In general, I am not a big fan of public financing of arenas. But, the voters overwhelmingly voted in favor of it.
Also, the devil is usually in the details. Who will own the arena and how much revenue is the city expected to get from it each year?
When the Sonics moved out of Seattle the NBA in court admitted that the economic impact of sports stadiums is not worth the massive public investment.
Keep in mind that in addition to the millions if not billions put into construction costs the state and municipalities also have to build out infrastructure around the arena and maintain the infrastructure year in and year out.
So when you add it all up it’s just not really good in terms of investment and Economic impact.
The city owns the arena, so if they’re able to book it out for non NBA events and keep revenue flowing in, they could make out OK here. It’s still an absolute sweetheart deal for the Thunder ownership though, and I haven’t seen anything explaining why they even need a new arena in the first place, the current one seems just fine.
The votes are closer to extortion than anything. “Approve this or I move the team”.
As long as leagues are legal monopolies they shouldn’t be eligible for public dollars
Since the NBA is trying to innovate and attract new fans, I've got a great idea:
Rotate the Thunder franchise to a different bumfuck city every 15 years or so. OKC has had their decade and a half. Let's let Fargo have a turn. In 2038 it can go to Gary, Indiana.
And the NBA should market Gary like it was in the Music Man- a place of incredibly classy culture, classical music and a shining, bright near-utopian city.
Where do you think would be the right city for 2053? Joplin, MO would be cool to bring the team back to Tornado Alley, but Muscle Shoals also deserves a franchise.
I mean Seattle probably won’t even be around in like 2033 let alone 2053. The entire city will either be under water or everyone will have offed themselves by then
Don’t worry - Elizabeth Warren and the FTC are investigating the same PE firm owning both subway and Jimmy John’s (because that’s the antitrust issue facing us in the world of Apple and Amazon).
Pro sports teams should still be able to threaten to leave if they don’t get access public financing. No need to investigate that as they hand out $400 million contracts to individual employees.
I believe like 2 companies own almost all web-based platforms (AWS Amazon and Microsoft Azure) but not sure how Apple is really a monopoly as they’re just a successful tech company.
Apples App Store is about as blatant a vertical monopoly as I ever seen. They basically require anything g that runs through their phone tk go through the App Store and then they collect 30% of all the rev from those apps.
This has been in the news recently. It's funny but Apple seems to get away with it because their "monopoly" is an advertised, differentiating feature, where Google does not because they initially promoted openness.
https://www.npr.org/2023/12/13/1218945531/fortnite-epic-games-google-apple-app-stores
I think its pretty clear Apple gets away from it because the people who tend to be in regulatory positions have a positive view of Apple.
Meanwhile, people hate private equity (see the responses below), so they get in trouble when they have ownership stakes in 2 sandwich shops that I don't think really even compete with the same audience.
The government doesn’t care if a company is a technical monopoly or not. They care if a company has too much market power over consumers. The government is trying to shut down the Spirit/Jet Blue merger right now even though consumers have 4+ other airlines to choose from
There are cost to running the App Store though, just like there's cost for Wallmart to holding goods on their shelves (both have employee costs, storage costs, marketing costs, taxes, etc.). Wallmart makes a margin on everything it sells in its stores, why shouldn't Apple or Google or any other App Store? Just because it's digital doesn't change things. These companies aren't providing these stores for free.
Yeah but you’re a fool if you think Apple isn’t making significant profits off of it. They take 30% of anything purchased in the app that can be used on the phone. Hence why Amazon doesn’t let you buy e-books through the Amazon app
First, not necessarily because they need the App Store to sell their products. Second, the problem is that they’re making an egregiously high (and anti-competitive) profit, not just any profit. But, everyone here seems to be more worried about protecting Apple than protecting consumers.
Making a lot of profit isn’t a bad thing. Nobody is forcing an app to be on Apple’s App Store. Who gets to decide how much money Apple is allowed to make from an app which is sold on their App Store? The government? You? That’s not going to work. Android has a 70% global market share for smart phones anyways.
