Post-Indy Super Bowl Jobs: Take Note of Jacksonville
Now that the Indianapolis media Super Bowl cheerleaders have put away their pom poms. It’s time to study how soon corporations may move to Central Indiana now that we have joined the League of Super Bowl Cities qualifying us for worldwide fame and fortune.
Comparing small city apples to apples (close enough), Indy economic development officials should look to Jacksonville, Florida, which hosted the Super Bowl in 2005.
The Florida Times-Union reported in 2007 that the “pay it forward” economic development impact of the Super Bowl showed a long slog ahead (my emphasis in bold).
As the Super Bowl loomed in Jacksonville in 2005, Times-Union business writer Mark Basch chose five indicators that track economic growth in Northeast Florida. His data covered metropolitan Jacksonville, defined as Baker, Clay, Duval, Nassau and St. Johns counties.
. . .
Employment grew an annual average 3.5 percent the past two years, according to state numbers. Metro Jacksonville averaged 623,200 jobs last year. The growth is stronger than before the Super Bowl.
The Super Bowl immediately jolted taxable retail sales, and that growth continued last year, although at a slower pace. Taxable sales grew an annual average of 13.7 percent the past two fiscal years, thanks to the 15.6 percent spike in fiscal 2005. Sales rose sharply in January, February and March that year.
Area housing has been hit by well-reported trends. The value of residential permits dropped 25 percent last year after rising 24 percent in 2005, according to the Census Bureau. Maybe all those Super Bowl visitors could buy a residence.
Estimated population growth averaged 4 percent a year in 2004 and 2005, according to the Census Bureau. That’s stronger than previous years.
Per capita income, at a projected $33,732 in 2005, continues on its historical track, growing about 4.5 percent a year.
Property value grew an average 15.4 percent a year in 2004 and 2005, to $70.2 billion, continuing an upward trend.
We’re still in the first quarter of a long-term game. It would be great to score big, and prove it.
Of course we may never know the true economic impact on Jacksonville since the world went to hell in a hand basket in 2008 tossing all the financial numbers in the garbage. Conversely, Indiana can only improve more as we slowly climb out of this depression recession.
By the way, Florida has been in the Right-to-Work column since 1944. We’ll see if Indiana’s new RTW designation provides a short-term boom with help from the Super Bowl lift.
Roger “Palpatine” Goodell and The Empire Plunder Hoosier Hospitality
Do not misunderstand me.
I don’t blog for Occupy Wall Street. I despise those goons.
I support conservatives and The Republic. I laugh out loud at liberal blue state coasters who scream in horror whenever Toby Keith belts out Made in America.
I also cheered the Indianapolis Colts during those years in the wilderness before the Arrival of Peyton.
So you can check the boxes next to Follower of Ronald Reagan, Defender of Free Enterprise, and Fan of ESPN Sunday NFL Countdown.
Paid my dues, have I.
However, I don’t believe when Peggy Noonan penned the words “Thousand Points of Light” — for President George H.W. Bush’s Inaugural Address — that she had in mind volunteers serving the whims of National Football League owners.
Noonan’s phrase of “duty, sacrifice, commitment” describes working with the Red Cross after a tornado ravages a small forgotten town. Organizing a church Food & Clothing drive. Feeding the homeless at a soup kitchen on Christmas morning before you unwrap your gifts. Teaching someone to read and write.
Thousand Points of Light does not describe the choreography of flashing stage lights at Madonna’s Super Bowl halftime song and dance performance.
Invoking Hoosier Hospitality, the 2012 Indianapolis Super Bowl Host Committee recruited 8,000 clones volunteers to coddle the wealthy, celebrities, and corporate executives along with providing an opportunity for Indianapolis Star sports writer Bob Kravitz to relive his Indiana University party days joyriding on the Zip Line.
Volunteers also direct the Great Unwashed, waddling along with Bud Light in hand, to designated paths on Georgia Street and the intersection of Bread & Circuses far away from the parties featuring Jimmy Fallon and A-list celebrities.
For starters these “Super Volunteers” receive an official General Volunteer Handbook with the usual do’s and dont’s.
They are greeted by a condescending cover letter from Frank Supovitz, an NFL Senior Vice President, who writes from the NFL’s Park Avenue headquarters in New York City:
The NFL is deeply appreciative of your time and efforts and we look forward to working together to build lifetime memories for everyone visiting or living in Indianapolis during Super Bowl Week– including you! Welcome to the Super Bowl XLVI Team!
