Sports all around

I spent a good deal of time in LA talking about people talking about sports, especially since I didn't get invited to the Sixers game one Sunday afternoon while everyone else (and their acquaintances) got to go. But in NYC, we're getting more than a fair share of sports talk ourselves, especially in ways that impact public space.

The RPA had put out a great assessment of the West Side Stadium last fall. Now, the Tri-State Transportation Consortium released its latest newsletter chock full of thought-provoking articles about transportation and transit impact of such large scale projects - the Jets Stadium, the NASCAR race track on Staten Island, the Nets stadium in Brooklyn, NYC's Olympic for 2012, the Yankee's proposed stadium in the Bronx, and the Giant's proposed stadium in NJ. See, NYC is just overrun with pro sports!

Sports venues can be great assets in a city, but the way that the professional sports industry has taken over the United States, it has become more of a liability, especially when a pro team's visibility is tied to a prominent stadium in a prominent neighborhood with little thought of how to expand its single use to community use.

Large-scale sports arenas are said to stimulate economy, create jobs, bring visitors, but what they hide is that happens at a large cost to a specific community. While cities sell out (through tax-breaks and long-term complex financing plans) their land and neighborhoods, the stadium developers continue to make money through fancy deals with the sports team, sponsorships, corporate ads, and all the rest of it. Because sports arenas are so huge and inflexible (typically single use, with blank walls facing the neighborhood, managed by private, highly capitalistic organizations with little ingenuity about including the community) they should be particularly difficult to commit to - anyway, that's what I think. Obviously this is not the way the city thinks. (The one exception being Fenway Park in Boston, which I absolutely love. Little and historic, it is in the middle of the neighborhood. And parking should be difficult - the ballpark is next to several T stations!)

Give me a college basketball game anytime - the fervor over watching your favorite hometown team is great, and sparks good conversation anywhere and with almost anyone. But why do we need to throw more money to professional teams, who are already making millions, charging outrageous ticket prices, and whose stadiums only drain a community of its social and economic resources? I have an especially hard time wrapping my mind around pro-football, where only 1/2 of the season's 17 games are played at a team's home stadium. Is this really the future of NYC?