John Oliver on public funding of US pro sports stadiums

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sj-roc
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Last night on his weekly HBO programme Last Week Tonight, John Oliver went on a 19-minute harangue in protest of how team owners often (and successfully) use the threat of moving to another city to leverage public funding for stadiums while reaping all of the economic benefits therein (concessions, naming rights revenues, etc) for themselves.

[video][/video]

http://news.nationalpost.com/sports/joh ... r-stadiums
John Oliver lambastes pro sports teams over public funding for stadiums
Sean Fitz-Gerald | July 13, 2015 1:47 PM ET

John Oliver has chugged a bottle of Bud Light Lime in the name of sports. He has aimed at the hypocrisy of collegiate sports leaders in the United States and, on Sunday night, he moved to the most sacred of North American cows: professional sports.

Fine, sacred might be a little strong, but what other term could describe how taxpayers in community after community are so willing to use public funds for private business? One study Oliver cited suggested $12-billion was spent on new stadiums between 2000 and 2010, saying: “Most new stadiums nowadays look like they were designed by a coked-up Willy Wonka.”

“Sports teams are successful businesses with wealthy owners,” he said, “and yet, they still get our help.”
http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2015/07/ ... -stadiums/
John Oliver Takes a ‘Friday Night Lights’-Level Stand Against Taxpayer-Funded Sports Stadiums
By Sarene Leeds

You knew there was going to be a lot of emotion at the end of Sunday’s “Last Week Tonight” main segment as soon as John Oliver announced the topic (taxpayer-funded sports stadiums). Remember how invested he was in the FIFA scandal?

“I absolutely love sports,” Oliver stated for the record during last night’s episode. “In fact, the only times I’ve ever cried as a grown man have been watching actors playing coaches deliver inspirational speeches set to stirring music.”

So by the time Oliver had finished up his story about the vast amounts of public money spent on privately owned stadiums (“Most new stadiums nowadays look like they were designed by a coked-up Willy Wonka”), you knew that a “Friday Night Lights”-type inspirational speech set to stirring music was most likely in the offing.

And it was. He ended the segment by donning a baseball cap and matching windbreaker, and walked over to an area of the “LWT” set designed to look like a locker room. He then implored all of the jersey-wearing sports fans waiting for him to take a knee, and proceeded to give a calm, measured, Coach Taylor-worthy speech: “I’m not saying we shouldn’t have giant aquariums in ballparks full of terrified fish. Of course we should, this is America! If we don’t have them, no one else will! But we should not be using public money to pay for them.”

Although Oliver may be fuzzy on the differences between Ohio cities Cincinnati and Cleveland (“You might have to hang on to the Bengals,” he tells Cincinnati fans after failing to come up with anything notable about their city), he still succeeded in revving up his gathered tax-paying sports fans to say no to any new stadiums on their dime.

Then again, it’s impossible to not get fired up when you close your speech with “Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose!”
Sports can be a peculiar thing. When partaking in fiction, like a book or movie, we adopt a "Willing Suspension of Disbelief" for enjoyment's sake. There's a similar force at work in sports: "Willing Suspension of Rationality". If you doubt this, listen to any conversation between rival team fans. You even see it among fans of the same team. Fans argue over who's the better QB or goalie, and selectively cite stats that support their views while ignoring those that don't.
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KnowItAll
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bet this guy never has a high school named after him
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Toppy Vann
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The Americans find it abhorrent that we have in their view "socialized healthcare" which we actually don't as there are private docs, labs, etc but it is a single payers system. However despite this aversion to socialism they have had no trouble with public handouts to build stadiums for the pros. BUT that is changing though - harder as taxpayers are more hard pressed in the USA these days.
"Ability without character will lose." - Marv Levy
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