Field of Schemes

There’s just something about sports stadiums and arenas which turn ordinarily sensible public officials' brains into goo.

Back in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s some of these people actually said that “Without the Giants, San Francisco won’t be a ‘major league’ city.” I guess the stunning scenery, the fantastic weather, the high culture, the cable cars and the history means nothing without a major league pitchers mound right smack dab in the middle of it.

I had a high school teacher in San Francisco who didn’t mind having taxpayers build stadiums. As he was a card carrying member of the Democratic Socialists of America, this was kind of surprising.

Stadiums are public places where people come together for relaxation and community, he said. That’s a good public purpose which even a lukewarm pinko like he could support. He just had one caveat.

If everyone’s taxes are paying for it, he said, every seat should be the same price because everyone should enjoy the same right to a seat as they generally would in any public space. You don’t set rates for Golden Gate Park, he said, holding the prettier parts for those willing or able to pay more. The maintenance and operations come out of everyone’s pocketbook, so everyone has the same right to access. The only qualification is who shows up early enough to get the best seat on the grass at the Park. Public stadiums should operate the same way.

It’s an interesting idea. I’ve carried it with me through years of debates over public stadium finance in San Francisco (for the Giants); Oakland (for the Raiders) and now here in Sacramento, where the NBA Kings are insisting that the city build them a new arena.

The proudest card carrying liberal can get swept up in all the supposed civic virtues of a publicly funded place for millionaire athletes and their owners to make even more millions.

In 1989 San Francisco's mayor was Art Agnos, a former social worker whose claim to infamy lay in part in allowing a smelly homeless encampment to take over Civic Center. He put time and energy into a proposal for a ballpark at the current site. He lost, and paid for it when the local left turned against him at the next election (splitting the vote and bringing in a former police chief to replace him.)

Oakland has almost no private tax base outside of the people who live there. It’s the core part of the House district of Barbara Lee, the lone persistent voice against giving George Bush carte blanche to start wars. It’s Berkeley with a ‘hood. Yet they spent millions in tax dollars to build swanky suites at the Oakland Coliseum (which have remained generally unfilled) to bring the Raiders back to Oakland from L.A. The city and county promised to sell tickets and corporate suites for Al Davis, so the team owner wouldn’t have to dirty his hands with trying to earn his own living. This was the second and successful attempt to bribe Davis back from Los Angeles. The first try, in 1990, sank when it was revealed that the city and county promised to buy unsold seats to guarantee Davis a sellout every game.

Sacramento mayor Heather Fargo is a nice, sensible, progressive mayor. She represented my district before becoming mayor. She has good ideas about managing growth, preschool and efficient government. But she’s nuts about spending $400 million on a new arena for the Kings. Polls and other devices find little support for the idea. She had to pull an advisory vote on one proposal after it became clear that it was dead in the Sacramento River. But she persists, up to engineering the premature retirement of the city manager who opposed it.

They say it sells the city.

“The Raiders sell Oakland.” Yeah, unfortunately, they do. When folks see the Hell’s Angels-in-Darth Vader guys beating the crap out of each other in the seats and the parking lot, they go, “yeah, that’s Oakland.” One would imagine a good public relations firm could do much better for far less.

Same in Sacramento, which suffers under a poor self-image of being the “cowtown” of Northern California cities. Yep. Being the capital of one of the largest states and, effectively, nation of the world is nothing but a pile of oats and alfalfa without an NBA team.

These stadiums and arenas are not civic investments. Study after study finds this that they don’t add a dime to the tax base. The brilliant Field of Schemes website provides in-depth research and review on all this. Yet we’re in a Renaissance-style era of public stadium and arena construction.

And I’m part of the problem. Despite everything I’ve written above, if my favorite baseball team threatened to pack up and leave because it wanted a new place to play, I’d be the first to the street corner lying my tail off to get voters to give ‘em one. (I’m saved regarding the Kings in that I’m not much of an NBA fan.) There’s something about the crisp green grass, cold beer and the crack of the bat that I just can’t resist. I'd beg, borrow and steal to keep them around.

That's the great thing about obsession. It doesn't have to be logical and rarely is. And you just don't care.

Spring training has begun, and the silliness starts once again, for another year. I can’t wait. Play ball!!