And the voters will get to have their say (again):
The Diamondbacks have been playing in their current ballpark since 1998. Their stadium cost $364 million to build, and Maricopa County picked up $238 million of the tab. Eighteen years later, it is need of some repairs, and the fight over who is going to pay for them has gotten ugly.
The team recently said they needed $65 million for a new paint job and a new scoreboard, among other things. They requested the money from Maricopa County, but the county has largely refused to pay up. The Diamondbacks are locked into their lease with the county for 12 more years, and the stadium will need about $187 million in repairs over that time, according to the Arizona Republic. The county is essentially trying to set a precedent and force the team to pay for their own repairs over the next decade and change.
Both sides appear to be furious with each other, and it has turned personal. The Republic acquired a letter that current Maricopa County Supervisor Andy Kunasek sent to Diamondbacks president Derrick Hall in April, in which he yells at him in all caps, reprimands him for trying to squeeze more money from taxpayers, and calls modern professional baseball “parasitic.” When he delivered it, he apparently told team owner Ken Kendrick to go back to “[effing] West Virginia.” ...
Based on Kunasek’s fiery rhetoric, it doesn’t appear that he plans on backing down. However, he said that he will not run for re-election this November, so the resolution to this impasse could come down to the results of the election. Voters might not have gotten a chance to vote on the construction of the stadium, but they will get a chance to pick the politician in charge of its immediate future.
via deadspin.com
According to Forbes, the Diamondbacks are valued at $925 million with annual gate revenues of $44 million. If the county budget is as tight as any other county in the U.S., then it seems that the Diamondbacks have a greater ability-to-pay for maintenance of their primary capital input.
Are there any sports economists out there who could tell me about this "parasitic" claim? Is baseball, football, etc. the most heavily subsidized industry in the U.S.?