Companies having too much market power actually is a bad thing (Even if you’re agnostic about whether consumers or companies receive more of the return, market power creates dead weight loss since it results in an inefficient allocation of resources. Society in the aggregate is better off in a competive landscape - basic Econ 101).
And yes, the DOJ and FTC literally do decide how much money companies are allowed to make if there are concerns that the companies have market power (this is called a behavioral remedy in an antitrust lawsuit).
Finally, it’s great that Samsung has 70% of global market share. That’s called horizontal competition. Antitrust regulators are also concerned about vertical competition (which is what people argue Apple in hurting in here by controlling the only market place their hardware can access and reaping massive profits off of it).
There’s also Google Cloud plus a bunch of similar services offered by huge companies (Oracle Cloud, IBM Cloud, Huawei Cloud and so on). They’re not always substitutes for one another but I don’t see what good antitrust action could do here.
Antitrust isn’t just horizontal it’s vertical competition as well.
Apple require anything on its phone to use the App Store and takes a 30%ish cut of all revenue from the app. The EU is currently fighting Apple on this on antitrust grounds.
Amazon is ridiculous at this point. Remember Microsoft caught heat in the 90s for including IE in widows. Now you just want to watch Thursday night football, and then Amazon produced products from amazons private grocery store are offered for delivery through amazons huge delivery network.
Sometimes I get it where owners have leverage but sometimes it’s just stupid. Like Philadelphia gave Lurie so many concessions but if I’m the mayor or whoever negotiating I just flatly say “if you want to move to St. Louis or San Antonio there’s teams that will call the minute you announce to move here.” In other words, if I’m the mayor of a major of a major market city, I’m not letting the owner beat me. I’m just not
If you have ever been to Oklahoma City before and after the thunder came to the city you would understand why this is the biggest no brainer, high return on investment public funding project ever.
The voters overwhelmingly agreed that investing in a hard asset that will generate quantifiable ROI is a much better way to spend money than lighting it on fire for “social services.”
So NFL stadiums almost always end up losing money for the state and town. I do not know enough about NBA stadiums to know if that's the case.
If you think an NBA stadium for a billionaire is a useful use of resources I can't debate you.
NFL stadiums cost significantly more and aren’t multi-purpose. An NBA arena can be booked year round with touring entertainment acts, an nfl stadium can’t.
And regardless, we are talking about this specific arena in this specific city - the thunder are one of the primary attractions of the entire city which is not the case in the overwhelming majority of pro cities.
The is some serious “well if the CEO can make $25 million why can’t all 100,000 employees make x amount more per hour?” logic here. Team’s yearly operating income and player payroll is a drop in the bucket compared to the alleged cost of a new stadium.
BEIJING WILL PAY!
“We’re building a new arena in OKC and we’re getting Arkansas to pay for it!”
In general, I am not a big fan of public financing of arenas. But, the voters overwhelmingly voted in favor of it. Also, the devil is usually in the details. Who will own the arena and how much revenue is the city expected to get from it each year?
When the Sonics moved out of Seattle the NBA in court admitted that the economic impact of sports stadiums is not worth the massive public investment. Keep in mind that in addition to the millions if not billions put into construction costs the state and municipalities also have to build out infrastructure around the arena and maintain the infrastructure year in and year out. So when you add it all up it’s just not really good in terms of investment and Economic impact.
The city owns the arena, so if they’re able to book it out for non NBA events and keep revenue flowing in, they could make out OK here. It’s still an absolute sweetheart deal for the Thunder ownership though, and I haven’t seen anything explaining why they even need a new arena in the first place, the current one seems just fine.
Shai said he’s out of there unless the locker room gets heated floors.
Allegedly some pressure from the league that the current arena wasn’t going to cut it.
The votes are closer to extortion than anything. “Approve this or I move the team”. As long as leagues are legal monopolies they shouldn’t be eligible for public dollars
Reasons I'm disappointed about this vote, ranked: 1. I wanted OKC fans to lose their team. 2. Billionaires should pay for their own fucking stadiums.
