Stadiums: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

sports the thing you weren't quite good enough at for your dad to love you I absolutely love sports in fact the only times I've cried as a grown man I've been while watching actors playing cultures deliver inspirational speeches set to stirring music this game is not over this battle is not over listen up this is our time now second half is our time that's gonna make the difference between clear eyes full hearts [Applause] we are all lucky that Kyle Chandler is not a Scientologist or I would be broke and married to Mimi Rogers right now that's a fact that's a true fact but look tonight we're not gonna talk about the players on the field we're gonna talk about the fields themselves stadiums America has a lot of them and they are increasingly fantastic at the home of the Dallas Cowboys here's what you also get real art by world-renowned artists the party suite is all about watching the game or concert in style you can do bottle service you can set up come in before the game you know you get the snakeskin you know that had the gold aged so everybody knows where you're sitting there are 14 party cabanas and two pools watched by lifeguards that looked out on the field just look toward the end zone yep those swimming pools are inside the stadium that's right you can now watch a game from a swimming pool suspended above the field where the real contest for the fans is finding out whether or not HPV can swim Hey my money's on HPV that's a clutch STD that's clutch most new stadiums nowadays look like they were designed by a coked-up Willy Wonka and if you don't believe me just look at what the Miami Marlins have in their new ballpark that's a fish tank around the hole part that is awesome yes the Marlins have actual aquariums behind home plate which is indeed awesome because you get to watch baseball while at the same time watching fish develop panic disorders all those new finches are clearly incredible the problem is they're also expensive and the vast majority of stadiums are built using public money one analysis found that between 2000 and 2010 we spent 12 billion dollars building new facilities for professional teams which begs the question why sports teams are successful businesses with wealthy owners and yet they still get our help two years ago Detroit got approval to spend more than 280 million dollars in taxpayer money on a new arena project for the Red Wings just six days after the city filed for bankruptcy even though the Red Wings owner is Mike Ilitch the founder of the Little Caesars pizza chain who's worth an estimated 5.1 billion that's a little hard to swallow I mean sure not as hard to swallow as a little Caesars crazy breads with an assortment of Caesar dips but still pretty hard and we don't just help teams build stadiums we let them keep virtually all the revenue those stadiums then produce just listen to the president of the Miami Marlins described they're not at all unusual deal you get the income from naming rights yes you get the income from concessions yes you get the luxury box income yes you get the income from non-baseball events that's the whole object of this is to get more revenue wow that's that's pretty direct hey you think I've got into this because I like sports what are you a child who let a child host a television show this is all about the money son that money he mentioned naming rights in there and it is true for most teams if you sell the name of your building you get to keep the money even when it's as stupid as this the New Orleans pelicans are going to be playing their home games at the Smoothie King Center yeah the Smoothie King Center and you have to feel a bit for the pelicans players it can't be easy to protect your home court when it's named after a slop of yogurt and kale ejaculated from a blender but owners monetizing every part of a stadium is so ingrained it's even now a feature in the Madden NFL video game we're adding the ability to run your team as an NFL owner being an owner isn't just about talking though it's about taking action set prices on concessions merchandising tickets upgrade your state improve everything from the parking lot to the locker room it's incredible the owner experience is apparently so realistic that if you unlock a secret level you can even deal with the aftermath of making a racist comment that's that's incredible attention to detail gamer's teams teams are so successful at pushing for upgraded stadiums that since the early 90s we've had a replacement rate of over 90% we replace stadiums even faster than we replace spider-men and come on what Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield were perfectly good state of the art spider-man almost every single team gets some kind of public money some like the Yankees might build the stadium themselves but on lands that they're given rent and property tax free costing New York City hundreds of millions in lost revenues but many others get their stadiums funded through tax-exempt municipal bonds which yes sound like the last words an accountant says before his blind date falls asleep at the dinner table but but they're actually incredibly important so so let me quickly try to explain municipal bonds are a way for the city to take out a loan which they then later repay with interest although usually through new or existing taxes they're supposed to be for things like roads or schools or public goods that private industry would not pay for but they've been routinely misused to finance stadiums for decades and often cities do it because teams claim they can't afford to build stadiums themselves the Marlins got nearly 500 million dollars toward their fish traumatising theme park by pleading poverty although when miami-dade county tried to verify that something strange happened among the questions they asked was can we see your books you said no right why didn't you just open the books because isn't that easier because in Major League Baseball history books are just kept private that's just how it is sure but if the argument in major league baseball history that's just how it is always won we'd still have an all-white league of players gambling on games smoking cigarettes at the plate and dying of syphilis but then leaked documents later revealed that despite denying they made a profit the Marling's had generated nearly 50 million over the previous two years and listen pretending you're poor is wrong it wasn't okay when mary-kate Olsen went through her hobo phase and it's not okay now and we haven't even mentioned the ultimate bargaining chip the teams like to use threatening to leave right now the Oakland Raiders the st. Louis Rams and the San Diego Chargers are all threatened to move to Los Angeles unless they get new stadiums in fact over the past two decades nearly half the NFL has been subject to speculation about a move to LA it's such a cliche that in the current map and video game if you want a new stadium a good way to do that is to relocate the team and the game even tells you the easiest choice financially is guess where lots Angeles and if you're a Chargers fan that must be pretty infuriating oh come on even my make-believe escapist entertainment he's trying to move my team to LA in fact Chargers fans are currently so terrified their team might leave not only are they campaigning to spend public money on a stadium they're doing it in one of the worst rap songs of all time die horribly is almost whether a rampage I journal dies I hope you understand why I got the best I hate on him they deserve a brand new stadium safety ankle the finest city say the ankle the second-largest city our committee and Eagle make it money so put it back in our city wait wait wait wait wait go back did he say second-largest city that is a strange boast for a rap song yo I got the second hottest car because I'm the second most paid when I go to the club I get the second most laid I'm not the two yo not the team and teams are shameless in manipulating city's fears in 1997 the