You know, for a guy who writes an NFL column, Gregg Easterbrook spends an inordinate amount of time talking about College Football and looking at space porn. A couple of questions:
1) When did it become en vogue for older columnists to creepily ogle cheerleaders? Forde does it with his "Dashette." Easterbrook does it with his cheerleaders of the week, celebrity shots, and world's hottest woman updates. It's weird and serves absolutely no purpose. If I want to look at hot girls, I can: I own the internet. Easterbrook and Forde both live on the internet, and haven't figured this out yet. I click over to ESPN.com so that I can read about sports - not to look at girls.
2) Does anyone actually read Easterbrook? His opening paragraph gets the dreaded "tldnr" from me.
3) What's with the space talk? There is a fantastic blog called "damn interesting" that details some of the crazy shit that goes on in the world, and looks at questions that are, frankly, awesome like "how long can you survive if you were jettisoned into space?" (spoiler: not long. not long at all.) Once again, I know where to click if I cared about space, particle colliders, or the various nebula's that make up our galaxy. I clicked onto ESPN to, and I can't stress this enough, read about sports. Stop it with the space garbage.
4) You write an NFL column. It's actually called "Tuesday Morning Quarterback." If it were a college football column, it would be called "Sunday Morning Quarterback" and you would be stomping on the feet of Matt Hinton, who is infinitely better than you in terms of content, style, and general "not being a douchebagness." In the latest TMQ column, you rail against those evil bastards at Michigan - putting in press boxes that will cost Joe Taxpayer millions of dollars. Just like the Colts did when they built Lucas Oil Stadium. Or the Yankees are doing with their new home. Or the Mets. Or the Univesity of Minnesota is doing with their entirely new stadium. Welcome to sports Mr. Easterbrook.
The end of his "Michigan" blurb:
"That's fairly disgusting. Perhaps a fitting punishment for all those subsidized wealthy twits is … Rich Rodriguez. The football gods have, after all, a sense of humor."
I understand. In the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, you've decided that Rich Rodriguez makes you mad, and thus, you're going to harp on it. We know this schtick. We've seen it before with Easterbrook refusing to let "spygate" die despite the fact that there was nothing there to see. You've railed against the Rodriguez hire from the beginning, despite overwhelming logic that the hire wasn't actually evil.
The difference, of course, between your vilifying the Patriots and you vilifying Michigan is that you're an NFL expert: not a college football expert. There are countless of other places that are much better suited to explore College Football, so you talking about it makes about as much sense as talking about hot cheerleaders and space. Zero.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
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6 comments:
Never heard of him; will not click through.
Maybe Mr. Easterbrook needs to do a little more extensive research on stadium financing. If I'm not mistaken, the taxpayers in Minnesota are actually footing $124 million plus for the University's stadium, and many other stadia get actually get cash inflows from state government because of the job creation, etc. The State of Michigan is contributing exactly zero dollars to Michigan Stadium's improvements, which are being paid for through donations, and throught the sale of bonds which will be repaid out of revenue generated by the suites and the required "donations". And donations claimed as tax deductions don't cost the taxpayers of our great country. They keep our government from having to fund the public goods and services provided by non-profits. (Guess I should include appropriate links, but all this information is readily available to anyone with access to the intarwebs, as is the ridiculous misinformation provided by Mr. Easterbrook.
Thank you for beating me to the punch P, well said indeed!
Easterrook jumped the shark years ago and his schtick is as arrogant as it is tiresome... "look at all of the tremendous minutia I can squeeze into a tangent that has nothing to do with the topic I'm writing on... oh by the way I'm related to someone who does X...."
A paragraph later we're receiving a book report from someone oogling "Cheer-Babe" biographies on team's websites.
His baseless attacks against a school and program that he knows literally nothing about have gone on for far too long. I'd love to counter his pointless drivel with a blizzard of facts and logic, but it would be lost on him entirely. Here's hoping that the next time Game Day comes to Ann Arbor, someone makes an obscene Easterbrook sign... with appropriate levels of wit included.
Here - this is from the University, a pamphlet that I'm sure Mr. Easterbrook read, seeing as how he referred to it as "odious" twice in the same section:
FINANCIAL PLANS
Q: How much will the project cost?
The project budget is estimated at $226 million; those costs will be funded through private donations and Athletic Department resources, primarily the revenues generated by the new seating.
Q: Is the decision to add enclosed seating primarily because of the need for more operating revenue in the Athletic Department?
No, enclosed seating is not being added primarily in order to add operating revenue to the Athletic Department budget. The revenue from the addition of enclosed seating will pay for the cost of renovating the entire stadium. The project must be self-supporting because the University is not going to allocate general funds to pay for these renovations.
However, once the costs of the renovations are recovered, revenue from the new seating will be available over the long run to support facilities upgrades and other costs for our 25 men’s and women’s varsity sports.
