I've got a confession to make. It's very embarrassing. [Deep Breath] Here goes.
I'm a Milwaukee Brewers fan. The baseball team, I mean. The one Bud Selig owns and is being run into the ground both on the field and on the financial pages. They don't have enough cash to be competitive, in spite of being heavily subsidized by local government. The fans and the taxpayers are losing, bigtime. Doug's Business of Baseball Weblog is following the story:
The Brewers have reportedly decided to slash their payroll from 2003's $40.6 million to $30 million in 2004, and possibly keep it at that level for 2005 and 2006. Fully half of this payroll will come from other clubs, courtesy of MLB's revenue sharing plan.
The Brewers are reportedly $110 million in debt. They've been trying to raise capital for at least the past six months, without success.
[...]
Fans are furious. The head of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, which loaned the Brewers $14 million for Miller Park and has guaranteed the purchase of millions of dollars of season tickets, says, "if this is the level of investment that is going to show up in the field, we are seriously concerned about the future."
[...]
A leading local columnist has blasted Brewers management: the "directors' stunning arrogance in calling for a 25% reduction in payroll is matched only by their bad timing." The leading local newspaper reminded Wisconsinites that when the Brewers were begging for a taxpayer-subsidized new park, they explained that it was necessary for the Brewers to field a competitive team.
Taxpayers are paying tens of millions of dollars to keep this team in Milwaukee. I wonder how much they'd pay to be rid of it now? According to this article, taxpayers are on the hook for $160 million of the new ballpark's $250 million dollar cost. That should be criminal, having government subsidize private enterprise that way. And like so many other government projects, it's a miserable failure.
The next time your local team asks for tax money for a stadium, remember the Brewers.
Hat tip; Matt Welch.
Posted by Walter at November 13, 2003 08:32 AM