Professional Sports Teams Move - Cities Fight To Keep Them Essay

Professional Sports Teams Move - Cities Fight To Keep Them   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Professional sports, like most of our popular culture, can be understood only partly by through its exiting plays and tremendous athletes. Baseball and football most of all are not only games anymore but also hardcore businesses. As businesses, sports leagues can be as conniving, deceitful, and manipulative as any other businesses in the world. No matter what the circumstances are, it seems that Politicians are always some how right around the corner from the world of sports. These Politicians look to exploit both the cultural and the economic dimensions of the sports for their own purposes. This is what is known in the sports industry as â€Å"playing the field†.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In the last decade, almost all the big cities in the United States, and a few small cities as well, have battled with each other for the right to host big league franchises. Cities spend hundreds of millions of dollars to build new stadiums and offer enticements to private franchise owners. Politicians often push for stadiums and other favors to teams despite not having support from neighborhoods and general opposition across the whole city, especially where these high dollar stadiums would be built.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Some of the most prolific franchises in sports, like the Oakland Raiders and Baltimore Colts of the National Football League, have moved to other cities breaking off their loyalty to the hometown fans. More important than the actual moves are the more frequent threatened moves. When teams â€Å"play the field† and explore the option of playing in other cities they are able to lure interested cities into giving them just about any royalty they want. New stadiums are only the beginning. The willingness to threaten departure has secured for teams a variety of land deals, lower taxes, more revenues from parking and concessions, control of stadium operations, guaranteed ticket sales, renovation of stadiums with luxury seating, control over neighborhoods and transportation systems, and that’s only the beginning of the list.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Franchises are able to control their own destinies and have major advantages over city officials. This is what as known in the sports industry as the â€Å"uneven playing field†. City officials react to the offensive stra... ...s left Baltimore to play in Indianapolis, where they haven’t had a championship season since they left.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ironically, the Cleveland Browns of the NFL who were a playoff caliber team every year, who had loyal fans and good attendance, lost their team to the city of Baltimore. Owner Art Modell moved his Cleveland Browns team to the city of Baltimore, with the promise of a cost free state of the art stadium, built by tax payers, and a larger market for their team to play in. The city of Baltimore welcomed the team wholeheartedly, after going through the same loss of a team, the Colts. The team is know called the Baltimore Ravens and play in a beautiful stadium complex in downtown Baltimore, Maryland. They have great fan support and Baltimore is once again a football town. The city of Cleveland on the other hand has been in shock after losing a team they loved and supported and are not very fond of Art Modell. The city of Cleveland will once again become a football town, with the expansion Cleveland Browns preparing for their inaugural season, beginning in the fall 1999. The city is once again very excited about the NFL and the â€Å"Dog Pound† will live again.