Monday, January 15, 2007
Feel Bad Story of the Year
*Disclaimer: this post, unlike others in the past, is not the result of blatant homer attitudes. This piece was conceived on Monday, September 25, 2005, during the Saints home opener on national television. The treacheries of law school, plus the recent relativity have caused it to form today. Believe it or not, if the Bears lost on Sunday, this column would still be posted today.
Just in time for the Saint’s first NFC conference championship birth in forty years of existence, which furthered the miraculous recovery from a 3-13 season in 2005, not to mention the social implications of a “fairy tale” season after Hurricane Katrina completely destroyed New Orleans, the Associated Press released the new murder rate in New Orleans.
Here are some of the not-so-shocking results, from MSNBC:
“Last year, university researchers conducted an experiment in which police fired 700 blank rounds in a New Orleans neighborhood in a single afternoon. No one called to report the gunfire.”
“The city’s homicide rate has climbed again to nearly 10 times the national average”
Criminologist Peter Scharf said ““We’re going in the reverse of 46 of the top 50 cities in the United States. Almost everyone is going down, but we’re going up.”
“The murder rate in New Orleans has crept back up to 265…Adjusted for the city’s size, those numbers dwarf murder rates in Washington, Detroit, Baltimore, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City.”
OK, you get the point. I don’t deserve a Nobel Peace Prize for pointing out the New Orleans has been and will continue to be a very troubled city. So how come no one, not one columnist, one fan, one public figure has given thought to the possibility that returning a professional football team to a city that was structurally, physically and financially devastated was a bad idea?
After Katrina, the Saints home, the Superdome was damaged to the tune of $185 million. The Governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Blanco, deemed its repair essential to the state, which owned the facility, according to USAToday. Luckily for the residents of New Orleans, Paul Tagliabue provided a $15 million grant, leaving the bill for renovating and repairing the dome at $170 million.
Meanwhile, the city of New Orleans remains completely in ruins. The same MSNBC article sites that the city is down to 3.14 police officers per 1,000 residents, less than half the ratio of Washington D.C “As far as law enforcement goes, money is at the root of everything,” said Lt. David Benelli, head of the police officers union. “We need more personnel, more equipment. The DA’s office needs more people and money. The corrections department needs more people and space to house prisoners.”
The impoverished police have a hard time controlling the apathetic residents, who are inturn more incline to resist them, because they have turned to brutality. It’s an ugly scene. Just in the time period between December 29, 2006 and January 2007, there were 14 murders.
But this isn’t the Saints problem. They are doing their best to lift the spirits of the city. Get real. Anyone with eyes can take a look around the Superdome during Saints home games and figure what the common trait of the fans are. White. Rich. Unaffected by the Hurricane (relatively, of course. Every citizen had their own hardship, but I want to emphasize that the people who can afford to go to these games are not suffering like the rest of the community). Heck, most of them probably don’t live in the city anymore.
I’ve heard the arguments: a professional sports team brings in business, and after capitalism takes its course, the $170 million will be easily balanced with new income from economic development. But this relies on several factors: employment opportunities that come with a professional team (most of these employees are seasonal employees and won’t count against the unemployment rate. Once the season is over, they are where they started), tourism attractions (New Orleans isn’t the highest city on anyone’s list to travel to right now. Many professional sports teams highly overrate this factor as it is, because of very limited number of fans that will follow their team around the country.). The Boston Globe, in an article written by Drake Bennett reported that Andrew Zimbalist, a professor at Smith College and a leading sports economist, said “''Generally speaking, the independent research suggests that we can't anticipate any economic impact" from sports teams and stadiums.
In the recent trend of using public money for stadium renovations or building, owners have also relied on something called “physic income”, which is being heavily relied on by Saints supporters.
The basic idea behind physic income is that the general good will of a professional sports team has intangible benefits on a city, one that can’t be measured by dollars and cents. This is type of feel-goodery that has been overplayed in newspapers, magazines and the internet for months. But is it really worth anything?
