The following is cross-posted from Noah Pransky’s Shadow of the Stadium blog.
This weekend, a letter to the Tampa Bay Times editor from three local chambers of commerce applauded SB 406, the recently-passed bill that allots $5 million a year in state money to new spring training projects.
There’s a bevy of reasons why the bill was short–sighted, but the business-minded chambers aren’t concerned about the use of the state funds or the fact that the bill also encourages Florida cities & counties to dig deeper into their own pockets to build new stadiums:
Florida is the premier state for the spring training, with 15 teams statewide, and our teams are an integral part of Tampa Bay’s economy and recreation. Along with the tradition of warm days, watching baseball from the lawn and catching that foul ball or home run, there is the economic impact for hotels, restaurants and stadiums that spring baseball brings every year. And those benefits extend year-round when our minor league season arrives.
I guess the “premier state for spring training” is the chambers’ opinion, since Arizona has 15 teams as well. And Arizona teams tend to play in nicer stadiums that are located closer to each other. And yes, those have been Arizona’s big bait in luring teams away from the Grapefruit League in recent years.
But let’s not forget most of the teams left in Florida are East Coast teams that would not want to make the move out West. And there could have been better ways to prevent teams from moving to Arizona.
