The Western Economics Association is meeting this week in Honolulu for its annual conference. Many contributors to The Sports Economist are on hand discussing such things as recruiting violations in college football, racial discrimination in the NFL, and even the economic impacts of stadiums.
So, when I ran across this letter to the editor in today’s Honolulu Advertiser, I couldn’t resist yet another blog on stadiums.
aloha stadium
Build a new stadium, don’t fix up old oneI don’t get it. Aloha Stadium has been in steady decline since it first went up in the early ’70s.
We’ve had one refurbishing project to date, as I recall, to “strengthen” the rust that’s plagued it since Day 1.
Now we’re going to do it again? I really think Russ Saito and the powers-that-be need a wake-up call.
Tear it down and build another! Take a hint from all of the cities on the Mainland that are doing just that.
We’ll be the laughingstock of the sports world if we go forward with this.
I enjoy going to Aloha for all of the events that it offers, but I fear the day when it’ll all come crashing down.
I found this particularly interesting timing since I passed by Aloha Stadium this morning on the way to visiting the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor. Until seeing this in the paper I had not given a moments thought to how ridiculous Honolulu would be without a new stadium.
Aloha