Translation: “Thanks chumps.”
Volunteers are treated to a winter jacket, a shirt, stocking cap, and a Super Scarf (knitted by even more volunteers). Shoes and pants not included. They are required to buy a pair of khaki pants.
There is a catch. As part of the NFL’s dedication to go Green (the environment, not profits, yeah right), the Empire is nudging volunteers “to donate gently used clothing in ‘exchange’ for their Super Bowl uniform.”
Speaking of no free lunch, the handbook mentions that volunteers who work outdoors, will receive “warm drinks,” but the NFL and the Host Committee will not provide snacks or meals for the workers.
“No soup for you!”
But hey, free parking for all.
Volunteers must swear an oath of fealty to the Super Service Pledge, which requires them to end conversations with guests by saying, “Have a Super Day!” Of course for many of these guests who commute to Super Indy on their Cessnas everyday is super. Ho-hum.
Sadisticians have estimated that volunteers will spend 150,000 hours building lifetime memories by the time Peyton’s little brother or Gisele Bundchen’s husband hoists the Vince Lombardi Trophy in the air, turns to the camera, and says, “I’m going to Disney World!”
When I multiply these total hours by the minimum wage ($7.25), the calculator displays $1,087,500.
Whoa! That’s real savings for a “nonprofit” association. Many volunteer organizations like the Salvation Army have to watch its nickels and dimes too!
Oh, but hark and open your hearts to this bit of news from Forbes magazine:
The average National Football League team is now worth $1.04 billion, 1.4% more than last year. During the 2010 season average revenues for the league’s 32 teams rose 4% compared with the previous season, to $261 million. Although operating income (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) fell 8.1%, to an average of $30.6 million per team due to higher costs for stadium operations, training facilities and marketing, the new collective bargaining agreement will give owners a bigger slice of overall revenue.
. . .
The current deals with CBS, ESPN, FOX and NBC expire after the 2013 season and owners are expecting increases up to 60% on the current $3.1 billion average annual value of those deals (DirecTV brings in additional $1 billion each year). Given the league’s high television ratings and the lust males between the age of 18 and 45 have for watching football, such a boost is not inconceivable.
If only the Salvation Army had 8,000 more volunteers with Red Kettles and skyrocketing television ratings!
Now I have all the respect in the world for these Super Volunteers, some of whom I know. I am unfit to tie their shoelaces. But I wonder if they feel used. Thanks to these good-hearted souls, the Host Committee paid staff will move on to better jobs after the Big Game.
Indianapolis taxpayers are manipulated too by Commissioner Palpatine Goodell and his jolly band of owners.
The City’s Capital Improvement Board had to agree to terms of unconditional surrender at the hands of the Empire. Booty highlights include (bold emphasis mine):
The NFL has been given exclusive control over Lucas Oil Stadium, its parking lots and the Indiana Convention Center for weeks at a time and the right to capture all revenues spent there.
(Well that solves the free parking perk for volunteers)
. . .
Likewise, the CIB will not collect the $250,000 game day lease payment that the Indianapolis Colts pay every time they take the field.All souvenir sales and revenues will stay with the NFL. Food and beverage sales, too.
. . .
The NFL, as a not-for-profit association, will also enjoy tax free status on its sales and purchasing while in Indianapolis.
. . .
the CIB expects to lose $810,000 for its promotion of the game, including an estimated $4 million for police and public safety reimbursement to the city. Those losses will be offset by some payments received from the NFL directly to the CIB.
Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay live under easier rules. Taxpayers will receive “some” payments? Perhaps a Ford pickup packed with $40 Super Bowl baseball hats. Take that crony capitalists! You may get your due. But we’re getting our some.
Even though the NFL has enough money to bailout the debt-ridden government of California, why would the NFL pay temp employees when they can convince generous people to volunteer? The Empire moved at glacial speed to help old time NFL players with pensions and disability payments and the NFL deep-sixed stories on concussions for decades.
Volunteers are road kill for NFL owners.
The citizens of Indianapolis should protect the “Hoosier Hospitality” brand from morphing into a tool to provide free labor and excessive tax dollars to billion dollar organizations. Even Yoda says, “Those are Hoosier Values not.”
