools are bankrupt and still they want to spend $200 million on a new sports palace. City governments have taken to becoming venture capitalists with taxpayer (Redevelopment) money, all the while letting schools run down and pleading poverty to underpaid police officers. This is the perversion of Redevelopment.