Search Results for falcons stadium

If you haven’t yet read Jeff Schultz’s column today about whether it would be “the worst thing in the world if the Falcons moved to the suburbs,” I recommend it. Spoiler alert: Schultz thinks it would not be the worst thing in the world if that were to happen.

Although I think downtown is ultimately far preferable to the suburbs for the Falcons’ home games, Schultz makes a number of good arguments. But this is the part to which I want to draw your attention (with emphasis added):

The [San Francisco] 49ers couldn’t get a downtown stadium deal done, so they’re moving to Santa Clara, 30 to 45 minutes away. … By the way, Candlestick Park is 53 years old.

The [New York] Giants left the old Meadowlands stadium, which was 34 years old. The [Miami] Dolphins left the Orange Bowl, which was built in 1939. The [Dallas] Cowboys and [New England] Patriots left stadiums that were opened in 1971. The [Washington] Redskins left RFK Stadium, built in 1961.

The Georgia Dome opened in 1992.

For …

Continue reading Question on new stadium remains: Why so soon? »

Now for something completely different …

As my longtime readers know, I’m a sports fan. And if there’s been a bigger four-day stretch of big and potentially big sports news in Atlanta than we’ve seen beginning Wednesday, I don’t recall it.

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Wednesday: The Braves reached a deal with free-agent CF B.J. Upton.

Thursday: The Falcons beat their arch-nemesis, the Saints, to move within a whisker of the NFC South title and a step closer to home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. (As a bonus, a loss Sunday by Tampa Bay would give the division title to the Falcons.)

Friday: The Braves traded pitcher Tommy Hanson, freeing up payroll funds for another …

Continue reading Poll Position: Which big win would make you happiest? »

Gov. Nathan Deal recently said “there’s got to be a little further explanation to the public, and probably to the members of the General Assembly,” as to why tax dollars should be used to replace the Georgia Dome before its 25th birthday. He’s right.

That explanation must come from the Georgia World Congress Authority, the state agency that runs the Dome, and/or the Atlanta Falcons, the loudest voice calling for the Dome’s replacement with a $1 billion, retractable-roof stadium. About $300 million of that cost would be paid by Atlanta hotel/motel tax revenues, but only if legislators and Deal agree to raise the authority’s bonding limit. The Falcons and the NFL would cover the rest.

I’m hardly naive about the ability of powerful people to get what they want, and Falcons owner Arthur Blank no doubt qualifies as just such a person. So does Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, who backs the project. And I’m hardly a supporter of ditching the Dome, as I’ve written before.

But if the GWCA and …

Continue reading Some questions for those pursuing a new Falcons stadium »

The AJC’s polling ahead of tomorrow’s T-SPLOST referendum shows pretty much what I expected: A little over half of the voters in metro Atlanta reject the 10-year, $7.2 billion sales tax, with enough folks still undecided that the final margin will probably be in single digits. (I started to write it’s what “most people” would expect. But, given that we still are getting vastly divergent reports of the decisions of even those voters who have already cast their ballots, I’m not sure there is a prevailing view here.)

That said, there was a somewhat surprising result for one of the questions asked with the main queries about the transportation tax: Two-thirds of metro Atlanta residents also reject the idea of using hotel/motel tax revenues to build a new Falcons stadium downtown.

That’s a stout show of disapproval for spending $300 million of public money to replace the Georgia Dome. Unfortunately, there are no geographic splits for this question. Those would have been useful …

Continue reading Build public trust by using taxes for transportation, not stadium »

Before spending a few hundred million taxpayer dollars — for example, on a new stadium for the Falcons — it is worth mulling worst-case scenarios. The worst of the worst cases for the stadium is that, within a few decades, football as we know it is extinct.

Get this straight: I’m not predicting football’s death. The NFL and college football have never been bigger. Projecting the sport’s demise would seem to put one in the company of Harold Camping, the nonagenarian preacher who (twice!) last year forecast Doomsday, not among UGA football’s season-ticket holders.

That said, there are some dark clouds on the sport’s horizon. What better time to pause and consider those clouds than before a deal is signed and the bonds — for which Atlanta’s hotel tax revenues would be committed until 2050 — are sold.

