Someone told me that Professonal Wrestling may be canceled unless it can boost ratings. I guess this means no more Smackdown on UPN (We don't get it in STL anyway) and no more RAW on TNN?

Gone are the days of the heavy WWF and WCW competition on Monday nights. Those were the glory days of Professional Wrestling. The WWF bought out the WCW and ECW, played an "Invasion" for a while, and then kicked out most of the WCW and ECW wrestlers.

The best days of the WCW was those "NWO" days. Has professional Wrestling lost it's edge?

It seems they have done almost every storyline they can think of, what haven't they done in Professional Wrestling? Like Figure Skating while wrestling?

but STL still doesn't have a UPN station yet. Except for Channel 11 that shows some UPN programming, but only shows Smackdown on Saturdays unless it is Blues Season. The Blues have played a lot of Saturday games, so Smackdown got bumped off the air. Been that way for a few months now.

Actually the [link|http://www.stlouisblues.com/|Blues] are a Hockey team, not a Football team. Hockey apparently bumps off Pro Wrestling in Saint Louis.

Our (American) Football team is [link|http://www.stlouisrams.com/|The Rams] which doesn't show on channel 11 here.

Football and Hockey players get paid more than Professional Wrestlers, plus they get stadiums build with taxpayer money for Hockey and Football and Baseball teams while the wrestlers just move around to different areas and don't have their owners actually own the stadiums they play in. The Hockey, Football, and Baseball teams suck in taxpayer dollars to help build and maintain those 380 million dollar stadiums.

like all the other businesses in St. Louis. If I, applied for a loan to start a business, I get the standard 21% loan. If I wanted to start a ballpark or statium, apparently I can get a $300M grant with no payback (IE: Richfare) to build it provided I own a sports team.

Other things in Saint Louis besides Sorts Teams that bring people in:

Our Universities

Our Hospitals

Our Transportation (Planes, Trains, and Autombiles pass through here all the time)

Our Convention Centers

The Brewery, Grant's Farm, etc. Herr Busch is good to us.

St. Louis Zoo

St. Louis Science Center

Several Casinos, boats in moats

Soulard Market

Six Flags (not that far away)

Plus the fact that it is the Gateway to the west and many people pass through here on route to other locations.

We got more that sports teams to pack people in. If you ask me, and the sports teams left, we would be better off. Sports fans used to come in to the Metrolink and dent up my car as they tried to park their car while drunk. Plus they pack the Metrolink up when they come in, and many of them do not bathe, and sometimes you are standing up with their armpits in your face. Plus they leave litter everywhere, spit everywhere, and park where they shouldn't park.

How much comes back in player salaries, concessions, seat sales? Well apparently most players make more in salaries, there is merchandising if they are famous enough. But I wonder how much comes back in taxes? Do they tax them the same 1% salary that we get taxed? Is it just the base salary, or the bonuses, stock shares, and perks as well that get taxed?

Anyway you look at it, the local income tax is a small percent of what they get from the $380M "gift" to the team owners to build them a new stadium. Not a loan mind you, richfare gifts. Heck, they even will throw in city workers to help upkeep the staium after it is built, all on the taxpayer's salary.

Parking? You must be joking? parking is full even when there is not a game in town. That is how they use the Metrolink instead of parking downtown. trust me, I used work downtown. It was much better to ride the Metrolink rather than hunt for a parking space. Even when the firm had a deal with a garage to give us space. That garage always gave our spaces away to convention people, or sold the space to sports fans despite us having reserved it.

Are you saying that the team owners and players could not afford the $380M cost of building a new stadium? Oh boo hoo, no more gold teapots or diamond paperweights? :)

Show me the return on the $380M investment, even the team owners could not do that.

Moving the companies into the subburbs is not such a bad idea, you know. The city sucks the life out of you after a while.

it is just that the city is in denial. We already have gangs, and drug dealers, and broken down housing, and all of that other stuff. Only difference we have is that the City Police are only interested in giving out parking tickets, traffic tickets, harassing the street vendors over licenses, etc than cleaning out the filth of the city. A friend of mine got mugged three times in a row, one of them a Police officer was nearby and did nothing.

Downtown buildings are already falling apart and they don't enforce the building codes, as a result we have a lot of slum-lord/ladies that charge high rent for shabby apartments. Trust me, I used to live downtown in my college years from 1987-1989. The cockroaches only got "high" on Camicide and Bugbombs. One business I worked for, paid me with personal checks from the owner. When I asked for a W2 form, he just laughed, then I was let go. No record of me ever working there according to the state. But they get away with it.

I ask again, how much of the income that the ballparks make do the taxpayers see? Explain cities like St. Charles, or Imperial that still thrive despite not having ballparks, and being very far away from said city ballparks?