Subsidies in governing has become far too common of a practice and is undermining many of the American values and the values of economist, Adam smith, who is regarded as the creator of capitalism and the invisible hand. A subsidy is defined as “money that is paid usually by a government to keep the price of a product or service low or to help a business or organization to continue to function”(Meriam Webster Dictionary). One of the most common subsidies we run into is in the building of sports stadiums for professional sports teams. Many teams plead poverty and because of the admiration of the team by the voting populace they get there wish in big checks handed out from the city. This gives the ability of the major league teams to make huge …show more content…
This is a large amount of money spent on stadiums for an industry that creates 1.6 billion dollars in profit every year (Forbes Field of Schemes). Teams use different strategies to try to coheres politicians into supporting their stadiums. The most common by far is the threat to move to a different city. Since all of the major sports leagues are owned in the private sector the sports teams are also privately owned businesses. No team has allowed a city to give them a deal to stay in a city as they would lose one of their best bargaining chips to save money. Cities get this money for new stadiums from municipal bonds which are supposed to build things that are necessary that cannot wait on a budget like roads and bridges. They have been exploiting these funds for years now to use it for the building of these stadiums. These subsidies are so big for these teams it takes nearly all the risk out of running their business. A poorly managed team can still capture 80% of its subsidies and make a profit still. These kinds of handouts undermine the true values of a capitalist society. To top it all off many of these facilities are extremely lavished and nice costing taxpayers more money. For example the Miami marlins have a fish tank instead of a wall behind home plate. This kind wastefulness in today’s world is unnecessary and causes more problems …show more content…
In the early 20th century there was an Irish immigrant named John Mullalay who was wrote news articles about the terrible conditions many of the immigrant class have been living in. One of the things he noticed doing his reports was that New York had no parks for the youth to play in. At the time Paris had one acre of park for every thirteen people (source). He decided to champion the cause and came up with a plan to build public parks all around the city for a price that would only cost 8 million dollars. After much debate and smearing of his plan he finally got through the plan. A century later the Yankees would try to move their new stadium on the taxpayer’s dime to one of the parks Mullalay created in the Bronx. Streinbrenner to keep the support of the public had to run ideas that would show how investing in a new stadium was worth the cities money. He made up lies saying that the new stadium would bring more jobs and income around the city. This is actually proven not to be the case. In reality most small business owners will lose a lot of money when a new stadium moves in nearby due to losing their regular customers. When a stadium comes in it drives consumers away because of the traffic and congestion it will create around a certain area. On top of the fact that the old stadium did not do much to improve the area it was located in. When Steinbrennner