Bay Area Cities Afflicted with Sports Arena Envy

Bay Area Cities Afflicted with Sports Arena Envy
by Gil Villagran, MSW

Like wallflowers at a sock hop, bay area cities swoon dreaming that one of the Bay Area sports billionaires will cozy up to them long enough to see what they've been missing and can't live without. The great American practice of giving massive subsidies to insatiable billionaires, most often in oil, agribusiness and weapon manufacturing, is especially exciting in the field of major league sports teams. Exciting because as it is unquestionably well known, a city without its own major league team is no more than minor league, barely on the map of so-called destination cities.

So let's look at the Bay Area scoreboard:

San Jose hoped to land the Oakland A's or any team in an old sausage plant right in front of the Shark's Arena, as Fremont offers itself also to the A's in an empty field where Cisco promises to join in a threesome, while the City of Santa Clara is eager to bed down with the 49ers in a parking lot next to Great America. (Imagine inviting your prom date to such locations!)

There hasn't been this much excitement in the Southbay since the San Jose Grand Prix, subsidized by a pittance of only $ 4 million, but these three cities' excitement to consummate with "their" team offer free land, subsidized development fees, and waivers of many city ordinances and restrictions. Each promises to go all the way, leave no taxpayer untaxed, to court their prince charming with cautious city bureaucrats transmogrified along with mayors into cheerleading PR hucksters to sell "the deal" to their unsuspecting citizens molded into eager fans caring only about finally residing in a major league city in their own field of dreams. The frenzied fans can already smell the hot dogs, hear the sports announcer screaming the score, and line up to buy the overpriced third world sweatshop manufactured sports paraphernalia.

The sooner the deal is made, the less the cost to these irrationally exuberant cities as any delay will only increase the cost by another hundred million, already passing the half-billion dollar line. So the best bet is not to ask too many questions about the financing--let the teams' own financial wizards do the math. After all, we are on our way to the major leagues and asking too many questions is so very minor league!

The only losers in this sport will be the cities losing what they thought were their team, San Francisco and Oakland. But hey, they had their 49ers and their A's for many years and the thrill was gone long ago as each team was demoralized to play in the same arena, which got old and seemed so perfunctory. There is new excitement in the air and much money to be made, so Fremont, San Jose, and Santa Clara open up your deep pockets, as you join the major league of Subsidizing Big Sports Billionaires.