Blogging Ottinger (tim)Poor motivation
This bothered me for reasons that are more semantic and mathematical than anything else.
Aren’t 1/2 of all people below average in any category you can imagine? 1/2 of all saints are below sainthood average in holiness. 1/2 of all people are below average intelligence. 1/2 of all children are below average in looks. 1/2 of all cities are below average in hospitality. By definition.
Why is it that if the colts bring in below median revenue, they get a billion dollar stadium and special taxes? Shouldn’t any special additional treatment be based on a standard deviation, maybe a two-sigma or three-sigma control? And is that not based on performance? And if they’re not a big enough draw, is that really the fault of the state or the team? It seems that there’s already a lot of money being paid to them.
You may condemn me for not being sufficiently “loyal” to the local sports scene, but I frankly don’t see that the colts are a “public good” requiring a billion in investment (on top of everything else) in a time when we’ve got such unemployment and hard times, and when we’re laying off firemen and police officers. Frankly, I’d trade Manning and his crew for an equal number of firemen (though I could probably afford a few dozen fire stations and fully-loaded police stations for a fraction of the cost).
Ah, well. Employment and safety and fiscal responsibility are no fun to watch on sunday afternoon, and don’t sell very many beers.
Bah.
