Cities vs. Team Owners: Time to Play Hardball

A welfare system exists in this country that transfers hundreds of millions of dollars from taxpayers to wealthy investors and their extraordinarily well-paid employees. Who are these individuals profiting from this life on the dole? They are the owners of North America’s professional sports teams and the athletes who play in each of the four major sports leagues.

--Opening words of “Major League Losers,” a new book by Indiana University Professor Mark S. Rosentraub

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The major league losers are the strapped local governments that repeatedly are bullied into allowing mega-millionaires onto the public dole. The owners’ game is to threaten to skip town with their pampered players unless they’re given a handout.

Handout, help, subsidy, loan, relief. . . . It’s all semantics and spin. What we’re really talking about here is public money.

Welfare for the wealthiest.

One local government, however, now has imposed its own welfare reform. This reform for its pro sports recipients, to be sure, is much less stingy than the other welfare reform that is about to whack millions of the truly down-and-out. But measured against the rich tastes of the NBA and NFL et al., the handout Sacramento’s City Council just voted for the Kings basketball team is downright Draconian.

Says Mayor Joe Serna, who once organized boycotts for farm worker leader Cesar Chavez: “I wanted it to be the kind of deal that when the NBA took a look at Sacramento, this was not going to be just another city rolling over for them [owners]. . . .

“These guys are in danger of killing the golden goose if they’re not careful.”

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Kings owner Jim Thomas, a Los Angeles developer, threatened last month to move the team unless the city showed him some money. He revealed there was a $144-million offer for the franchise. He wouldn’t identify the suitor, but apparently the team was headed for Nashville. (Sacramento swiped it from Kansas City in 12 years ago.)

Regardless of record sellouts, Thomas contended, Sacramento isn’t yet big enough to support an NBA team because of a dinky TV market. So he proposed a $145-million city investment / bailout and demanded an immediate answer. The council immediately sneered and snarled.

They negotiated a lot less: a $70-million, 30-year loan, to be repaid with arena revenues and a $2 ticket surcharge. For collateral, there’s the Kings-owned Arco Arena and a $20-million piece of the team. It must play here for at least 10 years, barring a revenue plunge. Before they ever can leave, the Kings must repay the loan.

Serna told Thomas it may not be all he wanted, but it’s what he needs. And it’s all he’s going to get. Like a government would tell most any welfare recipient.

There’s still a hitch. Thomas says he needs more millions from Arco to keep its name on the arena. Arco paid the previous owner $7 million on a 100-year deal. But like many players, Thomas claims he’s underpaid and wants to renegotiate the contract. Arco is balking. However, it sells gas around Sacramento and Serna has led boycotts before.

The mayor also mentioned to the council that he’s “not too sure” he likes beer being sold at Arco’s AM-PM mini-marts. Just a little joke, he said. Guess which oil company isn’t laughing.

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San Diego, Anaheim, Los Angeles, San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland--all have been cowed and courted by team owners playing cities off each other.

At the Capitol, Assemblyman Don Perata (D-Alameda), a former county supervisor who negotiated with owner Al Davis for the Raiders’ return to Oakland, thinks one answer may be a state sports authority. It could mediate fights and underwrite bonds, perhaps through a statewide surcharge on pro sports tickets. A special committee he heads will study the idea.

“Local governments are stretched beyond capacity,” Perata says. “They’re really into the danger zone.”

But local governments should be embarrassed to cry at the Capitol for more state money when they’re spending public funds for pro sports. This isn’t about economic development; it’s about entertainment, insecurity and ego.

Also, the reason owners need handouts is they pay those outrageous salaries. The average NBA player makes over $2 million a year, a 460% raise in the last decade. The retort always has been that this is capitalism; you’re paid whatever the market will bear.

Well, it’s no longer just the market that is bearing this absurdity. Taxpayers also are. And they barely can afford high school sports.

When big league teams ask for a public handout, their paychecks become the public’s business. They should learn self-responsibility. The super-rich need to be weaned off welfare.