Posted by TrueBlue:

I saw it way back when, the signs were there.

And to think this guy was available over the summer

Posted by iyamwutiam:

Posted by Solace:

Okay, so let's get this straight.

Corporations swallow extra costs just for the hell of it? No businessman is dumb enough to take on a cost without the expectation of profit. Again, at a minimum, the cost gets passed onto the consumer. If you can't understand that, then you can't have a logical conversation about the finances of the Knicks, sorry.

As for the rest of your post, pure garbage. Part of it was me humoring your ridicuous attempt at math. As for the rest of it, please reread before replying.

[Edited by - Solace on Jul 21 2007 7:30 PM]

There is a book called 'Free Lunch' by David Cay Johnston that will explain a lot. For example almost 95 percent of all sports teams are tax payer funded. Which means a ton of non basketball/baseball fans etc are subsidizing these multi-millionair owners who are always threatening to 'move' the team - if they don't get a reasonable deal like the city/stat building them a new stadium, giving them all concession /parking fees, charging them no rent-in return for a 100 minimum wage jobs that park cars, sell hotdogs, and wear 'security' guard costumes. Read here http://www.reason.com/news/show/124116.html.

There are have been many studies done by University professors who have unequivocally proven that these stadium deals bring no economic benefit at all to the taxpayers that funded them economically or otherwise. If one wants a case study where someone made millions of dollars off a stadium deal with little money but lots of political influence (see George Bush/Texas Rangers and Arlington Stadium). These deals are not unique- just see the 300M subsidy given to the Nets for the stadium in Brooklyn and also note that doesn't include the tax subsidies as well- which the Nets, Yankees, Mets (all except the Knicks) have been receiving to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

The US sports model is absolutely one gigantic siphon on taxpayers.

The reason all this 'miraculous' management is happening is simple. The city of Seatle has them locked into a contract for Key Arena- they are stuck - they offered to buy themselves out for a third of the price (@^M) but Seatle has refused. He has two choices - move and still pay off the lease (or a lawsuit) or sell the team to a local buyer in Seattle. So they are basically dumping salary, getting draft picks to make the team attractive - a la Memphis and Portland. This has been going on for a few years with these 3 teams. That is why Portland and Seattle - 'miraculously' won the lottery.

[Edited by - iyamwutiam on 02-21-2008 5:26 PM]