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This week, the metro Denver stadium board will consider ways to make millionaires richer and more comfortable. Denver Broncos owner Pat Bowlen says the team must replace Mile High Stadium, not entirely on account of its age and condition.
Beyond those factors, Mile High doesn't have enough luxury boxes, a major source of team revenue, so that millionaire spectators can pay millionaire Bowlen enough to hire more millionaire players.
National Public Radio carried a report yesterday about
the new Jack Kent Cooke stadium for the Washington Redskins
(which is actually in Maryland, not the District of
Columbia, despite the Washington
in the team
name).
It has 208 luxury boxes, which lease for $60,000 to $160,000 per season. Figure they average $100,000, and there's $20.8 million every fall.
According to Bowlen's offer, if the taxpayers will pick up the first $180 million for a new stadium, he will magnanimously pick up the rest. Some estimates put a new stadium at $240 million, leaving $60 million, or about three years of luxury-box rentals, for generous Bowlen to pay.
But there's still that first $180 million, and the stadium board needs to find it. The logical approach would be to extend the 0.1 percent sales tax, now applied to Coors Field for the Rockies, to a new football stadium after the new baseball stadium is paid off.
Alas, some public nuisances have expressed moral qualms about this. Why, they ask, should someone making $18,000 a year pay more every time she buys anything help fund a facility devoted to those who make millions a year? Further, many of the people paying the tax will not be football fans, so why should they be taxed for something they don't want?
So, the stadium board will examine other possibilities that might be fairer, and in the public interest, I offer these suggestions:
· Sports Bar Tax. On a recent visit to civilization, I accidentally wandered into one of these dens, under the misapprehension that it was a restaurant. We simple country folk often do make fools of ourselves in the city, but the error did produce some suitable ideas.
Inside the sports bar are scores of people eagerly watching stuff that happens in stadiums, but they're freeloading, since they're not paying for those stadiums. They should pay their own way.
The stadium district could levy a special property tax on big screens -- the more video acreage, the more for a new stadium. A decibel tax also makes sense; install some meter, and every minute over 80 db would produce stadium revenue, with excesses going to a special fund for victims of hearing loss.
The best prospect here, though, is to tax the material alleged to be food at sports bars, perhaps on the ratio of calories to nutrition. Deep-fat-fried breaded cheese-goo sticks alone might well build a new stadium -- either as a revenue source or a construction material.
· Office Pool Levy. Granted, we have more than enough legalized gambling in Colorado. But we must also recognize that millions of dollars change hands each year in office pools. Since the participants are sports fans, they benefit from a new stadium, and here's an easy and painless way to tax the right people for the purpose.
If the stadium board got one dollar out of ten, it wouldn't dilute the winnings enough to matter, so this seems fair all the way around.
· Foot Tax. Denver has already tried a seat tax and a head tax, so it's time to look at other parts of the anatomy. Since this is a family publication, we should avoid some prominent prospects, and consider a foot tax. Or more precisely, a footwear tax.
People willing to pay $150 for a pair of sneakers should be willing to pay $200. These are luxuries, after all, not a requirement for peak performance -- one year, the winner of the Leadville 100 wore sandals he had carved from an old tire he found at the Lake County Landfill.
Or, if the footwear company has to absorb some of the extra cost, well, these companies have been spending millions to get endorsements from people who already have millions.
Then again, maybe they're not so rich, since Nike is even now trying to hustle a tax break for its noble purpose of adding to Front Range growth, smog and congestion. Could the state turn the tables, and shake Nike down for naming rights to the new stadium? Perhaps shape it like a swoosh to sneak the logo into the blimp shots?
Anyway, the stadium board should examine all the possibilities. When it comes to subsidizing millionaires, metro Denver and Colorado can't afford to lose their hard-won leadership role.
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