Some fees don’t even make sense;
Renting the park does carry a fee, but it’s not particularly large. The tournament is charged a fee of $45 per field for the duration of a soccer tournament. There are 21 fields in Yankton Trail.
So the total rental fee is $945. The organizers also helped purchased the new soccer goals and with other park improvements, Juhnke said.
The vendors have to pay for permits, too.
The fees are marginal compared to the return in sales tax revenue and exposure the tournament brings in through thousands of visitors, Juhnke said.
Organizers expect the tournament to bring $17 million into the city.
I would agree, the $17 million dollar impact definately offsets whatever support the city provides. But in all fairness, do you think $945 even comes close to the cost to maintain and water these fields for a week? Not only that, but the overtime paid out to the SFPD and the traffic engineers to help control traffic. If I had to guess, I bet the city pays out between $20-40,000 extra to help with the tournament, then ironically lets the tournament organizers keep the parking fees. I can also bet their are some organizers that are making thousands of dollars from their efforts. It’s kind of hypocritical when you consider the mayor not wanting to give handouts to special interest groups, but I guess soccer (councilor Rex Rolfing) and tennis (Mayor Huether) are OK. No conflicts here, move along, nothing to see. Now lets worry about Stehly’s nine inch grass.