I am a huge sports fan, as most people who know me can attest to. And living in the Philadelphia area as a huge sports fan has been a perfect fit, because Philly is a sports city. When I was a student at La Salle, I got to host my own tv and radio show covering the city’s professional sports teams. My love for all the teams runs deep. That is, until this year.
I have yet to watch an entire Philadelphia 76ers game this season. While part of the reason I have yet to watch an entire basketball team is because they have been absolutely horrid this year, the biggest reason is because of the proposed arena they will soon be breaking ground on in Center City, thanks to a 12-5 vote on most of the 11 pieces of legislation from the city council to approve the project.
The Sixers currently rent out their current arena, the Wells Fargo Center, from Comcast Spectacor, who owns Philadelphia’s NHL team the Flyers. The Sixers ownership group, led by billionaire investor Josh Harris, proposed a new arena called 76 Place that will be located at Market and Filbert Streets and 10th and 11th Streets, right in center city. To be clear, there are things to like about the project. According to Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker, the Sixers ownership is solely responsible for the payment of the $1.3 billion stadium. In the United States, public funds usually pay for the majority, if not all, of new stadiums and arenas, so this is a huge win for the city.
There is also the fact that building an arena in Center City will force more people to take public transportation, and according to Mayor Parker, will create a $700 million new tax revenue for the city and 1,000 new construction jobs. By this point, you might be thinking, “This all sounds so great. Why are you against the arena?” Because no one in the affected community wants it.
Three blocks north of the proposed 76 Place sits Philadelphia’s Chinatown, which consistently ranks as one of the best Chinatowns in the country. Close to 4,000 people live in the 20-block district, and there are 110 businesses located in the area. While the new arena will create jobs, four independent studies by the city found the new project could displace people due to “gentrification and loss of cultural identity in Chinatown.” Furthermore, small businesses are “at a greater risk” of negative effects and indirect displacement.
There are a couple of reasons that this could happen. If fans from the suburbs decide not to take public transportation to the new arena – a very likely possibility – their buildup of traffic in the Chinatown area will cause regular visitors to not go on game day.
It should also be addressed that there is a disconnect between the suburban fans who love sports teams but refuse to go to Philadelphia for any other reason. I find it hard to believe that these fans will suddenly change their behavior just because a new arena is there. So, if the Philadelphia residents won’t go to Chinatown on game days, and suburban fans won’t explore the area after games, it’s easy to see how this will be a negative for the owner’s stores in Chinatown.
And yet, late last month city council members ignored the fears of city residents and awarded a new arena to a team that has not been to an NBA Finals, much less a Conference Finals, since spring 2001, three months before I was born. Harris and the Sixers organization clearly do not care about their Philadelphia fans. If they did, they would have first asked for a fan vote, and also not considered moving to Camden as a ploy to get the vote passed. And it worked.
So, what now? There are a few things that can be done. The biggest thing, especially if you are a sports fan, is to stop supporting the Sixers. And I don’t mean troll Joel Embiid on X and watch the games to see how bad this train wreck of a season gets. Financially hurt them. Don’t go to games, don’t buy merchandise, don’t even watch them on TV, since they get a large revenue share from their TV contracts. Even if they still get that money if nobody watches, it will force Comcast to consider lowering their value for the Sixers if the ratings are terrible.
If you live in the Philadelphia area, consider joining the Save Chinatown Coalition, which has been protesting the arena project since its initial proposal. Also, further support the Working Families Party, whose two members on city council, Kenda Brooks and Nicolas V. O’Rourke, consistently voted to support the people of Philadelphia and against 76 Place.
In the long term, if the arena is built, we should boycott any events there. This will, unfortunately, include any future WNBA team that could be owned by Harris’s ownership group. If you are a sports fan, want to support a WNBA team to come to Philadelphia, and absolutely will not support them if the Sixers own the team, call WNBA offices and make it be heard that they must find another ownership group who will support the fans in Philadelphia and not use them as collateral for their own personal greed.
I know that this might not be everyone’s most pressing political issue after the results of the election, especially if you don’t live in Philadelphia. But I love Philly. My four years at college were one of the best times of my life, and my visits to Chinatown were the highlights of that experience. I cannot fathom the idea of those trips not being possible for the next generation and will do everything I can to show city officials that they are making a mistake.
