Yankee Stadium Hurting Tax Payers & Ticket Buyers

From the AP (via SI):

Taxpayers and ticket buyers are the losers in plans to provide hundreds of millions of dollars in public subsidies to build the new Yankee Stadium, a New York lawmaker said Tuesday.

Assemblyman Richard Brodsky said the commitment of $550 million to $850 million in taxpayer money was based on an unsubstantiated threat that the Yankees would leave New York. He said in a new report that the team predicted the public investment would generate 1,000 new permanent jobs, but the actual total would be 15.

Brodsky also criticized the deal for not making affordable tickets available to lower income New Yorkers.

I’m pretty apathetic in regards to how our taxes are used and how the taxpayer is screwed on a daily basis, so I’m not really surprised. Check out the rest of the article though. When the Yankees are looking for nearly $400 million in order to finish the stadium’s massive video screen, it seems rather ridiculous in an unnecessary sort of way (yet at the same time, I want that damn screen).