Minnesota Twins even ran an ad showing a player visiting a child in hospital with cancer and the tagline if the twins leave Minnesota an eight year old from Willmar undergoing chemotherapy will never get a visit from Marty Cordova which is less like the make-a-wish Foundation and more like the maker threats foundation but teams don't just use threats to get what they want they also promised that new stadiums can work economic magic the Milwaukee Bucks who are also currently threatening to leave if they don't get a new arena or running this ad now the ripple effect starts this is Wisconsin's home from the court to concerts and opportunity the ripple effect of a new era begins today it spreads across the river village up through Roseville and across the great state of Wisconsin settle down reel walking box for a start I don't think Wisconsin will be transformed by one new arena and also if you really are looking to make a tangible change how about coming up with a better slogan than fear the deer deers aren't scary they're timid forest ponies with sticks on their heads I fear no deer the truth is stadiums very rarely revitalized their surrounding areas all create large numbers of permanent jobs just listen to one bar owner near that new Marlins ballpark he says since the stadium opened in 2012 not only of his profits not risen on game days his regular stay away afraid of the traffic here is a business owner we don't see any changes I could even say it's hurting us of course it is because no one has ever said hey let's go hang out in the area around the stadium and I'll tell you why I've got a new shirt and I really want someone to vomit Miller Lite and nachos all over it in fact a major review of almost 20 years of studies showed economists could find no substantial evidence that stadiums had increased jobs incomes or tax revenues or to put that another way this one economist said to me I love this line he said your rather than spend a billion dollars on a stadium you're actually better off flying a plane over a city and dumping a billion dollars on the populace and just letting them pick up the money and spend it to be fair that is not a great idea for the economy but is a fantastic idea for a new reality show tune in this Sunday for Ryan Seacrest's billion dollar job only on NBC and it gets one step worse because when you use public money to pay for an expensive stadium you might find yourself unable to afford something you badly need Hamilton County in Ohio was estimated to spend 15 million last year on debts and other costs for the Bengals and the red stadiums even though since building them they've had to sell a public hospital cut 1,700 jobs and delay payments for schools because of budget gaps and it might not even end there because there's a clause in the contract that states if 14 other NFL stadiums have something then taxpayers must buy the bengals that thing and here is how comprehensive that clause is taxpayers are also on the hook for all kinds of future bells and whistles some that haven't even been invented yet at some point taxpayers are have also agreed to pay for a holograph replay machine someday it's true the Bengals have a deal whereby if someone invents holographic instant replay in the future the county has to buy it for them and that's the kind of clause owners put into a deal in order to take it out during negotiations which begs the question what else was in there look we want a helipad a submarine dock and a monkey named professor bananas to hang out in the locker enjoying halftime or we're moving the team to LA but teams get these deals because they know politicians will capitulate and give them whatever they want remember Milwaukee what just Monday just this Monday their mayor argued for a new stadium deal he admits is not perfect with this appeal to civic pride I was in China 10 years ago I was on the Great Wall of China and I had a Milwaukee t-shirt on and I'm the Great Wall of China this guy Chinese guy came up to me said Milwaukee Bucks that's a to me it's important to all of us okay okay the only possible way that story is true is if that Chinese man happened to be former Milwaukee Bucks player is Zhang Liang rather Lee Milwaukee Bucks two seasons by average eight point six points again and you could almost sympathize because when politicians do try to stand up to teams it can cost them last month the City Council of Glendale Arizona voted to try and get out of an awful deal with the Coyotes whose hockey arena was costing them more than eight million dollars per year the mayor held a public hearing and it did not go well I support this team it's you that doesn't support any sport in the city not football and certainly not hockey what you're doing is childish it's pathetic and it's just disrespectful what well I can see her passion is real you don't get to call someone childish when you are the one arguing for spending millions of public dollars you don't have to keep a giant slab of ice in Arizona just days after that coyotes fans raised money so that she could tase the mayor for charity taser taser taser okay okay okay first of all do you have to say taser three times before tasing someone you're not tasing beetlejuice and second no one should want to stadium so badly they're willing to electrocute an old man for it and look I know sports can make people behave irrationally for instance some where there is a man with this actual tattoo of Tim Tebow as a center that makes no sense but but we have to come to our senses and stop signing these deals and if you think it will John there's no way it's just too hard let me persuade you to fight back in the only way that I know works an inspirational halftime speech set to music please American sports fans I really need you to join me in the locker room it turns out to have ourselves a talk an emotional inspiring talk so gather round and at home you might want to take a knee I know things look bad out there these owners have been humiliating us for decades I'm sure we could just give up we could roll over and let them do it to us for another 20 years we could do that or right here tonight we could decide to fight back mmm and I'm not saying we shouldn't have giant aquariums in ballparks full of terrified fish of course we should this is America if we don't have them no one else will but we should not be using public money to pay for them and yeah teams might threaten to leave you that might happen but I happen to believe that your cities are more than just the teams who happen to play their st. Louis stand up stand up st. Louis and look at me you're more than just the ramps you're more than just the ramps you're a proud Midwestern metropolis your home of the st. Louis Arch San Diego you're the second largest city in California that's not nothing that's not nothing that's a solid number two and you Cincinnati you're the home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that's Cleveland whether you hear that you're the hometown of astronaut Jim Lovell and Emmy award-winning actress Carol Kane that's Cleveland as well I'm sorry you might have to hang on to the Bengals but for the rest of you for the rest of you I want you to look deep down inside your heart I want you to dig in there and I want you to find something and it's gonna seem tiny but it's the most powerful thing in the world and it's the word anymore so when a billionaire asked you to buy him a hologram machine that doesn't exist yet what are you gonna say that's right and when when they ask you for public money without opening their books what are you gonna say to him that's right and when they ask you if they can keep all the money for calling their arenas Smoothie King Center what are you gonna say to them no that's right because that's a stupid name for anything even a smoothie store so listen to me because I want you all to get out there and the next time a team comes around asking for a new stadium I want you to make them pay what are you gonna do [Applause] Starro that [Applause] [Music] you [Music]

