Billions of taxpaters dollars will be made available for sports venues.
Salt Lake City and Utah politicians have decided that it is time to go big and spend billions of dollars to get a Major League Baseball franchise, a National Hockey League franchise and the 2034 Winter Olympics in the state. All that remains is a governor’s signature. It is quite a remarkable show of willing politicians spending money on sports even in today’s climate where politicians do not flinch when extraordinarily rich sports owners who are worth billions of dollars ask for public money for venues throughout America. The Utah governor, Spencer Cox, has not signed off on the proposed baseball stadium and arena plans yet. But Cox has expressed a willingness to spend billions to make Salt Lake City a big-league sports city to get owners in Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League to agree to expand into the town. Salt Lake City has other two major league franchises in the National Basketball Association and Major League Soccer.
Salt Lake City Winter Olympics backers have formally announced a bid for the 2034 Winter Olympics. The only area that wants that event, which costs a local area billions of dollars to stage, is Utah. The International Olympic Committee plans to visit Utah in April to figure out if the bid should be reviewed by IOC delegates. All the IOC needs to do is check with Cox and see how much money he will allocate for the Games. There are no MLB expansion plans right now but MLB knows that Utah politicians will raise hotel and motel taxes and create a special tax district as part of the mechanism to fund ballpark construction in the state. And there is money available for an arena in Salt Lake City all the governor has to do is sign the legislation by March 21st.
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