Stadiums: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
LastWeekTonight2 HN recommenders · recommended in 2 months, 2016–2022
commentary · general · evergreen · 2016–2022 on HN
John Oliver's Last Week Tonight segment on cities spending public money on privately owned sports stadiums, including how tax-exempt municipal bonds subsidize them.
Pointed to in debates over stadium subsidies as a persuasive case that cities should not pay for stadiums.
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3 comments from Hacker News
John Oliver already settled this in 2015. After watching it, it's pretty clear that cities should not pay for stadiums. ▶ this video
John Oliver did a good piece on this as well and how crazy it is that the public pays so much for these things: ▶ this video
> Hey if it works for sports stadiums why can't it work to create a company town Because it doesn't work for sports stadiums. It works in the sense of corporate welfare, but it is not a net gain for the community. link link link ▶ this video It's sad watching cities fall over themselves to give Amazon (a half a trillion dollar company) a handout. Handouts no one can afford . > (but where cities take the hit if the company town fails) As a country [1], states [2], and many municipalities [3], we're very much insolvent as it relates to future obligations. Could we please stop supporting reckless behavior making it worse? [1] link [2] link [3] link