Tuesday, March 8, 2011

game over? I hope so

I live just outside Sacramento, California, and Sacramento has one major league sports team, the Sacramento Kings of the NBA. Their arena has been open since the 1980s, and the team wants a new arena (built at taxpayer expense, of course) with more seats and more high priced boxes for people crazy enough to pay for them. The team asked for money from the city sometime in the 1990s, and over the objections of most of the citizen, the city loaned the team $70 million, which is slowly being repaid. The owners are the Maloof brothers, who "earned" their millions or billions from casinos in Las Vegas. The city has tried to build a new arena, but like most cities now there is just no money. The city asked the voters in 2006 to raise taxes for a new arena and the citizens had the wisdom to overwhelmingly vote no. And the citizens were dumb enough to elect Kevin Johnson, a local man who formerly played in the NBA, mayor a few years ago. (What is it with Californians that so many will elect movie "stars" such as Reagan or Schwarzenegger (however that is spelled) to elected office?) So now the Maloofs are working to move the team to Anaheim. Billboards have sprung up saying "Game over?" with a photo of a partially deflated basketball. I say let them go. The city has spend way too much time and money trying to build an arena for a team that won't finance an arena themselves. And I can't count how many players and coaches have been arrested for domestic violence, drunk driving, weapons violations, etc. I would really like to get rid of all professional sports. They just seem to be a way to give people entertainment to distract them from important issues that should be dealt with.

4 comments:

  1. Whoooo, you have no idea how close to home you struck with this post. I get so tired of public money financing private concerns - here it's at the minor league baseball level - the 25 year old stadium isn't good enough for a bunch of barely out of high school kids to play "Lookie at me! Take me to the majors!" so they expect us taxpayers to pay for a new one, though they offered to "throw in $2.5mil" out of the $25-30mil that will need to be spent. And to listen to the idiots at work with fantasy football and all that crap, you'd think pro sports paid their salaries instead of the county government. ARRRGHHH! Now you got me all het up! HAHAHAHA
    Peace <3
    Jay

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  2. maybe you and those tea party goons in congress can get together and agree to eliminate all govt. funding for professional sports.. im sure you wouldnt mind if they also cut funding for the national endowment for the arts and humanities and the corporation for public broadcasting... what about ADAP and Medicaid?
    maybe all govt funding for health care that undoubtedly goes into the pockets of over paid specialists and insurance companies and their lawyers... guess again doc...
    cant have it both ways....

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  3. David,
    Yes, I would like to end all goverment funding for professional sports. Not for non-professional sports - I'm all in favor of fields for people to play the sports of their choice. As for public television and radio and the arts, that really is a different topic. Wanting public money for professional sports isn't different from wanting public money for making movies or for professional musicians. Professional sports are essentially entertainment, so why shouldn't it be self supporting?

    Jay, yes, that story happens most places. The "local" team owned usually by someone out of town wants local money for their stadium.

    I am surprised that more people haven't criticized this post. I know that I upset sports fans when I talk about this.

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  4. HI! Hadn't heard from you in a while, just hoping everything's great out there on the West Coast.

    You may have heard that the wonderful governor here in VA allowed the legislature to strip anti-discrimination language out of the adoption rules that allow adoption by gay couples. Single gays are OK, but not couples! Yet they tout that children are better off with two parents! Idiots. I admire you and David, and know that Leo is SOOOO lucky to have TWO loving parents to raise him!
    Peace <3
    Jay

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