The bailout baseball stadium

Viewpoints

July 18, 2010

Don McNay Special to the Register The Richmond Register Sun Jul 18, 2010, 02:00 PM EDT

RICHMOND — “She’s got a ticket to ride and she don’t care.”

— The Beatles

When I saw that my Cincinnati Reds were playing the New York Mets at Citi Field, I laughed. It reminded me of a visit to Enron Field in Houston. Selling naming rights to fallen corporations can be embarrassing to an entire city.

Then, when I looked into the Citi Field situation, my laughter turned to outrage.

Citigroup is paying $400 million ($20 million for 20 years) for the ego boost of having a stadium named after it.

Because Citigroup received billions in bailout money, the American taxpayers actually are footing the naming rights tab.

I’ve never seen evidence that owing naming rights to a stadium improves a corporation’s bottom line.

The buildings once called “PSI Net Stadium,” “Enron Field” and “MCI Center” all lasted longer than the companies who shelled out millions for their naming rights.

Naming rights often are the result of runaway corporate ego. Big companies have shareholder money to throw around and generally have lapdog corporate boards providing “oversight.”

A big motivation for corporate sponsorships is to allow the high-flying executives (and their lapdog directors) to sit in fancy luxury at the ballpark. It’s bad enough when corporate executives stick it to their stockholders. The stockholders can choose to dump the stock.

But in the case of Citigroup, they stuck it to the American taxpayers. We don’t have the option of asking for our money back. Congress blew that chance in 2008.

I’m not planning on hitting a Mets game anytime soon. But, if I do, I expect tickets to really good seats.

After all, I’m a corporate sponsor.

I’m not sure what happens if all 300 million of my fellow corporate sponsors wants to sit in luxury box seats at the same time.

I watched a visionary named Alan Stein successfully build a privately-owned minor league baseball park in Lexington, Ky. Generally, I don’t have a problem with cities and states financing stadiums.

As ESPN commentator Michael Wilbon pointed out on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” show on Sunday (talking about the Lebron James circus), sports teams are a source of civic pride and identity.

Teams like the Baltimore Colts suddenly become the Indianapolis Colts, and teams like the Cleveland Browns become the Baltimore Ravens when they are offered better facilities, tax breaks and local government support.

Citi Field is an entirely different example. It’s not just the City of New York paying for it. All of America’s taxpayers, including many who will never in their lives visit New York, came up with $400 billion of the money because of the Citigroup bailout.

Every time we see bailout money being spent on baseball stadiums or on huge bonuses like the kind Goldman Sachs employees gave themselves, it slaps the American people in the face.

It reminds us that Wall Street, lobbyists and our friends in Washington all played us for saps.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Continuing to do business with Citigroup and expecting it to appreciate what America did for it is insanity. People on Wall Street are never going to “get it.”

There is only one way to stop the insanity.

Move your money.

Arianna Huffington and others at The Huffington Post started a movement that is catching on like wildfire in getting people to move their money from “too big to fail” banks to banks in their local community.

Community banks lend money to businesses (like mine) on Main Street.

Move Your Money is more than an idea. It is now a tax deductible, 501(c)3 foundation, raising money to educate people on why Move Your Money is so important for the future of America.

I recently made a contribution to the foundation and am encouraging others to do the same.

You can make a donation, or learn more about Move Your Money, at moveyourmoney.info/.

I do business with five locally-owned community banks in Kentucky. None of them has a baseball stadium named after it.

Houston was able to find a sponsor to replace Enron. A city as big as New York should be able to find a sponsor that is not funded by the American taxpayers.

When you think about moving your money, think about Citi Field.

And who is paying for it.

It’s time to send them a message.

Don McNay is an author, columnist and founder of McNay Settlement Group Inc. in Richmond, Ky. You can write to him at don@donmcnay.com or read his award-winning syndicated column at www.donmcnay.com.

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