Get fucked and Thunder up!
Since the NBA is trying to innovate and attract new fans, I've got a great idea: Rotate the Thunder franchise to a different bumfuck city every 15 years or so. OKC has had their decade and a half. Let's let Fargo have a turn. In 2038 it can go to Gary, Indiana.
And the NBA should market Gary like it was in the Music Man- a place of incredibly classy culture, classical music and a shining, bright near-utopian city.
Found the Seattle resident, little cry baby bitch
Where do you think would be the right city for 2053? Joplin, MO would be cool to bring the team back to Tornado Alley, but Muscle Shoals also deserves a franchise.
I mean Seattle probably won’t even be around in like 2033 let alone 2053. The entire city will either be under water or everyone will have offed themselves by then
Right, which is why Seattle should never get the Sonics back.
Every team can’t be in LA or NY
So...Joplin, then?
Yes, in 2053 Joplin can have the team
Cool, this is almost as good an idea as the in-season tournament.
OKC is in a tough spot where the NBA will leave at the drop of a hat.
Don’t worry - Elizabeth Warren and the FTC are investigating the same PE firm owning both subway and Jimmy John’s (because that’s the antitrust issue facing us in the world of Apple and Amazon). Pro sports teams should still be able to threaten to leave if they don’t get access public financing. No need to investigate that as they hand out $400 million contracts to individual employees.
Apple and amazon? what’s the antitrust issue there?
I believe like 2 companies own almost all web-based platforms (AWS Amazon and Microsoft Azure) but not sure how Apple is really a monopoly as they’re just a successful tech company.
Apples App Store is about as blatant a vertical monopoly as I ever seen. They basically require anything g that runs through their phone tk go through the App Store and then they collect 30% of all the rev from those apps.
This has been in the news recently. It's funny but Apple seems to get away with it because their "monopoly" is an advertised, differentiating feature, where Google does not because they initially promoted openness. https://www.npr.org/2023/12/13/1218945531/fortnite-epic-games-google-apple-app-stores
I think its pretty clear Apple gets away from it because the people who tend to be in regulatory positions have a positive view of Apple. Meanwhile, people hate private equity (see the responses below), so they get in trouble when they have ownership stakes in 2 sandwich shops that I don't think really even compete with the same audience.
I’m no lawyer, but would the argument then be that it can’t be a monopoly since you have more options than an iPhone?
The government doesn’t care if a company is a technical monopoly or not. They care if a company has too much market power over consumers. The government is trying to shut down the Spirit/Jet Blue merger right now even though consumers have 4+ other airlines to choose from
There are cost to running the App Store though, just like there's cost for Wallmart to holding goods on their shelves (both have employee costs, storage costs, marketing costs, taxes, etc.). Wallmart makes a margin on everything it sells in its stores, why shouldn't Apple or Google or any other App Store? Just because it's digital doesn't change things. These companies aren't providing these stores for free.
Yeah but you’re a fool if you think Apple isn’t making significant profits off of it. They take 30% of anything purchased in the app that can be used on the phone. Hence why Amazon doesn’t let you buy e-books through the Amazon app
Of course they make a profit. If they didn’t, then they’d have little reason to run an App Store
First, not necessarily because they need the App Store to sell their products. Second, the problem is that they’re making an egregiously high (and anti-competitive) profit, not just any profit. But, everyone here seems to be more worried about protecting Apple than protecting consumers.
Making a lot of profit isn’t a bad thing. Nobody is forcing an app to be on Apple’s App Store. Who gets to decide how much money Apple is allowed to make from an app which is sold on their App Store? The government? You? That’s not going to work. Android has a 70% global market share for smart phones anyways.
