Horizontal Federalism: Interstate Relations by Joseph F. Zimmerman

Author:Joseph F. Zimmerman [Zimmerman, Joseph F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, American Government, National, State, General
ISBN: 9781438435442
Google: CONXewAACAAJ
Goodreads: 14611697
Publisher: SUNY Press
Published: 2012-01-02T09:56:08+00:00

COMPETITION FOR SPORTS FRANCHISES

The relocation of the Brooklyn Dodgers to Los Angeles in 1947 ignited competition to attract major league sports teams to large cities lacking such teams. Recent developments include the Seattle supersonics' owner announcing in 2007 the move of the team to Oklahoma City, the Pitts-burgh penguins in 2007 considering moving their ice hockey franchise to Kansas City, Missouri, or Houston, and the Buffalo bills agreeing to play one football game per season in Toronto in the period from 2008 to 2012 and exhibition games in 2008, 2010 and 2012, thereby sparking talk of a possible move of the team.20

Cities hosting a team have been subjected to strong pressure by a franchise holder who wants the city to construct a new stadium or expand and modernize an existing one under the threat the franchise will relocate to another city willing to construct a new stadium. Franchise owners are able to play one city off against another city and to blackmail the host city into agreeing to construct a new stadium or renovate the existing one.

Competition for sports franchises often generates bidding wars between states and threats of retaliation. The New York Giants and New York Jets of the National Football League moved from New York City to the nearby Meadowlands in New Jersey. Fearing the New York Yankees baseball team would be enticed to move from the Bronx to New Jersey by an offer of a new stadium, Governor Mario M. Cuomo of New York in 1993 indicated he would seek an amendment to the New York State Constitution to legalize casino gambling if New Jersey lured the Yankees to leave the Bronx.21 Legalized casino gambling in New York State would have a severe negative economic impact upon casino gambling in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

The New York Yankees and the New York Mets in recent decades received incentive offers from other city and state governments for each team to relocate. These offers helped the Yankees and the Mets to persuade New York City and the state government to provide much of the financing for new stadiums to replace Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium. The city contributed approximately $458 million to the project to finance infrastructure—garages, parks, and transportation projects—and the state contributed $201 million.22 The combined costs of the two stadiums total approximately $2.2 billion and many are critical of the city and the state contributing such a huge sum for facilities used seasonally and employing primarily seasonal and part-time workers. In 2008, a new stadium for the Yankees, financed in large measure by city and state grants, was opened.23

The first publicly owned sports facility is the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum which was constructed as part of a bid to be the site for the Olympic Games. Today, the vast majority of the stadiums are publicly own and critics label the owners welfare recipients.

In 2006, New Jersey Governor Jon S. Corzine reached a new agreement with the New York Giants and Jets to build a new $1 billion

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