r/phoenix • u/KABCatLady • Jun 14 '25

Politics Happy “No King’s” Day, Phoenix!!

Good morning fellow Arizonans! I’m proud of all my fellow American’s protesting today. Let’s see your signs, pics and videos! Post here to spread the love and inspiration. We are in this together. United We Stand. NO KINGS! 🇺🇸

Remember to keep things peaceful and kind, both on the streets are on this thread.

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u/Logvin Tempe Jun 14 '25 edited Jun 14 '25

I just ran into my state Senator, Mitzi Epstein! Out with a sign, educating people about the taxpayer handout to the millionaire owners of the Diamondbacks.

With some of her peers in Minnesota getting assassinated by domestic terrorists last night, I am glad to see her still fighting!

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u/SlytherinPaninis Phoenix Jun 14 '25 edited Jun 14 '25

I just googled what you were talking about holy crap that’s terrifying

Edit: I was referring to the shooting in Minnesota. You can stop messaging me about baseball.

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u/Saritiel Jun 14 '25

Okay, so I'm a democrat and I'm generally pretty against handouts to billionaires.

But I'm really confused as to why people oppose this bill and would love if someone could give me an actual reason or reading of the bill as to why its bad.

Because I'm a huge Diamondbacks fan, so I read the bill, because while I'm a fan of the team I don't really want to support things like cutting education while giving to a sports team owned by a billionaire.

But when I read the bill it says that the only taxes going to the stadium would be from taxes directly generated by the stadium. So like, its taxes on the salaries of the players on the team, and taxes on the merchandise and food sold inside the stadium, and taxes on the tickets.

Like, if you never go to a ballgame then you won't be paying a cent towards this. And not only that, but if the team leaves and the stadium shuts down then its not like we get to just start spending the money we "saved" elsewhere. That money just stops coming in, because its coming directly from fans of the team purchasing team tickets, food, and merchandise, along with income taxes on the salaries of the players. But then we also lose our sports team.

So like, why is the bill bad?

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u/Logvin Tempe Jun 14 '25

https://www.chandlernews.com/arizonan/opinion/opinion-arizona-diamondbacks-are-playing-you-the-taxpayer-with-stadium-demand/article_c4d101fc-5447-40b2-ace0-0dd6643416ce.html

  1. The team keeps all revenue from events. $328M a year.
  2. The team pays no rent, and no taxes.
  3. The team is demanding $20M a year from taxpayers to stay.

The taxpayers helped fund the stadium, but they get all the profits... and they don't pay taxes on the profits.

Tax Breaks means everyone else pays more in taxes - so it may not be a hard dollar figure we each "pay", but when we give them a pass on taxes its the same result.

It's not "our" sports team. Plenty of people don't care about it at all. I would prefer they stay and we have the team here, but not at the expense of our tax dollars.

Edit: Also, i think the guy meant the assassinations were terrifying. The dbacks thing is annoying at best IMO.

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u/Saritiel Jun 14 '25

Okay, so if I'm understanding her, basically the argument is that Kendrick is bluffing, he's not going to move the team, and we should call his bluff. Because I suppose yeah, if he is bluffing and he doesn't move the team if the bill doesn't pass, then yeah it is taking tax dollars away from other things.

Edit: Also, i think the guy meant the assassinations were terrifying. The dbacks thing is annoying at best IMO.

Yeah, that makes more sense, lol.

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u/[deleted] Jun 14 '25 edited Jun 14 '25

[deleted]

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u/SlytherinPaninis Phoenix Jun 14 '25

I meant the people being shot and killed dude calm down