“Have a Super Day!”
Huntsman Postmortem
Great comment follows this column on why John Huntsman failed.
astorian| 1.17.12 @ 4:39PM
There is certainly much for a conservative to admire in John Huntsman’s record. And if he’d chosen to RUN on that admirably conservative record, he might have stood a chance of winning.
But he DIDN’T run on his conservative record. Instead, from Day One, he ran as a liberal. He treid to appeal to the Jon Stewart’s, Anderosn Coopers and Stephen Colbert’s, while not too subtly sending out hints that “I’m not a stupid yahoo, like all those OTHER conservatives.”
I thought EVERYBODY knew that, if you want to become President, the trick is to win over your party’s base during primary season and THEN start moving toward the center AFTER you’ve nailed down the nomination. Remember, Bill Clinton didn’t attack Sistah Souljah until long AFTER he’d sewn up the allegiance of the Democratic party’s black and McGovernite voters.
By contrast, Jon Huntsman began his “Sistah Souljah” attacks right at the start of his campaign. That was unforgivably STUPID! If Huntsman were well known and well respected as a principled conservative, the Right might have forgiven him his attempts at posing as a moderate- they’d have understood that, “He’s really one of us, but he has to be practical and broaden his appeal.” . But despite Huntsman’s impressive resume, most conservatives just didn’t know him very well yet and had no reason to trust him or to give him the benefit of their doubt. When he started acting and talking like a liberal, they had no way of being sure it was an act.
Given a choice between a lifelong liberal who’s been trying to SOUND like a conservative (Mitt Romney) and a lifelong conservative who’s been trying to SOUND like a liberal, a large plurality of conservatives went with the guy who’s campaigning (however implausibly) as a conservative.
Ode to the Welfare State (1949)
Three cheers for Ohio Republican Clarence J. Brown, Sr. (1893-1965).
(Be sure to click on the document)
Now That’s a Writer!
A new biography about Kurt Vonnegut. Should we be that surprised. From The Guardian:
Yet Shields’s book is unsparing in its portrayal of Vonnegut’s dark side. It reveals that the writer – whose experience as a PoW during the firebombing of Dresden scarred his psyche for life – had no qualms about investing in firms that made napalm or indulged in a host of other morally suspect activities. He fell out with friends, editors and relatives and had a shocking temper. In later life he appeared deeply bitter and lonely.
Why I Despise Occupy Wall Street Hippies
I graduated from Hillsdale College in 1983 long before it became the popular conservative powerhouse marketed on talk radio by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Mark Levin.
We were the first wave of Reaganites to land at that small liberal arts college, located in southeastern Michigan, during the regime of our very own “Sun King” — President George Roche III.
Teachers and fellow students strengthened my knowledge of free market economics with the wisdom of Hayek, Bastiat, and von Mises.
Probably the best part of the Hillsdale experience centered on any history class lead by Dr. John Willson, especially the early American days. Willson taught that the American Revolution was more an evolution of experience than some radical French Revolution. Here is a quote from his speech before The Philadelphia Society (well worth the read too):
John Adams once said about the American and French revolutions, “Ours was resistance to innovation; theirs was innovation itself.” A flippant comment, certainly; it nevertheless captures an important truth: insofar as it was successful, the American Founding was rooted in ancient truths, it was not attempting to “touch-off” a transfiguration of the world.
While Hillsdale deepened my resolve for an America more in line with the vision of the Founding Fathers, my basic instinct for the conservative path began well before Ronald Reagan’s ascendancy to the White House.
My right-wing seeds were planted in the 1960s with the hippies and their sit-ins, sit-downs, riots, and firebombing of cities.
As a young kid they scared the hell out of me. They looked like Charles Manson and Squeaky Fromme.
Hippies fried their minds on LSD. Burned the American flag and spat on soldiers. They embraced America’s enemies: the Viet Cong, Castro, Mao, Che Guevara, and the Soviets.
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) organized the Left. Bill Ayers, Angela Davis, Tom Hayden, and the Weather Underground led them.
The freaks hated California Governor Reagan, mocked John Wayne, and cheered for the traitor “Hanoi Jane” Fonda.
For all the sins of Mayor Richard J. Daley and his corrupt big city machine, he redeemed himself when he unleashed Chicago’s Finest on the Chicago Seven and thousands of counterculture rioters.
