I wouldn’t have as much of an issue with Rahmbo spending taxpayer money on a basketball stadium if he had the sense to direct the money to a program that, you know, actually won games.
Mayor Emmanuel is putting a third of the cost of DePaul University’s new $300 million basketball temple on Chicago's tab.
Mind you this is for a men’s basketball team that has gone 47-111 in the past five seasons. Chicagoans are going to be on the hook for a Blue Demon recruiting class that has only one ESPN 100 Four-Star recruit.
Shallow recruiting class or not, the former HGH-popper is billing Chicago for a new arena that is 50 blocks away from DePaul’s campus. Sun-Times sports columnist Rick Telander pointed out that the Chicago Bull's arena, the United Center, is, in fact, closer to DePaul’s campus than the projected taxpayer funded building. On top of that, the United Center has offered its services to the university for ten years for free 99.
But why make sense when you can make cents?
This is Sweet Home Chicago, whose most famous adopted son nominated one of his old bundler pals for Commerce secretary and whose mayor rewarded campaign volunteers with plush positions on his security detail. What’s most poetic: Chicago’s Board of Education is also made up of Ram appointees.
Telander interviewed a Chicago-based sports stadium pointy head to make sense of the deal. How does a team that draws 10,000 spectators a game warrant 10,000 times that amount in public funds to pay for a stadium that's absolutely unnecessary and completely unearned?
‘I’m grasping at straws to think what could be the reason [for the plan],’’ Ganis says.
His best guess?
‘‘This is Chicago.’’
Agreed.
Agreed.