Rendering of possible new Texas Rangers stadium in Arlington. (Populous)
People nationwide are wondering if the proposed $1 billion Texas Rangers stadium is essentially a scam of Arlington taxpayers after seeing reporting this week by WFAA-TV (Channel 8) investigative bulldog Brett Shipp.
His story — picked up nationally — said the city-team contract features a secretive provision that increases Arlington taxpayers’ share of the deal from 50 percent to 80 percent. Shipp described this as something they didn’t want “you to see and aren’t eager to talk about.”
Popular sports website Deadspin picked up Shipp’s story and concluded: “Spending public money on stadiums to give to billionaires is bad. Stop. [Expletive]. Doing it.”
The story was also aggregated by Yahoo News, NBC Sports blog Hardball Talk and conservative website Breitbart.
The report brought up both long-running concerns about stadium financing but missed the mark in several aspects when it comes to the details, including the basic math.
The sweetheart Rangers deal to replace the Ballpark gets exposed tonight. News8 Investigates @10. pic.twitter.com/HFGLzXGYFy
— Brett Shipp (@brett_shipp) June 22, 2016
This story doesn’t go into the debate about public financing of stadiums; that’s another story entirely. But here’s what you need to know about the stadium deal. … [visit site to read more]
