Phoenix Suns executives say the team is the favorite to host the National Basketball Association’s annual All Star Game in 2009, thanks in part to a tax waiver approved by the Legislature earlier this year.
But a lawmaker who voted against the tax provision says a referee betting scandal only proves the sports league doesn’t deserve any special accommodations.
In August, NBA referee Tim Donaghy pleaded guilty to two federal charges stemming from an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that he shared confidential information with members of organized crime organizations and used his position as an on-court official to determine the outcome of basketball games from 2005 until 2007.
The betting scandal only reinforces Rep. Ed Ableser’s belief that the NBA is “incompetent,” an argument he made on the House floor in May when lawmakers debated including a sales tax waiver on NBA All Star Game tickets in the current budget.
At the time, Ableser, D-17, was incensed that the league suspended two of the Suns starting players for a playoff game, but now he says he is more certain than ever that the league doesn’t deserve the tax break.
“Why are we rewarding a company that can’t self-govern…and has damaged the integrity of its sport?” he said on the heels of an Oct. 29 announcement by the Suns that Phoenix is a front-runner to host the 2009 event. “[The scandal], to me, justified the point I was making even more.”
But Republicans who supported the exemption for the NBA say the sales tax waiver is a prerequisite for the league considering a city as a potential host for the game. In May, House Speaker Jim Weiers defended the waiver, saying the game would bring as much as $100 million to the Arizona economy and add upwards of $7 million in tax revenue to the state’s general fund.
“If they don’t come here, you get no revenue,” he said at the time.
Ableser, though, disputes that and says it is in the league’s best interest to select the host city that will best support the game, regardless of tax incentives.
The tax exemption would apply only to tickets to the All Star Game and other NBA-sponsored All Star events; the expected cost to the state is about $700,000. The waiver was specifically written so it applies only to the 2009 NBA All Star Game. If the league selects another city to host the event, the tax break will disappear.
House Republican spokesman Barrett Marson said the goal of the waiver was to encourage the NBA to consider Phoenix as a host city for the annual event. As such, he said, the measure “is truly helping [do that], and is doing so at no cost to the state.”