Channel: LastWeekTonight

Views: 15,454,422

Keywords: Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (TV Program), John Oliver (TV Writer), HBO (TV Network), stadiums

Id: xcwJt4bcnXs

Length: 19min 8sec (1148 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 12 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/PeeNEat]

Shout out to Yi Jian Lian, haven't heard his name for awhile

[u/HorabFibslager]

Good watch, and yeah. Publicly funding stadiums is a terribad idea. Every time it comes up I think its Keith Olbermann who sums up the entire thing with some very good common sense...

"If stadiums were a good investment, the owners would want to pay for them themselves."

Or something like that.

[u/Thousandtree]

The worst part about this right now is that we have literally been saying every day the past two weeks that teams could afford to spend millions more on marginal players "because of the rising cap." The cap is rising because a huge amount of money is about to come to the teams through television rights. That money could be allocated to something a little more useful, like not screwing over fan bases. But as long as we don't look at it that way, and don't act on it in a meaningful way, we give professional sports all the power to pull this shit off over and over again.

[u/icekiller22]

Not just the stadium issue, but every issue John Oliver has brought up has been thought provoking, deep, and worthy of our social awareness. I love his show.

[u/rbmw263]

Get the public to fork over for a new stadium, then keep all the profits from said stadium? If anyone deserves a sweet gift of a deal like that its billionaires.

[u/wjbc]

We need federal intervention to stop the teams from playing one city against another. Local politicians are too vulnerable to threats to move, I can't blame them for caving.

[u/noahsbun]

Wait, there's another new Spiderman?

[u/thebryguy]

As a Boston sports fan, I am completely spoiled with this whole issue.

Red Sox, Celtics and Bruins are all too historic and profitable to move, and the Patriots almost did, but then Bob Kraft saved the team because he bought the stadium and wouldn't the owner move the team. He then OVERPAID for the (at the time) terrible Patriots, who were the least popular team in the market. Even after that (despite some ideas to build a new stadium somewhere else in New England other than Foxboro that included some public funding.) Kraft privately financed the construction of Gillette Stadium.

So besides being spoiled with winning, Boston fans will probably never experience a relocation scare in the future.

[u/g3teg971]

Orlando City Soccer owners paid for their own stadium although it sounded like they were tired of waiting from the state. Still, as a fan, I was happy to see that.