Something Doesn’t Add Up
I was out by the Lucas Oil Stadium construction sight being nosy the other day when something struck me. The ground the stadium is being built on using to be a parking lot for Colts games, so where do all the people park now? That may not seem like a big idea but the more I thought about it, the more and more I figured something just wasn’t adding up.
We’ve already seen the stories about the need for parking and a new garage that will cost the taxpayers a few million bucks. But have you ever thought why the parking spaces were needed in the first place? Well here’s the deal.
The Colts have been promised a certain number of parking spaces for games. In a nutshell they need about 800 spaces. The spaces however, aren’t for you and me. I’m a Seattle, Chicago and St. Louis fan so I’ll take myself out of the equation. The spaces are connected to luxury suites.
Do a little bit of checking and what you’ll find is when you shell a few extra pennies for luxury seats you can also commandeer some primo parking. In addition, the players get some parking spaces as well. These were all promised to Mr. Irsay. So if you put it all together, the city and state, otherwise known as the taxpayers, are being asked to shell out millions for parking spaces, that they can’t afford so some really rich folks can park close to the Stadium to make a rich guy even richer at your wallet’s expense.
The Colts are already making out like bandits ($48 million contract buyout payback, $121 million in naming rights from Lucas Oil, $7 million annually in lease revenue, all game day revenue, up to $3.5 million in non-game revenue and the city has to maintain the stadium). This doesn’t even count the millions in operating cost overruns. And the Colts were also opposed to keeping some ticket prices under $25 for regular folks. And they balked at a ticket fee to help pay for pubic safety in Marion County.
And just for the record, I am not against people getting rich. I’m against people getting rich when the taxpayers have to foot their bills.
