FanPulse: Most fans believe team owners should pay for stadiums

If you haven’t yet, take a moment to join SB Nation FanPulse. They survey of fans across MLB. Each week, they send 30 polls to fans from each team. Blue Jays fans, sign up HERE to join FanPulse. They do 3 or 4 polls a week, it doesn’t take a lot of time.

This week, the national poll (could be international poll but why argue) was about who should pay when it is time to build a new stadium. Not surprisingly, most of us feel the owners should pay.

Honestly, I think there should be some sort of law that governments can’t pay for stadiums. I live in Calgary. The Flames have been trying to blackmail the city into building them a new hockey rink for years now. Now the owners of the Flames are billionaires. They could pay for a new arena with money they find under the seat cushions of their couches.

But, they didn’t get rich by paying for things themselves. What they want is for the city to pay but they get to ‘own’ the arena, without paying rent or anything. I don’t understand how that could be allowed.

When I was much younger I lived in Edmonton and the Triple A team wanted the city to build a park for them, “if you build it, we’ll never leave”. The city built it, the team was gone in three years.

Rogers, should they ever decide to build a new ballpark, could pay for it, without even noticing it. But, they will expect the city and province to pay.

I believe government should pay for education, health care, making sure people have enough money to live and keeping the road system in shape. Beyond that....well I’m sure there are other things they should cover, but they should stay out of helping businesses. Let the capitalists do what they are supposed to do well.

Of course, FanPulse asked the other important half of this question:

And this is how blackmail works.....

Heck, I’m not a tax payer in Toronto....what do i care if your taxes have to go up to keep my Jays happy. But, you do it then, everyone has to. Edmonton pays for the Oilers to get a new building and Calgary gets pressured to do the same. If cities started to make a principled stand, then they all would,

I think it is sin how the Blue Jays blackmailed Dunedin. Tiny town, very little industry and they are stuck with a huge bill that they will be paying off for many years.

In the weekly polls, the manager approval poll gave Charlie an 87% approval rating. That’s down from 97% last week. I wonder about this. I think we’ll do our own poll sometime this week.

The confidence in the direction of the team number was 77%, taking a little uphill run. Two weeks ago it was 68%, then 74%. Maybe we are happier now we see more of the young guys playing.