The Saints better whoop the asses of the Indy NFL Franchise!

[Tommy_Carcetti]

Geaux Saints!

[madinmaryland]

1. I thought you were a life-long Baltimore Colts fan!

:D

[Tommy_Carcetti]

6. Actually, I was a little kid when they left...but....as a native Marylander....

....I recognized they were MARYLAND's one true NFL team, and my allegiance has always lied with Baltimore's teams.

[TZ]

2. You know what

I hope the Colts win just to piss off all the hypocritical whiners in Baltimore.
Though I have nothing agaisnt the Saints.

[Captain Hilts]

3. I'm upset at the HUGE subsidy the Ravens have gotten and useless stadium. Geaux Saints!

[Tommy_Carcetti]

5. The stadium was built with lottery funds, and had been earmarked as such since long before 1995.

Just to let you know.

But geaux Saints nonetheless.

[Captain Hilts]

7. That $ could have been used for so many other things. For a stadium empty 330 days of the year when

there is a stadium right next door.

Modell got the unusual deal of being able to keep parking receipts, etc. Unusual for a stadium he doesn't own.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

8. Pretty sure Oriole Park wouldn't have met NFL standards.

Like it or not, the NFL is going to set a high bar as to stadium requirements in order to keep it in the league. Oriole Park at Camden Yards was built as a baseball only stadium with only 48,000, far less than the NFL requirements.

Right now, the only two baseball/football shared stadiums left are Miami and Oakland, and the Marlins are moving out of Joe Robbie Stadium (which was built for football) in 2012.

The fact of the matter is that most any NFL stadium will sit empty most of the year (with the exception of the occasional concert, Papal mass, monster truck show, etc.). Why single out only Baltimore?

[Captain Hilts]

9. It's my state and my money. In Philly and Pitts they voted AGAINST

building new stadiums and they were built anyway.

Welfare for the wealthy.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

10. Yes, but the way Maryland did it was the way to go.

Lottery money built the stadium. (It built Oriole Park, too.) General tax fund money was not used. As such, no one forced anyone to pay for the stadium. The lottery is a voluntary source of revenue.

[Captain Hilts]

11. But lottery money can be dedicated for other things. It's having the poor subsidize the

wealthy. It's horribly regressive.

I don't mind the use for Camden Yards because baseball stadiums employ a lot of people and generate an economy in a way football stadiums do not.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

13. Nah. It's better to use tax money for necessities.

Florida (which doesn't have a state income tax) tries to fund its schools via the lottery and it just fails miserably. If Florida instituted a progressive state income tax and left lottery money to things like stadiums, it would work a lot better IMHO.

[Captain Hilts]

14. I agree. But this is REGRESSIVE. It is a tax on lower income that benefits upper income.

The deal the state gave Modell was hugely lucrative. He was making money in Cleveland. He was promised MUCH more to move to Baltimore. There are better ways to spend tax dollars.

Taxpayers get little back from a football team as they do baseball.

The Dolphins and Redskins paid for their own stadiums. Abe Pollin paid for the Verizon Center. It's revitalized the neighborhood. I also think the money spent on the baseball stadiums in NYC is obscene, given the economy.

Besides, it was poaching another city's team.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

15. The Redskins paid for the stadium itself, but not the millions in infrastructure around it.

And unlike the Ravens, that money came from actual taxes.

Lottery revenues are not a tax. People are not forced to buy lottery tickets.

[Captain Hilts]

16. True. But "actual taxes" are more progressive, rather than regressive. nt

[Tommy_Carcetti]

4. They'd only be hypocritical if they were Baltimore Browns fans.

That's not the case, and as long as Cleveland got their team name, records, history, section of the NFL Hall of Fame (...oh....and guarantee of a new team 3 months after the move was announced) Baltimore's conscience is entirely clear.

What Baltimore got in 1996 was for all intents and purposes an expansion team, with the sole exception that all the players came from the 1995 Cleveland Browns.

[KamaAina]

12. Peyton's daddy is Mr. Saint

hopefully he'll throw the ball to the guys in black and gold a few times, just like Daddy used to do.