{"id":1848,"date":"2018-01-29T16:00:51","date_gmt":"2018-01-29T12:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/?p=1848"},"modified":"2018-01-29T16:00:51","modified_gmt":"2018-01-29T12:00:51","slug":"money-sports-and-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/?p=1848","title":{"rendered":"Money, sports, and politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following up on last Monday’s “bidding war” post re: Amazon’s new North American headquarters (“This is bigger than the Super Bowl<\/a>“), there are these gems from my local weekly, the\u00a0Loudoun Times-Mirror<\/em>: two articles on the same page detailing sports-related tax giveaways in the DMV. The first, headlined “What a kick! Land leased for D.C. United Stadium,” describes the deal between Loudoun County (henceforth known as “Sugar Daddy”) and the D.C. United soccer team to bring a “second-division” team (some kind of minor league affiliate) to Leesburg, Virginia. Plans include $15 million for “construction” (I am reaching for my wallet here) and the understanding that the county will build 1,000 parking spaces for the stadium and “provide access to a nearby park-and-ride” during events at the facility. The D.C. United will lease the property for 40 years, exact terms unreported. (Incidentally, the property is valued at $23 million.) What a kick?<\/em> It’s a kick in the something all right.<\/p>\n

Interestingly enough there is another sports-related tax giveaway story just below that describing the soccer swindle. Headlined “Bipartisan plan would ban Redskins bidding war,” I was reaching for my wallet before I finished the title. But here there may be a glimmer of hope. Apparently three politicians (unnamed in the article), one each from Virginia, Maryland, and D.C., have proposed a pact, if you will, barring any public spending on incentives for a new Washington Redskins stadium. (The club’s current lease at FedEx Field in Maryland expires in 2027.) “A” for effort is my initial reaction, though proposing a pact isn’t exactly achieving one, let alone maintaining it. The thing about most pacts is that somebody always cheats. (Unless there’s a guy named Bruno with brass knuckles standing there.) Executive thoughts on this one? A spokesman for new Virginia Governor Ralph Northam said the governor wants to “structure a creative deal” to bring the team to Virginia.<\/p>\n

Structure a creative deal?<\/em> Give me a break.<\/p>\n

Cue Mike reaching for his wallet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following up on last Monday’s “bidding war” post re: Amazon’s new North American headquarters (“This is bigger than the Super Bowl“), there are these gems from my local weekly, the\u00a0Loudoun Times-Mirror: two articles on the same page detailing sports-related tax … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1848"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1850,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1848\/revisions\/1850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeoconnelljr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}