Lars Larson: Baseball stadium = foul ball for taxpayers

By Lars Larson
NW and national radio host,

Folks, I have a confession.

I’d love to build myself a shiny new radio studio with all the bells and whistles as long as the government lets me pay HALF the cost with my income taxes. Foolish and selfish idea, right?

But that’s exactly what Major League Baseball wants Oregon taxpayers to buy into. A brand new Portland ballpark with 800-million of the 1.9 billion dollar cost paid by diverting the income taxes of ballplayers.

But they promise in 30-years when the cost is paid back, Oregon will get the taxes on those slugger paychecks. Only in 30 years, they’ll need a new stadium or at least a multi million dollar remodel.

Get the picture?

Let me point out that last year, Major league baseball had record revenue of 12 billion with teams averaging 378 million a year. Not exactly poverty cases.

Oregon State University ended up on the hook for a 165 million dollar upgrade of Reser Stadium based on income from the Pac 12 that went away. If you think you can’t spend a bundle on an MLB stadium and then end up without a team, at least three big cities did just that.

The average ball team owner is 3 billion.

Let ‘em build their own stadium and leave the taxpayers out of it.