14 Comment

• TXT February 8, 2016 at 10:43 am

  Re: Multi-Million-Dollar NRG Stadium Will Have a Tough Time Winning a Third Super Bowl Against New Crop of Billion-Dollar Stadiums
  ____________________________________________

  Agreed, especially with Atlanta’s stunning Mercedes Benz stadium coming onboard soon. It puts NRG and ATT to shame. Moreover, Atlanta is building it right next to the still-very-funtional Georgia Dome…so their already great convention business will sky-rocket, while Ed ‘Elmer Fudd’ Emmett still has a hard-on for the wretched/decrepit/defunct eyesore Astrodome sitting ugly next to a now surpassed 2nd-tier NRG. For the South, going forward, the rotation will go between Atlanta, New Orleans and Miami, with an occasional stop in Dallas. 2017 will be Houston’s last superbowl dance until it does something extraordinary…it’s just the way it is in 21st century civic progress: get used to it of don’t play. Houston may choose to do nothing, and that’s fine…but don’t start crying when Atlanta or Dallas takes over as the BBB of the South.
• El Debtor February 8, 2016 at 12:21 pm

  No more Super Bowls in Houston? Great, traffic is terrible enough.
• GoogleMaster February 8, 2016 at 1:06 pm

  It’s not the stadium. NOLA has hosted the Super Bowl 10 times, seven of them in the 40 years since the SuperDome was built. There’s nothing exciting about the SuperDome. It looks like a bad clone of the AstroDome, it seats far fewer people than NRG, and it’s in a sketchy neighborhood next to an ugly freeway.
• Superdave February 8, 2016 at 2:09 pm

  Question: Why is the new Buffalo Bayou Park under the stewardship of Harris County, rather than COH? Just curious.
• footballbailout February 8, 2016 at 2:29 pm

  “[Houston] Sports Authority officials have stressed that neither the stadium homes of the Texans, Rockets and Astros nor the land under them have been at risk. Though the teams’ current leases expire between 2029 and 2031, the deal would extend the stadium debt by 12 years, to 2053, according to an October report from Standard & Poors.”

  The current team’s lease doesn’t even extend to the end of the city paying off the stadium. If we tear down NRG and build a new one, that old debt doesn’t magically disappear. We’d be financing two stadiums at the same time while only having one stadium (that we would be paying off for forever also). What worries me is that Houstonians/Texans are absolutely blinded by football lust to do something this stupid. We’d be making payments for essentially absolutely nothing for 30+ years on top of making payments for a new stadium for what, 40+ years? And I’d have a feeling that the new stadium wouldn’t last 40+ years.

  Talk to St. Louis and see how that worked out for them. They’re still on the hook for $129 million for their stadium.

  Now, if there was only a way to transport NRG Stadium to Denver, then NRG would be transformed into a brand new, award winning stadium.

  Sources:
  http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/politics/houston/article/Sports-Authority-hopes-to-refinance-debt-and-end-5873934.php
  http://fox2now.com/2015/01/06/taxpayers-could-be-on-the-hook-if-the-rams-pull-out-of-st-louis/
• feh February 8, 2016 at 4:14 pm

  If the NFL really wants a multi-billion dollar stadium, they can take their mult-billion dollar revenue and build it themselves. But I guess when local politicians trip over themselves trying to hand out tax breaks and “concessions”, there isn’t really any point to that.
• MrEction February 9, 2016 at 9:12 am

  I am so sick of footing the bill for the NFL.
• Fernando February 9, 2016 at 11:48 am

  I’m fine not footing the bill for the NFL. If they’re so successful, they shouldn’t need taxpayer dollars to survive.
• toasty February 9, 2016 at 1:19 pm

  Any sports team that thinks the city is privileged to have the team, and should build a stadium for them, or they’ll go somewhere else, they can get out.
  .
  I’m very quickly losing my interest in professional sports.
• Cody February 9, 2016 at 5:05 pm

  Toasty / Fernando: Cool to think that way, but there will always be more cities that want an NFL team, than the number of NFL teams. So cities will do what cities do an try to incentive the team to move there. That often includes public funds for stadiums.
  .
  Are you also against tax breaks given to get companies to locate/relocate to a particular city/state? That happens all the time by cities looking at the bigger picture.
• footballbailout February 9, 2016 at 6:00 pm

  @Cody

  I am, because we’re equally inept at spending taxpayer money attracting jobs in Houston too.

  http://www.workersdefense.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/The-Failed-Promise-of-the-Texas-Miracle-compressed-file.pdf

  In fact, tax breaks and subsidies generally don’t work out well for the taxpayer at all.

  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/15/corporate-tax-breaks-cost_n_3087972.html
• TheNiche February 10, 2016 at 2:18 am

  When it comes to economic development, I agree that the City, the region, and all stakeholders need to compete both directly with subsidy and indirectly by building up infrastructure and human capital and by keeping check on the regulatory framework and bureaucracy. There ought to be a law against the direct subsidies IMO, a constitutional amendment even(!), but until there is then you have to hold your nose and let it happen. You can’t win by not playing; however I do acknowledge…it is possible to play and still lose. The curse of the high bidder is a thing! Its a delicate balance, I think.
• toasty February 10, 2016 at 9:11 am

  Cody,
  .
  No, I’m not against companies getting tax breaks, but most companies that are going to get a tax break to bring their HQ to Houston are companies that bring a lot of full time employees. Way more than the Texans staff, and outside of the players, and coaching staff, how many are permanent positions? How many players/staff live in Houston year round?
  .
  Are the benefits that the companies receive worth half a billion dollars? When a company chooses to relocate does the city keep providing the company with incentives if the were there for less than 30 years? If the company comes to you and says, hey we’re going to leave, if you don’t give us better incentives, do you still have to pay off the original incentive package, and pay for the new one too?
  .
  NFL teams get stadiums worth hundreds of millions (these days it’s billions), if they see better ‘incentives’ in a different city, they leave, and we’re still on the hook to pay for the remainder of the ‘incentives’, then we still have to figure out what to do with the structure for 15 years after it’s been empty. It’s not a winning proposition.
  .
  If you told me that the city going to Disney and straight up giving them the reliant complex land, and then tossing some money in to build a theme park. That would be worth it. Entertainment for the whole family 365 days a year, bring in vacationers 365 days a year. Not just entertainment 8 weekends a year, and bring in vacationers 8 weekends a year. 71 thousand visitors per game, if you sell out. That’s 568 thousand people a year. Assuming a theme park like a Disneyland, they get 60 thousand visitors a day. 365 days a year. 21 million people a year. Mostly tourists.
  .
  Yeah, your professional football team can F the right off.
• toasty February 10, 2016 at 9:16 am

  Oh, and Disneyland cost 17 million to build, today that’s a shade over 100 million. It cost us $400 million to build reliant stadium. Can we just give Disney $400 million to build a theme park in Houston?