Murders and violent crimes are on the sharp increase, especially of late, despite the Saints impressive playoff run. The people who feel good about the Saints revival maybe happy, until the realities of having to wear a bullet proof vest on their own front porch set in, where Helen Hill was murdered in front of her husband and two year old child.
Further, if the Saints did move to San Antonio, as owner Tom Benson had contemplated doing before and after the hurricane, would Saints’ fans be any less proud of their team and what they have accomplished? Could they no longer represent the hope, rebirth and heart of a destroyed city? I can’t see why not, at least to a lesser degree. When the Hornets win in Oklahoma City, the I’m sure their fans in New Orleans take pride.
Let’s also examine the possibility, that if the Saints did not go 10-6 and get the #2 ranking in the playoffs. What then? Would the sports media still be blind to the fact good public money went to rebuild a stadium? Or would a losing team no longer make this a happy story?
Wake up. There is a billion better things that New Orleans could have done with that $170 million dollars, none of which would “fix” the city. But you absolutely can not tell me that the city is better off with a football team than another police station, elementary school, hospital, homeless shelter, ANYTHING.
It is true that the money used to repair the dome came from FEMA for repairing “state property”, which would disarm the argument that the money could have been used for housing. However, I just find it hard to believe that city officials could not have arranged for that money to actually go to a public use, instead of a professional football team.
Just two years ago, the Washington D.C. community dealt with a messy war over the a proposed $611 million public financing package for the Nationals’ new stadium. While owners and backers argued about the development and flowing income and psychic income, neighbors, teachers and citizens questioned why that money couldn’t be used to improve their depleting schools. Citizens took an active stand against the deal, but sure enough it passed through. At least they tried.
But New Orleans’ situation is much more dire. What is going on there is an absolute abomination. In a tragedy where our government was criticized for the handling of minorities, we sit back and cheer for the same scene being played out, because it involves tackling people, and punt returns. Let the rich people enjoy football, using money that should be helping out those in who really need it. Wake up, America.
Sources:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/saints/2006-09-20-superdome-cover_x.htm
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2006/03/19/ballpark_figures/?page=2
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8999837/page/2/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16490563/
Just in time for the Saint’s first NFC conference championship birth in forty years of existence, which furthered the miraculous recovery from a 3-13 season in 2005, not to mention the social implications of a “fairy tale” season after Hurricane Katrina completely destroyed New Orleans, the Associated Press released the new murder rate in New Orleans.
Here are some of the not-so-shocking results, from MSNBC:
“Last year, university researchers conducted an experiment in which police fired 700 blank rounds in a New Orleans neighborhood in a single afternoon. No one called to report the gunfire.”
“The city’s homicide rate has climbed again to nearly 10 times the national average”
Criminologist Peter Scharf said ““We’re going in the reverse of 46 of the top 50 cities in the United States. Almost everyone is going down, but we’re going up.”
“The murder rate in New Orleans has crept back up to 265…Adjusted for the city’s size, those numbers dwarf murder rates in Washington, Detroit, Baltimore, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City.”
OK, you get the point. I don’t deserve a Nobel Peace Prize for pointing out the New Orleans has been and will continue to be a very troubled city. So how come no one, not one columnist, one fan, one public figure has given thought to the possibility that returning a professional football team to a city that was structurally, physically and financially devastated was a bad idea?
After Katrina, the Saints home, the Superdome was damaged to the tune of $185 million. The Governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Blanco, deemed its repair essential to the state, which owned the facility, according to USAToday. Luckily for the residents of New Orleans, Paul Tagliabue provided a $15 million grant, leaving the bill for renovating and repairing the dome at $170 million.
Meanwhile, the city of New Orleans remains completely in ruins. The same MSNBC article sites that the city is down to 3.14 police officers per 1,000 residents, less than half the ratio of Washington D.C “As far as law enforcement goes, money is at the root of everything,” said Lt. David Benelli, head of the police officers union. “We need more personnel, more equipment. The DA’s office needs more people and money. The corrections department needs more people and space to house prisoners.”
