Utah sportscasters are crowing about 41 brand new nights of professional hockey entertainment hosted by the Delta Center to add on top of the 41 existing nights of professional basketball entertainment based there. Yep, that’s exactly what we need to do to add to high school and college sports programming, recreational league sports programming and personal exercise and healthy living programming.
One can forgive single-minded sportscasters for not being able to even conceive why Smith Entertainment Group’s new fandom initiative may not be the social, educational and economic boon they say it will be for the “downtown core” or the citizenry at large. Sports is their job, their passion, their Golden Calf, the only thing they know much about.
But actual news anchors, church leaders, democracy-minded politicians, wise business leaders and academicians and economists might come to a different conclusion if they gave it more than a moment’s thought. Isn’t this just another way to transfer Utah working family income into the hands of a billionaire and draw folks away from the family food table to the restaurant table?
The project will require a huge amount of public tax dollars to be taken out of Utahns’ paychecks. It will take away from expenditure of discretionary time in adult continuing education, homework and school-based dance and drama nights for high schoolers, political organizing time for democracy, volunteer time for nonprofits, church social time and college education savings for youth.
Yep, that’s what we need to do in a time of crisis in our state and nation, bury our heads ever deeper in the sand.
Kimball Shinkoskey, Woods Cross