Q: Why is the additional revenue important over the long term?
Most of our major football competitors already have the benefit of the revenue that flows from building enclosed seating. Michigan is one of the few schools among the top 25 leaders in football attendance that does not have enclosed seating. Over time, this presents a competitive disadvantage to all our athletics programs. Once the costs of the renovation project are recovered, we will be able to use the revenue from the new seats to support additional investments in our 25 men’s and women’s varsity sports. This investment is essential if we are going to continue to compete at the top tier of collegiate athletics programs.
Q: How confident are you that the financial model for the renovation project is sound?
Our financial planning has been very conservative. From our extensive market research and detailed financial analysis, we are confident that the demand for the suites and club seats will be strong and that the project will be able to pay for itself through the new revenues that are generated.
Out of the total project cost of $226 million, we plan to cover $36 million from Athletic Department reserves and issue debt for the remaining $190 million. Our annual debt service is estimated to be about $12.4 million, with annual incremental revenues conservatively estimated at $12.8 million. However, these figures do not factor in any fundraising. To the extent that we receive support from our donors, that will reduce the amount of debt and will further reduce any financial risk.
Q: Will enclosed seating price average fans out of the Stadium?
No. The renovations as currently planned will not affect ticket prices for the average ticketholder. However, without the revenue from enclosed seating, the cost of the renovations would mean that ticket prices would have to be increased significantly. This was an important factor in making our decision
Q: Why did you decide not to pursue less expensive alternatives for renovating the stadium that did not include enclosed seating?
The Athletic Department considered many options for completing renovations to the stadium. We rejected a number of less ambitious models because they did not meet all our goals and/or contained considerable financial risk to the University. Some of the rejected options did not allow us to make the range of improvements desired to benefit all fans and fully address the stadium’s infrastructure needs. Other options would have required a large ticket surcharge for many years to come in order to be financially feasible. Although the final renovation plan is large and ambitious, it is less risky than a smaller project because it provides the best return on investment due to the added income streams from suites and club seats.
Q: Why can't you use the revenue from the Preferred Seating donations to fund Michigan Stadium renovations?
The Preferred Seating Program was essential to stabilize the Athletic Department's operating budget. Revenues raised from the PSP primarily support the cost of student scholarships and allow the department to set aside funds regularly for the maintenance and renewal of physical facilities. There is not sufficient revenue coming from the PSP to support a major renovation of Michigan Stadium.
Q: Why can't you fund the renovations simply by adding another tier of seats around the top of the Stadium?
The addition of another tier of seats would bring in only enough revenue to support the construction of those seats. It would not provide enough revenue to pay for the extensive renovations which are needed in the stadium.
Q: Why doesn't the Athletic Department stabilize its finances primarily by cutting its budget, rather than building enclosed seating or requiring donations for preferred seating?
Cutting costs and imposing strict controls on expenses were the first approaches the department took to address its financial challenges. However, many costs continue to rise including scholarship support for student athletes, salaries for coaches and staff, and the costs of deferred maintenance and necessary renewal of our aging facilities. In addition, the University community including our alumni and fans has made the strong commitment to support 25 varsity men's and women's sports at a national level of competition. The Preferred Seating Program allowed us to stabilize our operating budget and live up to this commitment.
"And donations claimed as tax deductions don't cost the taxpayers of our great country. They keep our government from having to fund the public goods and services provided by non-profits."
I would be hard-presed to say that luxury boxes are "public goods." So I think it is a fair criticism that federal taxpayers subsidize the construction of the luxury boxes through the fact that 80% of the "donations" required for tickets are tax deductible. That money could be used instead for health care, war in Iraq, bailing out Wall Street fatcats, whatever.
The Rodriguez comment does seem to be a unfair pot shot.
While I agree completely with rdlwoverine that it's a stretch to consider suite seating a public good, I'll continue to disagree with the notion that tax deductibility of any gift considered charitable translates to a taxpayer subsidy. (full disclosure: I'm a fund raiser in higher education.) The deduction of up to half one's income in charitable gifts doesn't reduce the revenue of the federal government if you presume, as charitable deduction laws are intended, that charitable giving is used to provide services that would otherwise have to be bourne by the incredibly inefficient delivery systems of the government. Everyone's taxes (and probably every university's tuition) would increase even more markedly if the government did away with the charitable deduction.
How does this translate to deductions for suites at Michigan Stadium? Last year the athletic department sent $14.06 million to the university's general fund to pay for tuition, books, fees and housing for student athletes. It also paid academic staff (grad and undergrad student tutors who are working their way through school) to help student athletes, and transferred another $1.5 million to the university's general fund to be used for need-based scholarships for non-athletes (http://www.ur.umich.edu/0708/Jun23_08/22.php). All while paying for all of the expenses of Michigan's athletic program - including facilities improvements - without asking any government body to directly provide a cent in taxpayer funds (as Minnesota did with their stadium).