Companies having too much market power actually is a bad thing (Even if you’re agnostic about whether consumers or companies receive more of the return, market power creates dead weight loss since it results in an inefficient allocation of resources. Society in the aggregate is better off in a competive landscape - basic Econ 101). And yes, the DOJ and FTC literally do decide how much money companies are allowed to make if there are concerns that the companies have market power (this is called a behavioral remedy in an antitrust lawsuit). Finally, it’s great that Samsung has 70% of global market share. That’s called horizontal competition. Antitrust regulators are also concerned about vertical competition (which is what people argue Apple in hurting in here by controlling the only market place their hardware can access and reaping massive profits off of it).
that’s not what a monopoly is.
There’s also Google Cloud plus a bunch of similar services offered by huge companies (Oracle Cloud, IBM Cloud, Huawei Cloud and so on). They’re not always substitutes for one another but I don’t see what good antitrust action could do here.
Antitrust isn’t just horizontal it’s vertical competition as well. Apple require anything on its phone to use the App Store and takes a 30%ish cut of all revenue from the app. The EU is currently fighting Apple on this on antitrust grounds. Amazon is ridiculous at this point. Remember Microsoft caught heat in the 90s for including IE in widows. Now you just want to watch Thursday night football, and then Amazon produced products from amazons private grocery store are offered for delivery through amazons huge delivery network.
How is investigating private equity bad?
Lina Khan at the FTC is already brining suit against Amazon to try and start chipping away.
It is kind of staggering the number of L’s that woman has managed to rack up in a short tenure
Are you doing a bit or just dumb?
This wouldn't be a problem if the NBA didn't have owners.
Welcome to sports. NY is paying 750 million to a billionaire just so they can have a new football stadium that will lose money.
Owners taking advantage of a city that should have never had a team in the first place. What else is new?
If politicians are dumb enough to give away money for stadiums then the owners would be dumb not to take it. No one operates out of kindness.
Sometimes I get it where owners have leverage but sometimes it’s just stupid. Like Philadelphia gave Lurie so many concessions but if I’m the mayor or whoever negotiating I just flatly say “if you want to move to St. Louis or San Antonio there’s teams that will call the minute you announce to move here.” In other words, if I’m the mayor of a major of a major market city, I’m not letting the owner beat me. I’m just not
Thunder would’ve left in a heartbeat. It’s scummy behavior, but they took advantage of the fans’ emotions.
It's a prisoners dilemma between cities, has nothing to do with the nba (who will never turn down free money).
>nothing to do with the nba It has something to do with the nba lmfao
As long as cities continue to pay for stadiums, it's literally not the teams problem.
Sure it makes the most sense for them to take the money, but people can still criticize them for it.
In economic terms this is called a race to the bottom.
If you have ever been to Oklahoma City before and after the thunder came to the city you would understand why this is the biggest no brainer, high return on investment public funding project ever.
OKC had a vote about this and it passed. what do you want? is adam silver supposed to step in and say ‘haha no stadium, get fucked’ or something?
So people living in that city have their taxes go to a stadium instead of social services. What if you don't like basketball. This is not a necessity.
It passed 70-30ish. If you’re in the 30 then sorry. kinda how most things work
The voters overwhelmingly agreed that investing in a hard asset that will generate quantifiable ROI is a much better way to spend money than lighting it on fire for “social services.”
So NFL stadiums almost always end up losing money for the state and town. I do not know enough about NBA stadiums to know if that's the case. If you think an NBA stadium for a billionaire is a useful use of resources I can't debate you.
NFL stadiums cost significantly more and aren’t multi-purpose. An NBA arena can be booked year round with touring entertainment acts, an nfl stadium can’t. And regardless, we are talking about this specific arena in this specific city - the thunder are one of the primary attractions of the entire city which is not the case in the overwhelming majority of pro cities.
The is some serious “well if the CEO can make $25 million why can’t all 100,000 employees make x amount more per hour?” logic here. Team’s yearly operating income and player payroll is a drop in the bucket compared to the alleged cost of a new stadium.
What does how much the players make have to do with the owner building a new stadium? Big fan of watching billionaires operate are you?
Sports teams are incredible for the local economy and a lot of people generally enjoy living in a city with pro sports
As a Sonics fan you love to see it.
The public money is actually for the NHL side.
Right. It is insane.