Socialized Sports

Boston might not be the home of New York's favorite sports franchises, but this city had a reason to cheer as the Celtics claimed the NBA championship over the Lakers on Tuesday night. Boston's victory proves that sports franchises don't need tax subsidies to succeed, and in no city is that lesson more needed than New York, where multimillionaire owners regularly claim that their teams simply cannot compete unless a healthy dose of funding is forcibly taken from taxpaying residents.

TD Banknorth Garden, Gillette Stadium, and Fenway Park are all privately-owned and -funded, while the teams that play in those stadiums — the Celtics, Patriots, and Red Sox, respectively — have, in recent years, all won world championships. That is to say, all the joy generated in Boston sports stadiums hasn't cost taxpayers a dime. Moreover, fans who attend Celtics, Patriots, or Red Sox games don't have to nurse resentment over being forced to buy a ticket to an arena they already paid to help build.

What a contrast to New York. So far, the Yankees have raised $943 million in tax-exempt bonds, while the city and state have poured $204 million in subsidies into the stadium, with another $300 million subsidy for building parking lots on the way, according to the New York Times. And, apparently, even these enormous allocations and handouts aren't enough. The Yankees are seeking another $350 million in tax-exempt financing.

The Mets are only slightly less expensive. Their new home, Citifield, has received $166 million in subsidies and had $547 million in credit steered away from other potentially more deserving projects by the use of tax exemptions on bonds. Since 1982, the city has also granted Madison Square Garden a full property tax exemption, which will cost the city $11 million in lost tax revenue during this fiscal year alone.

Property tax exemptions are a privilege normally reserved for houses of worship, a designation even the most devoted Knicks fan would hesitate to confer on the Garden. Meanwhile, according to the New York Post, the public will foot the cost of more than half of the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn, which will house the New Jersey Nets in a $950 million arena, one the most expensive ever built.

After the Colorado Rockies lost to the Red Sox last year, we wrote, "as Red Sox savor their World Series victory, fans of the free market will at least cheer their example. The long suffering taxpayers of Colorado sank $160 million into the stadium used by the Rockies and look where it got them." The NBA championship was also a battle between a free market and socialist enterprise. The Staples Center, home to the Lakers, cost Los Angeles taxpayers $71 million in subsidies. And it didn't help them, in the end, either.