The St. Louis Cardinals want a half-billion-dollar upgrade for Busch Stadium and are hinting that a significant portion of it should come from local taxpayers. ("Busch Stadium needs renovations. Should St. Louis taxpayers kick in?" May 6.)
In the world of sports, clubs don't generally fund the projects they can’t afford by selling equity in the company — I mean, the team — that they own. Even though that’s what most corporations do to fund capital projects. Instead, the clubs threaten to move out of the city, then the locality comes back with tax dollars to bankroll those already wealthy teams.
If the owners of the St. Louis Cardinals want hundreds of millions of dollars in funding they can’t afford to renovate the great Busch Stadium, they could raise it by selling stock shares in the Cardinals to their loyal fans. It would mean only the fans who want to own the club and pay for the club to own it will own it and not the whole city.
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I know they love to argue about all the economic benefits the Cardinals bring, but the Cardinals have also been very effective in putting many Downtown bars out of business. There are more economically beneficial ways that tax money could be spent. Using tax money to fund sports stadia is never worth it.
Christian Chellis
Sunset Hills
In today’s 10 a.m. “Ten Hochman” sports video — brought to you by — Ben Hochman discusses the Cardinals’ Willson Contreras and his strong at-bats. Also, a happy birthday shoutout to Slash! And as always, Hochman picks a random St. Louis Cards card!