Florida is the land where recounts count. So, it is with great pleasure that I announce the new winner of the 2001 Super Bowl played last January in Tampa.
Ta-dah! Forget the Ravens and the Giants. The Tampa Bay Bandits stomped the Tampa Bay Citizens 250,000,000 to 0. The Bandits were captained by Quarterbillionaireback Malcolm Glazer, who amassed the lopsided score by repeatedly tossing fake passes (and promises) to Fullofbaloneyback Jack Wilson, who doubled as head of the Super Bowl boosters committee.
"How 'bout us Bandits," Glazer roared in announcing the retabulated score. "The key play was in promising the Citizens we'd deliver a $250-million economic impact to Tampa from the Super Bowl. Those dolts believed us. The only economic impact was right here," snorted the Bandits boss, patting his back pocket while he did an endzone dance.
Attesting to the shrewdness of Glazer's game plan are monthly tallies of sales in Florida's counties. The purchase of goods and services in Hillsborough County was sacked for a loss in January — not the financial windfall as promised by the NFL, the Tampa Chamber of Commerce and the Super Bowl Host Committee.
The January 2000 Hillsborough economy totaled $4,841,236,082, according the Florida Department of Revenue. A year later — Super Bowl month — total county sales slumped to $4,747,347,157, a dip of 2 percent.
A top chamber official, who did not want to be named in any story on Super Bowl economic impact, attributed the decline to "a generally softening economy." However, state figures don't support that excuse. Total sales in Florida increased from $71.7-billion in January 2000 to $80.6-billion last January — an impressive 12.4 percent improvement.
The chamber honcho said all of the Super Bowl cash flow might not be reflected in the state's figures. That's true. I'm sure the official wasn't thinking of this but the most obvious hidden Super Bowl dollars not on the state's charts are illegal gambling and prostitution, not to mention all of the cash pocketed (er, garter-belted) by Joe Redner's girls.
Wilson, the host committee chairman, said he was surprised but had no explanation for the figures. He attributed the economic impact claims to the National Football League. However, the NFL's director of special events, Jim Steeg, blamed the local cheerleaders. "Those numbers are thrown around by the local community, not us," Steeg said.
Phil Porter, a University of South Florida economist, said he isn't surprised Hillsborough suffered while the rest of Florida prospered during Super Bowl January. "True, many of our hotels were full and their room rates were jacked up for the game," Porter said. "But many, many just plain folks stayed away from Tampa during the height of tourist season to avoid Super Bowl. A few luxury restaurants prospered. A lot of small restaurants out by Busch Gardens suffered."
Other areas of Florida may have actually put more points on the scoreboard than Tampa and St. Petersburg, Porter suggested. "People who would have come here who didn't want to face the football crowds and astronomical prices of hotel rooms, so they might have gone to Daytona, Miami or the Keys."
Aside from the fact that we now have hard statistical proof that Tampa has been hoodwinked again by the sports titans and their coterie of boosters — ranging from Wilson, a generally well-intentioned civic leader, to the "Pewter Paper," to the Chamber — there's a dire warning in the Super Bowl economic numbers.
In short, the sports spectaculars don't deliver. The cash registers ring for team owners, hotels and insiders — as well as for some common folk, such as cabbies — but the rest of us suffer.
The next year is crunch time for Florida 2012, that self-back-slapping gang that wants you, yes you, to bear the financial multibillion-dollar risk of bringing the Olympic Games here. By the end of next year, the decision will be made as to which U.S. metro area will vie with cities around the world for the 2012 games. No amount of hyperbole will be spared to con you into thinking the games are a good deal. They aren't.
Florida 2012, headed by the irrepressible defector from the County Commission, Ed Turanchik, claims the 17-day Olympics will bring in almost $3.2-billion and will produce $670-million in profits. The best to be said of those projections is that they're pure vapor, without the slightest attachment to reality. The worst assessment is that Florida 2012's numbers are damn close to being criminally fraudulent, designed to lull the community into complacency while the promoters plot how to spend the millions they'll skim from the government-guaranteed spectacle.
For starters, the International Olympic Committee and its U.S. branch are claiming the 2012 games will have an "economic impact" of $5.3-billion. Then again, the 1996 games in Atlanta were projected to benefit Georgia by $5-billion. When the smoke cleared (literally) the impact was more than $1-billion short.
The "profit" margin of the Atlanta games was a razor-thin six-tenths of 1 percent — and that's only if you don't compute the massive infusion of public dollars. As a study released earlier this year by Georgia Tech showed, there were $1-billion in largely hidden costs to Atlanta's taxpayers.
The economic impact figures are actually much worse than that. The promoters of the events such as the Olympics and the Super Bowl use a curious form of new math. They add in everything they think people will spend on the spectacle but don't subtract any potential loss. That's why Tampa actually shows a decline in spending for the Super Bowl compared to the previous year. With the best Orwellian doublethink, the NFL, The Tampa Tribune and the chamber are claiming the financial hole is an economic victory.
Shortly after the 1996 games, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article labeled as "wild projections" the claims of Olympic promoters. A leading Atlanta restaurateur, John Ferrell, owner of the venerable Mary Mac's Tea Room, opined: "We were somewhat misled by the media and officials. Who knows what would have happened if we'd stopped to think for ourselves?"
An excellent question for Tampa.
The cold facts bolster Ferrell's appraisal. The Olympic months of July and August 1996 show only a 5 percent increase in total spending in the Atlanta area compared to the same months a year before, according to U.S. Census data. Overall, the U.S. economy showed a 3 percent gain. While Atlanta is slightly ahead of the nation, the city was in the midst of a boom not related at all to the Olympics. The growth trend-line of Atlanta's economy showed no variation at all due to the 1996 games.
The Atlanta newspaper, a vigorous promoter of the games, at least managed to get honest in the aftermath. The local dailies here have yet to rigorously analyze the Super Bowl's nonexistent economic impact — or to put Florida 2012's claims in the crucible.
Adios, My Friends
Last week I made a decision that I never would have thought possible. I'm giving up arroz con pollo for fried chicken and cornbread. Rephrased, I'm moving to Atlanta, where the Weekly Planet has a larger sister paper, Creative Loafing. I'll be doing in Atlanta pretty much what I've done here at the Planet.
The move won't happen until the end of the summer, so I have plenty of time to craft a proper paean for my exit. I'm sure it will reflect what I'm feeling now — anticipation mixed with melancholy.
If there's something you've ever want to rant at me (or about me), now is the time. Don't be coy. Write, call or e-mail me with what you think of Tampa and St. Pete (or Atlanta, for that matter), the Bozos and the saints in the cities, or the Planet.
Editor John Sugg, who swears he is not related to Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, can be reached at 813-248-8888, ext. 109, or at johnsugg@weeklyplanet.com.
This article appears in Jul 18-24, 2001.