The impoverished police have a hard time controlling the apathetic residents, who are inturn more incline to resist them, because they have turned to brutality. It’s an ugly scene. Just in the time period between December 29, 2006 and January 2007, there were 14 murders.
But this isn’t the Saints problem. They are doing their best to lift the spirits of the city. Get real. Anyone with eyes can take a look around the Superdome during Saints home games and figure what the common trait of the fans are. White. Rich. Unaffected by the Hurricane (relatively, of course. Every citizen had their own hardship, but I want to emphasize that the people who can afford to go to these games are not suffering like the rest of the community). Heck, most of them probably don’t live in the city anymore.
I’ve heard the arguments: a professional sports team brings in business, and after capitalism takes its course, the $170 million will be easily balanced with new income from economic development. But this relies on several factors: employment opportunities that come with a professional team (most of these employees are seasonal employees and won’t count against the unemployment rate. Once the season is over, they are where they started), tourism attractions (New Orleans isn’t the highest city on anyone’s list to travel to right now. Many professional sports teams highly overrate this factor as it is, because of very limited number of fans that will follow their team around the country.). The Boston Globe, in an article written by Drake Bennett reported that Andrew Zimbalist, a professor at Smith College and a leading sports economist, said “''Generally speaking, the independent research suggests that we can't anticipate any economic impact" from sports teams and stadiums.
In the recent trend of using public money for stadium renovations or building, owners have also relied on something called “physic income”, which is being heavily relied on by Saints supporters.
The basic idea behind physic income is that the general good will of a professional sports team has intangible benefits on a city, one that can’t be measured by dollars and cents. This is type of feel-goodery that has been overplayed in newspapers, magazines and the internet for months. But is it really worth anything?
Murders and violent crimes are on the sharp increase, especially of late, despite the Saints impressive playoff run. The people who feel good about the Saints revival maybe happy, until the realities of having to wear a bullet proof vest on their own front porch set in, where Helen Hill was murdered in front of her husband and two year old child.
Further, if the Saints did move to San Antonio, as owner Tom Benson had contemplated doing before and after the hurricane, would Saints’ fans be any less proud of their team and what they have accomplished? Could they no longer represent the hope, rebirth and heart of a destroyed city? I can’t see why not, at least to a lesser degree. When the Hornets win in Oklahoma City, the I’m sure their fans in New Orleans take pride.
Let’s also examine the possibility, that if the Saints did not go 10-6 and get the #2 ranking in the playoffs. What then? Would the sports media still be blind to the fact good public money went to rebuild a stadium? Or would a losing team no longer make this a happy story?
Wake up. There is a billion better things that New Orleans could have done with that $170 million dollars, none of which would “fix” the city. But you absolutely can not tell me that the city is better off with a football team than another police station, elementary school, hospital, homeless shelter, ANYTHING.
It is true that the money used to repair the dome came from FEMA for repairing “state property”, which would disarm the argument that the money could have been used for housing. However, I just find it hard to believe that city officials could not have arranged for that money to actually go to a public use, instead of a professional football team.
Just two years ago, the Washington D.C. community dealt with a messy war over the a proposed $611 million public financing package for the Nationals’ new stadium. While owners and backers argued about the development and flowing income and psychic income, neighbors, teachers and citizens questioned why that money couldn’t be used to improve their depleting schools. Citizens took an active stand against the deal, but sure enough it passed through. At least they tried.
But New Orleans’ situation is much more dire. What is going on there is an absolute abomination. In a tragedy where our government was criticized for the handling of minorities, we sit back and cheer for the same scene being played out, because it involves tackling people, and punt returns. Let the rich people enjoy football, using money that should be helping out those in who really need it. Wake up, America.
Sources:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/saints/2006-09-20-superdome-cover_x.htm
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2006/03/19/ballpark_figures/?page=2
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8999837/page/2/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16490563/
