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Volume 38 Issue 5
November 7, 2000

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Is stadium of the future an empty one?
Prop 302 defeat would likely mean Sundays without football

BY CHRIS BOWMAN
MESA LEGEND
Submitted November 7, 2000

The Arizona Cardinals belong to Bill Bidwill. He brought his team to the Valley in 1988 with plans of temporarily playing in ASU’s Sun Devil Stadium until he could get a new stadium built.

Bob Estrin/ MESA LEGEND

ASU's Sun Devil Stadium has housed the Arizona Cardinals since their arrival in 1988, leaving the team the only remaining NFL franchise playing in a college stadium

Over the years, every proposal to build Bidwill his dream dome has been shut down by Valley voters. If voters shut down Proposition 302 on Nov. 7, Bidwill plans to take his show back on the road to somewhere he can get the ultimate payday of a new stadium.

Because the voters in Maricopa County have never approved a new stadium for Bidwill and the Cardinals in the past,  Prop 302 needed to be a package deal. The deal includes a state of the art multipurpose stadium that will house the Cardinals, conventions, and concerts.

It will also host the Super Bowl twice every 10 years, and the Fiesta Bowl annually.

Prop 302 is also designed to provide money for youth sports facilities, and Cactus League baseball. Very few dollars will be taken out of Valley residents’ pockets if passed. Tourists, who will pay extra taxes when they stay at hotels and rent cars, will generate most of the money.

Although some citizens in Phoenix believe it to be unfair to tax the out-of-towners, Michele Eckert, the executive director of the Arizona Hotel and Motel Association is in favor of the tax.

“I think we need the tourism promotion generated by the NFL,” Eckert said. “I have two kids and I see the need for creating more youth sports facilities.” 

Jennifer Kroymann, a  product manager for a software company in Phoenix, has been a season ticket holder for the Cardinals since Jake Plummer made the jump from ASU to the NFL. “I wasn’t happy when the Cardinals moved here,” Kroymann said. “I’m a big ASU fan and I thought the Cardinals would take away from ASU football. But now I would hate to see them go because me and my family have become huge fans.”

The future of the Cardinals will rest on the Nov. 7 vote, but many people find it hard to believe a community would even entertain the possibility of losing an NFL franchise.

“I don’t think the people in Phoenix have any idea of what they’re about to do,” said James Harrison, president of Phoenix’s Brownsbackers Fan Club. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a Cardinal fan or not. The NFL ís something every city should want.

“The people in Phoenix don’t know what they have until it’s gone.

“Phoenix fans are like Los Angeles fans where you have to win  for anyone to care. I have over 700 members of my fan club here in Phoenix and our team is terrible.”

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