The Brooklyn Nets: NOT - Essay Example

The Brooklyn Nets: NOT The Forest Ratner Companies (FCRC) have spent considerable time and money tryingto convince New Yorkers that moving the Nets from their home in East Rutherford, NJ to Brooklyn would be a great economic benefit for the city. There are currently plans to build a new 19,000 seat arena and a high-rise office building complex to accommodate the move. Like all major sports moves and expansions, this one is mired in controversy. When looked at from all angles, and considering the implications of the move, it begins to take on the look of a taxpayer's nightmare.

Yet, if you are a sports fan in Brooklyn all that might not matter. The move would bring a professional sports team to Brooklyn for the first time since the Dodgers departed, but would be subsidized by the taxpayers, and would not generate enough revenue to justify the economic burden to the existing infrastructure.Fifty years after the Dodgers were denied a stadium and lost the team, the people in Brooklyn are still Dodger fans. Brooklyn may well have the most avid fan base in the country. From the point of view that the move would be a gift to the sports fan that has little else to live for, it is a good thing.

It would do wonders for the morale of the city. People could feel good about being from Brooklyn, if only for a little while. It would be a great feeling until the newness wore off.The best case scenario is painted by FCRC and has the stadium filled 200 nights per year. However, this is contingent on using the arena for events such as concerts, Disney productions, and World Wrestling Federation events. FCRC's plans fail to consider the myriad of existing venues for these events that it will have to compete with.

Even if they could fill the stadium 200 nights a year, it would cause other problems.Filling a 19,000 seat venue 200 nights a year at the center of one of New York's busiest transportation hubs is "precisely the wrong place to put such a venue" (Kim and Peebles 27). Brooklynites know that traveling in this area at anytime of day or night is a troublesome proposition. The planners have consistently overlooked this fact. The new arena will require massive amounts of taxpayer dollars to improve the transportation system in this area.

It would also require upgrading the fire department and public safety systems. The tax revenue received would not cover these additional costs.We always hear the pleas of team owner poverty when the issue surrounds the building of a new arena. They publicly proclaim the number of jobs that will be created by the project. They don't advertise that these jobs are mostly minimum wage and temporary. They don't reveal the hidden taxpayer costs such as hidden subsidies, utility improvements, eminent domain, and bypassing environmental regulations.

Any private developer that required all the infrastructure and taxpayer support required by this project would be considered a failure. In most cases, corporations must stand the cost of any social impact incurred from their project. The emotional appeal of a professional team in Brooklyn has blinded New Yorkers to the reality of the costs and has opened their hearts to the misleading claims of the FCRC.Works CitedKim, Jung, and Gustav Peebles. "Estimated Fiscal Impact of FCRC's Brooklyn Arena.

" No Land Grab. 21 June 2004. 5 Dec. 2006 .