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Renovations or construction of sports stadiums are amongst the stickiest of subjects in all of America. Far too often, hyper-wealthy sports team owners have strong-armed municipalities into unfortunate agreements that load the city with debt in order to capture additional revenue with no risk but all cost to the taxpayer. It creates hard feelings for a fanbase, which then has to pay higher taxes along with high prices, purely for the benefit of one person.
That takes us to the Arizona Diamondbacks, who find themselves in a somewhat precarious situation with Chase Field. Old hats will remember it as Bank One Ballpark, a field that was once on the cutting edge of all sports stadiums in perhaps the world. A combination of both elegant retro aesthetics and technology, with a retractable roof when it was still rare, it was a wonder when it opened in 1998.
That said, over 25 years is relatively ancient in the world of sports stadiums, and Chase Field has been showing its age. Last year it had a rain-out because the roof couldn’t close in time. In fact, the roof is rarely opening and closing out of fear that the cables that control that will snap, potentially causing a tragedy inside. It has serious issues with keeping cool, an obvious problem in the summer in Phoenix.
In short, Chase Field needs some serious work soon, or the Diamondbacks will have to find a different place to play, perhaps even outside of the state.
Enter Rep. Justin Wilmeth. As a self-professed baseball fanatic, he is taking the lead on a solution that seems to check all of the boxes without ticking off the electorate unnecessarily; he is proposing directing local sales taxes generated from within the stadium and in conjunction with the games into the stadium’s improvement projects.
When you go and watch a game, you would be contributing to the stadium’s improvement. If you don’t care about baseball and couldn’t be bothered, you’re not paying for it. And best yet, in the wonderfully tongue-in-cheek observation from Wilmeth, “when all those idiot (Los Angeles) Dodger fans come into our stadium, they’re paying for this.”
It’s the Arizona sports fan version of making Mexico pay for the border wall, and it’s brilliant.
Will this go through? Obviously we cannot predict the future, and some legislators may balk at the redirection of funds. But with an intelligent, respected, and experienced legislator taking the lead on it, it has more than a good shot. And we are thankful to have leadership that sees a sports team as a partner rather than an enemy combative.