<story><title>Cities should not pay for new stadiums</title><url>https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/mje/2022/01/15/cities-should-not-pay-for-new-stadiums/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rascul</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m not sure if it&amp;#x27;s still the case but from what I understand the NFL used to prohibit local games from being shown in the local area to encourage ticket sales.</text></item><item><author>jedberg</author><text>What really upsets me about public stadiums is when the locals can&amp;#x27;t even watch the game.  Take the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.  That stadium is 100% publicly funded by the taxpayers.&lt;p&gt;Since 2011 the Rose Bowl game on Jan 1 has been on ESPN.  So two colleges, the majority of which have been public schools, play in a public stadium and the locals can&amp;#x27;t even watch for free.&lt;p&gt;I think at the very least they need to make a law that says all events that take place in a publicly funded stadium need to be broadcast on a free local channel that reaches all of the taxpayers who paid for the stadium.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jedberg</author><text>Not just the NFL but also MLB. Usually the rule is that it has to be a near sell out crowd so it isn’t blacked out.&lt;p&gt;But they’ve gotten more lax about that after they realized that the trick doesn’t work — blackouts don’t really increase attendance.</text></comment>
<story><title>Cities should not pay for new stadiums</title><url>https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/mje/2022/01/15/cities-should-not-pay-for-new-stadiums/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rascul</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m not sure if it&amp;#x27;s still the case but from what I understand the NFL used to prohibit local games from being shown in the local area to encourage ticket sales.</text></item><item><author>jedberg</author><text>What really upsets me about public stadiums is when the locals can&amp;#x27;t even watch the game.  Take the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.  That stadium is 100% publicly funded by the taxpayers.&lt;p&gt;Since 2011 the Rose Bowl game on Jan 1 has been on ESPN.  So two colleges, the majority of which have been public schools, play in a public stadium and the locals can&amp;#x27;t even watch for free.&lt;p&gt;I think at the very least they need to make a law that says all events that take place in a publicly funded stadium need to be broadcast on a free local channel that reaches all of the taxpayers who paid for the stadium.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bombcar</author><text>Exactly - the &amp;quot;blackout&amp;quot; sales level - if not enough tickets were sold, the game wouldn&amp;#x27;t be available locally.&lt;p&gt;Sometimes a local entity (city, owner of the team, local businessman) would buy blocks of 10k+ tickets to ensure it could be shown locally.</text></comment>