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Editorials / Columns
Houston and New York City share more than large populations and traffic jams: their residents love sports.
While Houston teams aren’t as steeped in tradition or prestige as the New York Yankees, Houston now has three new publicly funded sports venues: Minute Maid Park, the Toyota Center and Reliant Stadium.
New York’s teams have been denied such funding. New Yorkers apparently have more pressing matters at hand and consider that their money could be better spent. The Yankees have agreed to pick up the majority of the cost to build a new baseball park. So, did Houston really need to spend the $1.15 billion on sports venues, and was there something else at work besides the appeasing team owners?
When the Houston sports venues were still in the exploratory stages, voters were questioning whether or not the teams deserved new homes. At the time, the Astros were in a slump and modifications to the Astrodome had already been completed to appease Bud Adams, the owner of the former Houston Oilers.
Adams turned around and demanded a completely new venue, essentially holding Houston sports fans hostage by threatening to move the Oilers to Tennessee. Houstonians might have met his demands if he had fielded a team that performed better on the field, but it was not to be.
Houstonians gave him the boot.
Astros owner Drayton McLane demanded the same treatment. McLane is ranked 283 on Forbes Magazine’s list of the 400 richest Americans with a net worth of $1.2 billion. In 1996 he was considering selling the Astros to a group of Virginia-based investors who were interested in moving the Astros to their state.
That year, the Astros surprised Houstonians by making the playoffs, and voters agreed to finance a new downtown ballpark. Actually, only 18 percent of eligible adults decided. That’s because the referendum narrowly passed with 51 percent of those voting but only 36 percent of the electorate turned out to vote.
If anyone was in a position to make demands, it was Houston Rockets owner Les Alexander. The Rockets delivered two NBA championships in 1994 and 1995. Even so, voters initially turned down the bid for the basketball arena.
When backers of the proposed arena raised three times the amount of money for a campaign supporting a new facility, voters approved a modified version of the proposal the next year. In retrospect, Houstonians may hardly have had a choice in whether to build or not to build. On other issues like MetroRail, measures kept appearing on the ballot in one form or another with slight modifications until downtown executives got their way.
By comparison, New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner decided to pick up the tab for his team's new home. If anyone deserved a new stadium, it would be one of America’s most winning teams. Steinbrenner may not be as wealthy as Drayton McLane, but on the other hand, the money he spends on the team essentially goes right back into his pocket through licensing for TV, radio, merchandising and ticket sales.
Yankees fans will pay for a chance to see their team so it might seem obvious to assume that they would be willing to pay for a replacement to the aging Yankee Stadium. In fact, New Yorkers opted not to pay for it, nor would they pay for a new venue for the city’s other two teams, the Mets and the Jets. Evidently, there were more important things to spend money on in New York.
Houston sports fans seem have a different perspective than New Yorkers. The Yankees have won numerous World Series while the Astros have reached the fall classic only once.
To be fair, there is more going on in this story than sports teams wanting posh new facilities. Minute Maid Park and the Toyota Center were part of a larger plan to revitalize Houston’s crumbling downtown district and make the city a major convention destination. The plan was spearheaded by Central Houston Inc, a group of wealthy investors and businesspeople who wanted to mold Houston into a city worthy of international attention.
New York hasn’t had to worry about international attention especially since 9/11, so much so that the mainstream news media only seems to leave New York grudgingly to go to Washington D.C. or the site of a major disaster like New Orleans. Houston has never had that luxury. The plan was to use hotel taxes and rental car fees to cover the costs of the new venues. Consequently, as of May 2005, Houston has the second highest car rental rates in the nation, behind Boston.
Did it work?
That depends on who you ask.
Former Houston Mayor Lee P. Brown in his state of the city address gave an assessment to the Greater Houston Partnership on January 28, 2002: “Houston will become a sought-after, premiere convention destination by the middle of this decade.”
Mayor Brown also mentioned that the expansion of the George R. Brown Convention Center would contribute to Houston’s evolution.
That hasn’t happened. So far, the city’s has simply not been able to attract major conventions.
Since Mayor Brown made those remarks, Houston has hosted a Superbowl, two World Series games and an All-Star game, with bids for a Final Four on the horizon. Houston lost the 2012 Olympics.
The shoulda-coulda-woulda questions remain.
Sociologists contend that the more educated a population, the lower the crime rate. Couldn't this money have been better spent on our school system? The Texas legislature spent two special sessions debating solutions to school funding.
Currently, local education districts are funded by property taxes, but Houstonians have refused to approve property tax increases. Couldn't that $1 billion have been poured into schools to ease the taxpayers' burden to improve the schools?
© Copyright World Internet News 2006-07
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