10 golden reasons why Syracuse needs another sports arena

Last week, the Syracuse University super-brains unveiled their two-year-old scheme plan for a spanking new, $500 million sports arena. This wondrous money grab  opportunity became public just as Gov. Andrew Cuomo was finalizing his 2014-15 annual budget goodie-bag. With better timing and a little extra grease, SU might have scored a quick $200 million from Albany, without  even having to tell the city of Syracuse. But - hey - what football town can't appreciate the old End-Around?

Seriously: Who needs public debates? After all, SU has the prestigious Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, whose resident Oh-Dears pontificate about democracy, while the Pooh Bahs decide things behind closed doors. What are we, Utica? This is Syracuse, the city that birthed the drive-through bank teller and the popular teen craze, "Knock-Out." So what if the city's infant mortality rate belongs in a Third World country, and the waters of Onondaga Lake still look made from frozen concentrate, a new 40,000-seat arena could snag us an NCAA championship! That would mean a parade! 


Face it: There are TWO HUNDRED MILLION crisp reasons why SU needs a new sports toy. But let's cap the number at 10.

10 GOLDEN REASONS WHY SYRACUSE NEEDS ANOTHER ARENA

1. Hockey fans are sick of being unable to score good seats for Syracuse Crunch games when Hershey comes to town. A 40,000 seat thingy would solve that problem. Good grief, when those pesky Binghamton Senators play us, they bring their families. With a new facility, we'd have a place to put 'em: The nosebleed section!

2. Nothing stinks more than when the Carrier Dome is reserved for use, leaving the area with no sports or entertainment venue, aside from Manley Field House, the SRC Arena, Coyne Field, the Lampe Center, the Onondaga County War Memorial, LeMoyne's Niland Complex, the State Fair Coliseum, Chevy Court, the Landmark Theatre, Destiny, the Turning Stone Casino, the entire the town of Fabius, and that venerable ballpark home of the Syracuse Chiefs, "Your Name Here" Stadium. Where can we hold the next Benny Mardones concert? We could lose our gun shows to Cortland.

3. A new arena on the Eastern fringe of the downtown will help Syracuse grow the bars on the Eastern fringe of the downtown. Right now, the hot bar action is on the Western flank, Armory Square. What about our Eastern bars? Shouldn't they get a swipe of the card? Hey, think we could get the 2015 Redneck Summer Games? That would boost the Eastern front.

4. Syracuse needs an identity upgrade. For 100 years, we were "the Salt City." Today, that's a dangerous diet. Now, we're "the Emerald City," a true WTF? moment for all who visit. We need a new handle. How about THE ARENA CITY...  with more domes per capita than anywhere in the world! Welcome to Syracuse, Home of the Sell-Out!

5. It's just state money? It's not like we paid for it. It's free money, from Albany! Cuomo gets it from Obama, who gets it from China, which owns all of Utah, where the Mormans secretly keep the Arc of the Covenant, from which all earthly currency emanates. Nobody will miss $200 million. It's free! Money! For you, and you, and YOU! Freeeeee!


6. The current arenas are antiquated. Take SRC Arena, for example. It's now three years old.  Time for the wrecking ball. The Carrier Dome? It still doesn't have cup-holders. Have you peed lately at the War Memorial? (Good luck finding hand soap.) One of these days, we'll all have rashes, or bed bugs, or bad backs, and everybody will say, Why didn't we build that new arena? 

7. A new arena could attract a new pro sports team, such as in the WNBA. How about the Syracuse Snow Queens! More teams mean more games. More games mean more tickets sold. That creates the famous Economic Development Ripple Effect. Did you know that one dollar you spend for a football ticket generates $7,003 in economic stimulus, according to the Football Concussion Institute of Math, where numbers are crunched by ex-Green Bay Packers, recovering from head injuries. If you buy a Chiefs t-shirt, you're feeding 100 children for a month. 


8. The I-81 overpass through Syracuse, which is sagging like a rope bridge. The whole city is debating what to do. A new arena would solve that issue: Without any money, we can't do anything!  No more arguments. Just ram all the traffic into the arena's parking lots, and let folks tailgate until they sort things out. End of problem.

9. Naming rights. A new arena presents a golden opportunity for some rich bum-wad or institution in need of p.r. power-wash to stick their names onto something positive, for a change. (Think: Golisano Children's Hospital.) That weird shake-up at Upstate Medical Center? Ladies and gentlemen, it's the "Upstate Medical Center Hope Gardens!" Death weapons buzzing Hancock Air Base? Welcome to the Syracuse Predator Drone Dome! 

10. Luxury boxes! Come on, folks, let's get real: That is all this is about. The new arena will have bigger, better, more luxurious sky-boxes than everything we currently can offer to the 1 percent. And frankly, why even bothering with a debate? We've seen this movie. We know how it ends. If they don't get the $200 million this time, they'll just come back next year, or the year after, until they do. And they'll win - of course, they will - because they'll promise jobs.

That's all. Jobs. Nobody cares what we're building. Just give them a job. Let them show up, flag cars for eight hours, and then go home. Mission accomplished. Remember that Kevin Costner box-office turkey, "Water World," where the crazy leader Dennis Hopper has all the men on his boat rowing and rowing - they don't know where they're going on the ocean - but they row, row, row... for the sake of rowing? Well, that's us. When did we ever question what to build? Certainly not with super-brains on a hill, happy to think for us, behind those doors.