The place to start is with the dominant story this NFL offseason, which concerns player safety. The NFL faces 70 lawsuits covering more than 1,800 ex-players who claim the league …

Continue reading Falcons stadium proposal begs a look at football’s future »

Given the local debate about using $400 million-plus in tax revenues to build the Falcons a new open-air stadium, I couldn’t help but notice this nugget from team owner Arthur Blank’s comments about the penalties handed down to the New Orleans Saints for that team’s bounty program (via Pat Yasinskas at ESPN.com):

“I think the league has handled it well and appropriately,” Blank said. “One of the other owners made this point, but I told the commissioner I totally agree with him, the NFL, outside of our stadiums, the only things we really own are our reputation, our integrity, our shield and the relationship and trust we have with our fans and our sponsors. Anything that’s done that violates that or hurts that, is something that has to be dealt with.” (emphasis added)

Only a handful of NFL teams own their own stadiums, and Blank’s angling for taxpayers to fund a new dream home for his team certainly doesn’t put him in line to join that exclusive club.

Or maybe he meant the …

Continue reading Dear Mr. Blank: About that line about NFL teams owning their stadiums . . . »

A partial quote from a blog post by my colleague Jim Galloway about Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed’s push for a new stadium for the Atlanta Falcons:

Among the reasons Reed cited for pursuing a new stadium, and why he is emphasizing his support:

“I believe we will be awarded a Super Bowl, and I think we have the best owner in America… .”

And my reaction to these particular rationales of the mayor:

So what?

Having a Super Bowl in town matters to two sets of people: Those who get to go to the game, and those who profit from its being here. The number of Atlantans who actually get to go to the game will be relatively small, and the most attractive estimates of the economic impact of the Super Bowl are almost always exaggerated. Officials in Indianapolis, site of the Super Bowl held last month, didn’t even try to pretend the biggest impact was really about money; rather, it’s about “image,” a kind of profit held in highest esteem by politicians and assorted other local poobahs.

Of …

Continue reading So, we’d get a Super Bowl. So what? »

Last Super Bowl-related item (probably) … this one very much relevant to metro Atlanta and the state of Georgia. From an editorial by Bloomberg:

As you watch the Super Bowl Feb. 5, spare a thought for the taxpayers in the host city of Indianapolis. The stadium in which the game will be played has been financed largely at their expense and, like so many sports venues built with public money, the cost just keeps growing.

Lucas Oil Stadium, where the Colts play eight regular season games per year, has every amenity: a retractable roof, state-of-the-art turf, seven locker rooms, 137 luxury suites, 1,000 flat-screen televisions. And well it should: It cost $720 million to build.

Of this, the Colts paid only $100 million. To cover the rest, local officials raised taxes on hotels, restaurants and rental cars, and issued bonds that soon led to ballooning financing costs.

The editorial refers to a Bloomberg news story about the specific financing mistake Indianapolis made — one that’s …

Continue reading Indy offers a note of caution for Atlanta’s new stadium dreams »

If your blood hasn’t boiled in awhile, you must have missed the AJC story earlier this week about Range Fuels — a multimillion-dollar lesson in why taxpayers usually lose when billionaires with hare-brained schemes sidle up to politicians.

It’s been about a year since Range Fuels shut down its facility in Soperton, the South Georgia town where it had promised to turn our state into a world leader in turning wood into ethanol. There was just one problem: Range didn’t actually know how to turn wood into ethanol. The resulting failure cost taxpayers $64 million in federal loan guarantees and another $6 million in state funds.

This past week, the AJC’s Dan Chapman reported the sale of Range for a mere $5.1 million. The lucky bargain shopper? A New Zealand firm bankrolled by Vinod Khosla — the former tech executive who just happens to have been one of the main backers of Range.

Too bad Georgia didn’t invest in one of Khosla’s other ethanol endeavors: In its 2011 ranking of the …

Continue reading When tycoons and politicians do business, taxpayers lose »

Given this state’s flirtation with forking out hundreds of millions of dollars for a spare football stadium, and the Glendale, Ariz., City Council’s decision to pay another $25 million ransom to keep the Coyotes NHL team in Phoenix for another season, it is reassuring to hear that Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed isn’t interested in having his cash-strapped city pay millions to prevent the Thrashers from migrating to Canada.

From the AJC:

Reese McCranie, spokesman for Reed, said Atlanta has not been approached by the NHL about making a financial deal such as Glendale’s. Even if approached, the city — in the midst of pension reform and possible layoffs in 2012 — would not consider it, McCranie said.

“We are aware that the ownership of the Thrashers is having difficulty and they may leave,” McCranie said. “The mayor has had robust discussions with business leaders in the metro region [who might] potentially buy or join a team of buyers to keep the Thrashers here.

“He has gone through …

Continue reading Thankfully, Atlanta won’t get in a shootout to keep Thrashers »