Monday, November 12, 2007

Straw Man Makes CP Analysis a Straw Dog

This is a total exaggeration of the opposition to further subsidizing the most subsidized hockey club in the NHL even as that club cannot turn out enough fans to sell out its matches. Some do oppose subsidizing pro sports altogether; others oppose the degree to which we subsidize pro sports. I am an ardent opponent of the latest attempt to throw money at the Predators, yet I don't oppose financial incentives altogether (as Lawson's hyperbole suggests), and I have supported subsidizing deals with pro teams in the past (case in point: the Nashville Sounds).

This "analysis" makes it sound like the opponents are monolithic high-brow hypocrites who generally hate sports. It amounts to nothing more than the typical bombastic CP editorializing that attempts to oversimplify and to drive wedges. But the CP has a financial interest, given that the publishers are minority Predators owners who stand to gain by such an analysis. That's a detail that Lawson leaves out of his bum rush. You never really expected them to oppose throwing more Metro money at hockey did you?

After the free-love fest for sports teams of the Bredesen years, let's just call Bill Purcell's mayoral terms a market correction that kept more money in the public sector repairing sidewalks and streets. It need not be as irrational as Lawson implies. And if the local hockey club cannot make good on the sweetheart deal it has already been given and cannot even fill up its stands with all of those supporters of sweetheart deals for pro teams, then let them go.

And I would expect no less of the Nashville Symphony. If they don't like their subsidies, then they can move to Kansas City, too.

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