Expecting Bengals to pay for stadium is like looking for money from tooth fairy | Letters

I’m a fan of Cincinnati and whatever she has. Those who complain  about spending tax money on stadiums lose sight of one fact that should be obvious: Cincinnati is a big-league city because it has big-league teams. Our teams keep us in the national consciousness. How would we look, and how would we feel, if we lost them?

Baltimore lost the Colts to Indianapolis because Indianapolis had a stadium ready for them. Then, the Browns were lured away from Cleveland to Baltimore. St. Louis lost the football Cardinals to Arizona, and would probably be first in line to move the Bengals if we didn’t do what was necessary to keep them here. (Recall that, for some years, St. Louis had the Rams until they were moved back to their original home, Los Angeles.) Now, Los Angeles has two NFL teams, having lured the Chargers away from San Diego. The Chargers were ready to leave San Diego after years of stadium issues.

Hamilton County voters passed a sales tax that enabled construction of both the football and the baseball stadiums we now have. Riverfront Stadium worked well enough for both baseball and football for decades after it opened in 1970. But well enough is not good enough today. Big-league sports are highly competitive among cities, and the currency of that competition is stadiums. The list of cities without big-league sports who would line up to take the Bengals or the Reds with offers of new stadiums is long: Columbus, Memphis, Birmingham, Oklahoma City ,Austin, Portland, Sacramento, and who knows how many others as time goes on and growth occurs.

Expecting teams to pay for their own stadiums or improvements is like expecting money from the tooth fairy. TQL Stadium was built by the Lindners with their own money, but that is a happy aberration from the normal and usual, spurred in part by the requirement of Major League Soccer for a soccer-specific stadium.

Stadiums are public works that maintain the status of the city just as water and sewer utilities do. They attract new businesses and residents, visitors and conventions, as long as they have big-league sports to occupy them on a regular basis. Cincinnati is fortunate that baseball and football teams found the right circumstances to locate here at propitious times over the city’s long history.

The no-tax crowd are living in a world their limited intellects imagine, not the real world they refuse to see. Let them express their thoughts and vote when necessary, but give them the minimum attention they deserve.

William B. Singer, West End

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Cincinnati is fortunate Bengals and Reds are here