What's the Bigger Question

As citizens, we have taxes imposed upon us, and in return, we vote for those we entrust with that money to make good decisions on our behalf. Recently, we learned that the funds we thought were going toward education are actually funding a National Hockey League team’s arena.

The North Stars moved from Minneapolis to Dallas in search of a bigger market. It was a money move that turned its back on its fanbase. Originally, they hoped to move to Los Angeles like the Lakers, but Anaheim was granted an expansion team, and the Kings already had a team in town.

These aren’t the old days when athletes played for the game and not their contracts. No, those days are behind us, so is the insolvency of these Professional Teams with their television contracts. In fact, the Stars’ current non-American owner bought the team for around 250 million, and it is now worth over 2 billion American dollars. And how do the Stars show their gratitude? By moving to a suburb, but keeping the city designation of Dallas.

Those in government who approved funding for the arena talk about earnings projections, but in our current financial environment, those projections are speculative and don’t reflect reality.

There are already a ton of concert venues in town, and the arena is mainly for the Stars. Graduations happen in May, but it was a line item to justify diverting education funds. Truthfully, profits happen when a business gets someone else to pay the costs while boasting nonexistent trickle-down benefits for all.

I suspect, if we dig deeper, we may find someone in government getting a kickback while taxpayers are left with the bill.