The Braves Will Wring An Extra $30 Million Out Of Taxpayers For Traffic Control

The Atlanta Braves began this season playing in a shiny new stadium located out in Cobb County. The new ballpark cost local taxpayers nearly $400 million, and at one point, the county was forced to raise taxes to pay for public parks because they’d overpaid so severely for the stadium, which is already seeing…

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The Sabres Will "Host" The Rangers In The NYC Winter Classic For A Specific Tax Purpose

The NHL announced Tuesday that the Sabres and Rangers will play the 2018 NHL Winter Classic at the Mets’ stadium in Queens. Despite the fact that the Sabres reside hundreds of miles away in Buffalo while the Rangers are only a borough away, the Sabres will be the “home team.” The NHL said that the decision to have the…

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Get A Load Of The Washington Post Toting Water For Dan Snyder's Upcoming Stadium Scam

Nothing in this fawning Washington Post profile of Bruce Allen, team president of D.C.’s NFL franchise, would seem so much as a hair out of place in a glossy gameday program handed out by team employees inside the home stadium. To the extent it contains a thesis more complex than Bruce Allen is good, its thesis is

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This Is The Saddest Attempted Stadium Grift I've Ever Seen

Earlier this week, the NCAA announced that the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments will be returning in 2022 to Cincinnati, Ohio, for the first time in over 30 years. The bid to bring back first- and second-round games was won by the owners of the former Riverfront Coliseum, the largest indoor venue in…

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Florida's Go-To Stadium Economist Is A Hack, A Shill, And Also Not An Economist

If you are even a casual Deadspin reader, you know a couple of truths: Stadiums and arenas provide little-to-no economic benefit to their communities, and studies written to support public funding for stadiums and arenas are almost universally bogus. Tampa CBS-affiliate WTSP found a frightening collision of these two…

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Oakland Taxpayers Will Still Be On The Hook For $163 Million After The Raiders And Warriors Leave

When the city of Oakland brought the Raiders back from Los Angeles in 1995, then-mayor Elihu Harris enticed Al Davis with $200 million in improvements to the Oakland Coliseum. The city paid for the construction with taxpayer-backed bonds, and their initial plan was to pay off the bond by selling personal seat licenses…

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The Raiders Have Found Someone To Pay For The Rest Of Their Big Dumb Stadium

The Oakland Raiders would very much like not to be the Oakland Raiders for much longer, and their ability to shed their Bay Area digs for the desert depends in part on how well they can put together a $1.9 billion deal for a new stadium. Billionaire GOP donor/goblin king Sheldon Adelson was supposed to pick up $650…

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Mike Ilitch Was No Saint

If you only went by what you read in the Detroit papers this week, you’d think Mike Ilitch—the pizza baron and owner of the Detroit Red Wings and Tigers who died last week at the age of 87—was a god incarnate. And for the last three decades, if you’d asked anyone in Michigan, you’d have gotten the sense he was revered…

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Report: Arizona Coyotes Exploring Possible Relocation To The Pacific Northwest

The Arizona Coyotes are not happy with their situation in Glendale. The team had the framework of a plan to move to Tempe until late last week, when Arizona State pulled out of a potential deal. Taxpayers still owe $150 million on the Coyotes’ 14-year-old stadium, but owner Anthony LeBlanc is going to push for a new…

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Legislative Auditor Smacks Down Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority Over Luxury Suite Freebies

The Minnesota Legislative Auditor has released an extensive special report on the use of luxury suites at the publicly funded Minnesota Vikings stadium by commissioners of the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority, finding that commissioners “violated a core ethical principle” when they gave free tickets to friends…

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The Braves Are Trying To Squeeze Another $14 Million Out Of Taxpayers

Cobb County taxpayers have been on the hook for close to $400 million since the county commissioners approved the Braves’ expensive new stadium construction project without hearing from dissenters and without letting the constituents vote on the deal almost three years ago. Residents made their displeasure known by…

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Jazz Owner Creates Legacy Trust In Effort To Secure Team's Future In Utah

This afternoon, Utah Jazz owner Gail Miller announced that ownership of the team would be restructured and the team would henceforth be owned by a legacy trust. Miller and her husband Larry paid a total of $26 million for the franchise in 1985, and they’ve doubtless had several offers to cash out for a hefty profit.…

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Pissed Off Diamondbacks Sue Because They Want Another Stadium

The protracted fight between the Arizona Diamondbacks and Maricopa County has reached a boiling point. The Diamondbacks announced tonight that they had filed a lawsuit in Arizona Superior Court against the Maricopa County Stadium District, the legislative body that operates their stadium, in an attempt to get out of…

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Missouri Governor-Elect Takes Bazooka To MLS Hopeful's Stadium Financing Plans

Missouri’s recently elected governor, Republican Eric Greitens, is a former Navy SEAL, a devoted humanitarian, and a man who ran a campaign ad that was just 20 seconds of him firing a Gatling gun. All of that means he doesn’t take any shit, not when justice is at stake. The vampires trying to suck over $100 million…

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