That’s right. I said it.
I rooted for those cops swinging their clubs and spraying tear gas at the Radical Left during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
As Mayor Daley would say, ”Law and order will be maintained.”
Now in 2011 we have another Marxist group called the Occupiers with yet another “Blame America First” campaign.
Will this grow into a law and order headache for mayors across the country?
Looks like it so far.
Arrests and confrontation in New York, Denver, Seattle, Cleveland, Boston, Portland, and Phoenix. Even the USA Nazi and Communist parties support Occupy. Around the world we witness Occupy violence and explosions in Rome and the liberals can always count on Red China to bless Occupy.
Did I mention support from the Nazis?
Even liberals at MSNBC itch for more destructive ends. Can you say Kent State?
It’s funny how a peace and love movement spawns so much violence and civil discord.
It’s interesting how the Tea Party rallies never gave the police any trouble.
The Tea Party’s roots can be traced to honorable men like George Washington, Ben Franklin, and Alexander Hamilton. Conservatives swear to defend the Constitution of the United States.
The Left embraces the French Revolution and its Reign of Terror as well as the violent worldwide communist uprisings. Revolutions in Russia and China that had their seeds watered from bloody heads severed by a falling French guillotine blade.
Parade these hippies up and down the avenues with their Hate America attitudes and I turn a deaf ear, as do most reasonable Americans.
I listen to the squares. I cheer the proud waving of the American flag and not wearing it around your mouth and nose as a Hamas terrorist mask.
(Hat Tip: Daily Mail)
I root for the guys with shirt pocket protectors and not with guys who wear earrings and lower their pants to crap on police cars. I’ll listen to conservative commentators S.E. Cupp and Dana Loesch over hippie, zombie chicks who litter their faces.
Appearances matter especially when these radicals claim they speak for 99% of us. What arrogance to think they represent 99% of Americans. How dare they!
I am one of the 53%, which suddenly chops the 99% to 46% at best.
These techno hippies are so unkempt that others have to supply them with toothpaste and other toiletries. They are so out of control that they depend on shipments of condoms.
(Perhaps the Trojans were a gift from shrewd conservatives who saw an opportunity to prevent more Woodstock generations).
Most groups rally or protest for a couple of hours, make their point, gain some publicity, and then go grocery shopping.
Instead this communist party disrupts the everyday activities of normal men and women who operate small businesses and want their families to enjoy community amenities such as Zuccotti Park.
Hippies are not the middle class. Not even close.
(Hat Tip: Moonbattery)
These lefties only want to outlaw profit and eat the rich.
Listen. Take the 1% by the ears and seize their assets. Give them a perp walk to a kangaroo court presided by Michael Moore, find them guilty, shove them into gas chambers and pipe in carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide, and then grind their bodies into hamburger.
Then what? The government runs for five months on the confiscated income, the private sector turns to dust, and the 20% real unemployment number skyrockets to that of a third world country in Africa where a cup of water is a full meal.
Wow. Really solves our economic problems. Plus smart people know that the lefty definition of the 1% is based on myth and lies.
Money is everything to liberals. They hate those whom they perceive are better off. They demand more pricey government programs. They spread the wealth through legislative force as opposed to the creativity of the private sector and the marketplace.
They are some of the most materialistic people you will ever meet.
James Carville’s famous phrase, “It’s the economy, stupid!” doesn’t cross the finish line. Culture always trumps the economy. What we see now is a fight for the future of America. The good side wants to preserve our American heritage and excellence while the Left — in the words of President Barack Obama:
John Adams shudders from the grave.
One Indy Street in Need of a Name Change
Indianapolis Star elitists Tully & Smith treated us again to their Sunday morning Exchange of Letters, this time on whether or not we should rename our downtown Georgia Street in light of the new boardwalk designed for convenient shopping and carousing.
It’s another one of the hundreds of pre-Super Bowl street projects that have hassled our city dwellers who know deep down that we need this infrastructure facelift. Now if we could only persuade Colts owner Jim Irsay and the rest of his NFL colleagues to stage Super Bowls in Afghanistan for the next five years, we could finally bring that country into the 1930s.
Anticipating the Big Game festivities, city planners and civic busybodies sponsored a controversial name change contest for Georgia Street to make it unique, contemporary, hip, or justify a PR consultant’s reason to be … who really knows.
