Thursday, February 17, 2005

Fowler's New Toy Box

Reggie Fowler's purchase of the ViQueens for a cool $625 million has again raised the urgency of a new facility, funded in whole, or in part, by public subsidies. Fowler has created his own firestorm since the announcement of the purchase, so it will give me some time to look into the most plausible public financing scenario.

On one hand, I am pretty much against using general fund monies to buy a stadium for a multi million/billionaire. But what if those public funds came for sources we would not see revenue from if the teams wasn't here? How much Income tax revenue does the state take in over, let's say, 20 years, from the players who compete here? Who much sales tax revenue is received via ticket sale and/or concessions sold that would not be received if there was no sports franchise? I'd like to know what that figure is. Is it $10 million, $100 million, $250 million? I don't know, but whatever that figure is, I would support the diversion of those revenues to building a stadium.

I'll be digging around for those figures today, but if someone can point me in the right direction, let me know.

Flash

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