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[Seattle Times] 15 years after moving Sonics, now it’s the Thunder asking for publicly funded arena
(www.seattletimes.com)
this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2023
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That's a fair angle to take and more honest than people twisting themselves into knots insisting that giving a billionaire hundreds of millions of dollars is going to pay for itself.
Peoples misconception money concerning building an arena is that it's going to have an direct effect. Its not because sport franchises are businesses unto themselves. The benefit of having a sports franchise is more akin to the McDonald's effect. This effect shows that when a McDonald's builds a store more restaurants build near them. Also the stores around a McDonald's is profitable. This is based off of the foot traffic effect more people go into one spot the more businesses become successful. Having a sport franchises brings other businesses into an area and state. Young people want to be entertained, businesses want to keep young talent, businesses put their company in places that young people will stay their. Since the Thunder have come to OKC (2008) the population went from 40 to the 20s. More large companies have moved here also during this time. Having a sports franchise has helped OKC grow economically and by population.
Well at least when it comes to McDonalds, the city doesn't have to pay for them to be built... Can you point to some of the companies that have been attracted by the Thunder? For the top employers in OKC I'm just seeing a bunch of health industry and government jobs...
No company is attracted to a city solely for an NBA team.. Maybe see who has the naming rights for the current arena?
But Paycom predates the Thunder...