Tully has a number of reasons not to change the name, but the historical reason won me over the most. He writes:
There is the history angle. As has been noted, Georgia Street has been Georgia Street since Alexander Ralston laid out the city’s original plat 190 years ago. Now, on a whim and because the Super Bowl is coming, some are pushing a quick-hit name change? Give me a break.
I have a reverence for history and hate to see it trampled in the name of “progress.” Georgia never hurt anyone.
If the street plates do change to a nonsensical name, then at least Ralston’s pick had a nice run. Another city father has not had it so well. Oh, he has a street named after him all right, but it is an insult more than a passageway.
I give you Hudnut Boulevard.
When I think boulevard I imagine a well-traveled street filled with scenic grand homes or important businesses with movers and shakers plotting the next deal. It’s top-tier. It’s French after all.
Not so much in this case.
If you’re traveling south on Harding Street from I-70 with a box full of household chemicals and used motor oil, you’ll seek Hudnut Blvd for it is there that you turn right for the jaunt to the Tox Drop located on the grounds of the Belmont Advanced Wastewater Treatment Facility.
Yes for all the work that former Mayor Bill Hudnut provided to turn our city into what it is today — one of America’s major metropolitan areas — we have awarded him posterity wrapped around a sewage dump shaped like a one finger salute from his successor Mayor Steve Goldsmith.
Keep Georgia Street, but along that new boardwalk let’s sculpt a statue for Hizzoner — the kind that Chicago has for Michael Jordan and Harry Caray.
Without Hudnut’s leadership of long ago, we would not have the Super Bowl today.
1940 RNC Movie — Same Ol’ Debate
I laugh and I laugh and I laugh whenever I hear these “Independents” and “Third Way” cultists try so hard to hatch schemes to get around the traditional Liberty vs. Tyranny debates.
Take a look at this article from LIFE magazine (April 29, 1940) where you might find a familiar debate. It includes stills from a movie produced by the Republican Party. Of course President Franklin Roosevelt beat Republican Wendell Willkie of Elwood, Indiana that same year, but perhaps the theme of the movie started to lay the groundwork for the post WWII conservative movement.
As an added bonus after you scroll the two page article, read the short paragraph about the Pennsylvania Milk Act. Even the poor wanted the government out of the way.
Defeat The Left. Teach history.
(Make sure you click the ZOOM IN icon a few times so you can read the article).
Out of touch Indianapolis Democrats took a direct hit today to their dwindling prospects of winning the mayoral election in November. In an article that identified hot spots of economic activity around the nation, The Wall Street Journal praised the City of Indianapolis for its successful development of the life sciences.
Indianapolis used to be the quintessential Rust Belt city. Now it’s at the center of a statewide boom in the life-sciences business.
The state has added 8,800 jobs in the life sciences in recent years, and today some 825 medical-device companies, drug manufacturers and research labs call Indiana home.
Indianapolis, which is home to big names in the field such as Eli Lilly & Co. and health insurer WellPoint Inc., is leading the transformation. Corporations like these have added the lion’s share of the state’s new life-sciences jobs. Now they’re helping smaller companies get off the ground, too—by spinning off new businesses as well as by backing independent start-ups. Eli Lilly, for instance, has contributed roughly $60 million to seed and venture funds that are supporting entrepreneurs.
That isn’t the only way big companies are easing the way for small ones. With new firms arriving to supply the large drug makers, start-ups are getting access to a range of services at competitive prices.
“We have access to companies in Indiana where we can outsource functions like toxicology, analytics and clinical supply,” says Ron Ellis, president and CEO of Endocyte Inc., a 65-employee firm that’s testing a cancer treatment.
Many small firms, meanwhile, are helping others get off to a good start. David Broecker, president and chief executive of BioCritica Inc., an Eli Lilly spinoff, says his peers have referred employees, suggested work space and given information on tax and financial incentives.
It’s just the environment he hoped for when he left the East Coast to build a company. He considered other spots but settled on Indianapolis because “it’s all new and exciting here for these folks, so there is a hunger for doing this type of thing.”
Despite President Obama’s anti-business policies that have shattered much of the economy, Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard has soldiered on creating and maintaining a friendly business environment which in the end means more jobs for Hoosiers.
