The politics of professional sports facility subsidies in Florida

Political leaders in urban settings regularly confront difficult decisions over how to distribute public funds. Those decisions may be even more controversial when they involve public subsidies of professional sports facilities. Yet, state and local governments in the United States have granted billions of dollars in financial and land-based subsidies for professional sports facilities over the past two decades, raising questions about how these types of corporate welfare decisions are made by local leaders. Scholarship on urban politics and community power suggests a number of theories to explain political influence. They include elitism, pluralism, political economy and growth machines, urban regimes, coalition theory, and minority empowerment. My hypothesis is that coalition theory, a theory that argues that public policy decisions are made by shifting, ad hoc alliances within a community, best describes these subsidy decisions. ^ To test this hypothesis I employ a public policy process model and develop a framework of variables that is used to methodically examine four sports facilities funding decisions in two Florida counties between 1977 and 1998: Joe Robbie Stadium and the American Airlines Arena in Miami-Dade, and the Ice Palace Arena and the Raymond James Stadium in Hillsborough County. The framework includes six variables that permit a rigorous examination of the actors involved in the decision, their interactions, and the political environment within which they operate. The variables are formal political structure, informal sector, subsidy proponents, subsidy opponents, public policy options, and public opinion. ^ This research rests on qualitative data gathered from interviews of public and private officials involved in subsidy decisions, public records, and media reports Employing a case study analysis, I offer a rich description of the decision making process to publicly fund sports stadiums and arenas in Florida. My findings confirm that the best theory to explain decisions to subsidize sports facilities is one in which short-term, temporary coalitions are formed to accomplish policy goals. ^

World-Class Service

In the discussion - World-Class Service - by W. Gerald Glover, Associate Professor, Restaurant, Hotel and Resort Management at Appalachian State University and Germaine W. Shames, Hilton International, New York, Glover and Shames initially state: “Providing world-class service to today's traveler may be the key for hospitality managers in the current competitive market. Although an ideal, this type of service provides a mandate for culturally aware managers. The authors provide insight into several areas of cultures in collision.” Up to the time this essay is written, the authors point to a less-than-ideal level of service as being the standard in the hospitality industry and experience. “Let's face it - if we're ever to resurrect service, it will not be by going back to anything,” Glover and Shames exclaim. “Whatever it was we did back then has contributed to the dilemma in which we find ourselves today, handicapped by a reactive service culture in an age that calls for adaptiveness and global strategies,” the authors fortify that thought. In amplifying the concept of world-class service Glover and Shames elaborate: “World-class service is an ideal. Proactive and adaptive, world-class service feels equally right to the North American dignitary occupying the Presidential Suite, and the Japanese tourist staying in a standard room in the same hotel.” To bracket that model the authors offer: “At a minimum, it is service perceived by each customer as appropriate and adequate. At its best, it may also make the customer feel at home, among friends, or pampered. Finally, it is service as if culture matters,” Glover and Shames expand and capture the rule of world-class service. Glover and Shames consider the link between cultures and service an imperative one. They say it is a principle lost on most hospitality managers. “Most [managers] have received service management education in the people are people school that teaches us to disregard cultural differences and assume that everyone we manage or serve is pretty much like ourselves,” say Glover and Shames. “Is it any wonder that we persist in setting service standards, marketing services, and managing service staff not only as if culture didn't matter, but as if it didn't exist?!” To offer legitimacy to their effort Glover and Shames present the case of the Sun and Sea Hotel, a 500-room first class hotel located on the outskirts of the capital city of a small Caribbean island nation. It is a bit difficult to tell whether this is a dramatization or a reality. It does, however, serve to illustrate their point in regard to management’s cognizance, or lack thereof, of culture when it comes to cordial service and guest satisfaction. Even more apropos is the tale of the Palace Hotel, “…one of the grande dames of hospitality constructed in the boom years of the 1920s in a mid-sized Midwestern city in the United States.” The authors relate what transpired during its takeover in mid-1980 by a U.S.-based international hotel corporation. The story makes for an interesting and informative case study.