Doesn’t this make you proud to be a football fan?

[MajGenl.Meade]

Geez, do you really think it is a serious poll? It is an attention device; it is supposed to be provocative. But, I reckon one must first be able to think clearly before one’s thinking can be stimulated.

Of course I don't think it serious as a poll. It's quite serious as an indication of your obsession. Let me know when you reach first.

[ex-khobar Andy]

This is a demonstration of the National Religion of America--sports. If God does it, it is by definition ok. Only atheists argue against this truism.

We saw yesterday the Georgia Dome in Atlanta being blown up. According to Wikipedia it was built with $214 million public money in 1996 and then upgraded with a further $300 million in 2006. I am not clear on whether this second tranche was public money or not; and in one sense it doesn't make a lot of difference in that we are all paying for it if we buy a Coke or a plane ticket or a set of tires. However, is it possible that a $514 million stadium is no longer fit for purpose after such a short life? If so, whose heads will roll? It's another example of (a) SG's point about sport being a religion and (b) abuse of others and separation of them from their money in order to demonstrate personal testosterone-driven power with very much the same mind-set which brought us Harvey Weinstein and Charlie Rose.

[Big RR]

I imagine Atlanta got what it wanted in funding the stadium--increased commerce in the area and an increased profile in the national media; it was hardly a worship of the sport, more a business transaction/investment. Lot's of cities are doing the same thing. sometimes it is a good investment, like in Baltimore where the run down inner harbor area was renovated, other times not so much.

But I do agree that tearing it down seems wasteful, depending what they put up in its place.

[Burning Petard]

In its place? "They put up a parking lot" Yellow taxicab, Joni Mitchell.

snailgate

[Big RR]

Well maybe, but then I don't see a stadium as "paradise".

[Burning Petard]

Paradise is right next door, in the new Mercedes stadium

snailgate

[BoSoxGal]

I read an investigative piece on stadium construction deals in one of those lefty rags (The Nation? The Atlantic? Mother Jones?) a few years back and it was sickening the degree to which those deals benefit the sports team and not the taxpayers who subsidize the deals - it’s as much a shaft of taxpayers as every modern Olympics except LA 1984.

Fenway Park and Wrigley Field are proof positive that a new stadium every decade or two is absolutely unnecessary; it’s just more rampant greed. Our unfettered capitalism is profoundly sickening.

[liberty]

Well, I can see from the poll that a hundred percent of us agree that the coach should be fired.

[Lord Jim]

Well, I can see from the poll that a hundred percent of us agree that the coach should be fired.

Actually, what the "poll" shows is that 100% of you agrees that the coach should be fired, since you're the only one who voted in your faux poll...

[rubato]

I quit following football in the 80s when I saw a player get an injury like the one that put me in the hospital and made me get back surgery. Once you understand the cost, what people pay to do that, you understand that it is the most evil form of exploitation.


yrs,
rubato