Big League Corporate Welfare
New Book:
Stadium Games: Fifty Years of Big League Greed and Bush League Boondoggles
| Publisher's note -- if this book looks interesting to you, be sure to look at the classic "Field of Schemes" that won the Best Economic Justice Book Award for 1998. You'll find that book right here. |
Stadium Games: Fifty Years of Big League Greed and Bush League Boondogglesby Jay Weiner |
From Seattle to Houston to New York, governments and taxpayers are grappling with how to pay for new major league sports facilities; the free market, or corporate welfare handouts. Support for taxpayer funding is down -- sports fans feel alienated in the face of team owners' demands, threats to leave, and spiraling player salaries. In Stadium Games, veteran Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter Jay Weiner zooms in on Minnesota's fifty-year history with pro sports and the issues contributing to the bid for a new stadium for the Minnesota Twins, along the way providing a big-picture evaluation of national sports economics.
In an account full of stories, scandals, and colorful personalities, Weiner reveals the behind-the-scenes deals and inside scoop on what really happened in the 1997 campaign for a new ballpark, divulging how public relations experts failed and how government leaders conspired to fake out Minnesota's citizenry.
Here is an excerpt from a Minneapolis Star-Tribune article on this book -- you'll see the kind of information that's in store for you.
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In its 1997 regular session, the legislature rejected stadium proposals
from the Twins and Gov. Arne Carlson's pro sports pointman, Henry
Savelkoul. Soon after, Carlson's chief of staff Bernie Omann had a new
idea, and one he acknowledged for the first time in "Stadium Games": the
best way to revive stadium efforts in Minnesota was to concoct a fake Twins
sale.
Carlson, Omann, Savelkoul, and stadium proponent Rep. Loren Jennings believed that the time had come. Omann had a name for it: "Creating a crisis." If there's a crisis, then there is brinksmanship. If there is brinksmanship, then power can be exercised. Problem solving was too hard. Power politics were the way to get things done.
The governor's office instructed the Twins' owners to pretend to sell the team, to trick the taxpayers and force a favorable stadium vote full of corporate welfare giveaways.
As Omann related this 18 months after the fact, I was struck by his matter-of-factness, that this is the way the government was doing business. To get legislators to feel vulnerable, the governor's office recommended that a private citizen make a deal -- real or fake -- so as to increase the public pressure.
Asked if he had personally recommended to Pohlad or Bell that a contrived deal and deadline be established so as to mislead the public, former Governor Carlson said, "That's entirely possible."
But, I wondered, is it proper for elected officials to urge a private businessman knowingly to set a false deadline that triggers a needless special legislative session that paralyzes the state? Isn't that wrong?
For other books on corporate welfare topics, click here.
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