The way Safeco was planned, financed and built follows a pattern that Fort says begins with owners who complain about their stadium or stadium lease and then threaten to move or sell the team unless they get a new facility. On rare occasions or after voters and politicians refuse to cave in, the stadiums are financed by owners and the teams. San Francisco voters, for example, turned down four different proposals to build a new stadium for the Giants with public funds, but the team ultimately found its own financing and is building New Pacific Ballpark with its own resources. It will be the first privately funded ballpark to be built for major league baseball since Dodger Stadium opened in 1962. Safeco Field also was built despite failing with voters at the polls, but that was because the 1995 state Legislature stepped in and approved the combination of tax increases and lottery proceeds after owners stepped up their threats to sell the team.
Some people pay a lot for things that other people want really bad.
Take a look at Safeco. But for the stadium proposals that fail, over half of them find alternative funding paths anyway. Fort notes that no baseball team has actually moved since 1971 when the Washington Senators moved to Texas and became the Rangers. But that doesn't keep owners from threatening to uproot a team to get a new stadium deal that can provide the millions in added revenue from luxury seats and suites, naming rights, seat licenses and other amenities. Fort doesn't blame owners for playing the game that baseball has set up.