SAN ANTONIO – With election day four weeks out, San Antonio voters soon will decide if visitor tax dollars should fund a new Spurs arena.<\/p>\n
But some are questioning the price of progress — and tickets. <\/p>\n
Spurs fans are one of a kind. And as the November vote on Propositions A and B grows closer, voters still have questions. Like, if they vote \u2018yes\u2019 for a new arena, will the team make it more affordable to go to a game?<\/p>\n
“I will cheer for you in my heart and in my home because I cannot afford a ticket,\u201d A woman said during a city council meeting on August 21. This was the same meeting where the city council approved the terms sheet with the Spurs and the County.<\/p>\n
That was more than a month ago and still we have got emails asking what will be done for affordability in a new arena.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think one of the things we always want to highlight that is happening today is we make 1000-1500 tickets available to fans that are $25 or less,\u201d Spurs chief legal officer Bobby Perez said in an interview on Tuesday. \u201cWe have another cohort of tickets that are $12 or less. And so, today, fans can access our game and come to the game Friday night or next week.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perez said the Spurs will continue these programs and look for ways to expand them in the new arena.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we look forward to a new arena, we want to continue to be robust and allow San Antonians a chance to come in and watch the hometown team at the new arena.\u201d<\/p>\n
District one councilwoman Sukh Kaur says the city is committed to making a new arena affordable and accessible to local fans.<\/p>\n
“This is an incredibly important part of the project, which is why we fought so hard for a community benefits agreement that has yet to be built out,\u201d Kaur said.<\/p>\n
The proposed arena would be built in Kaur’s district.<\/p>\n
She said the $75 million pledge by the Spurs for community benefits, which was upped from the original $60 million after the Mayor intervened, can also go toward programs that make games more affordable for local families.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think accessibility for viewership, whether it’s making sure you can go for free at the park, or whether it’s giving away tickets to our nonprofits that can make sure families that have never had a chance to go to the game have access, is incredibly important,\u201d Kaur said.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, it will be up to the voters to decide if that is good enough or not.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re looking forward to the voters showing up and letting their voice be heard and looking forward to those results on November 4,\u201d Perez said.<\/p>\n
Some people worry the new arena could end up like the Frost Bank Center, which is surrounded by little to no development.<\/p>\n
Perez says that is why the Spurs guaranteed $1.4 billion in additional development around the new arena — so downtown can continue to thrive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO – With election day four weeks out, San Antonio voters soon will decide if visitor tax…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":285319,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5133],"tags":[19851,5229,61955,10208,72358,7202,7203,7199,358,146977,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,146978],"class_list":{"0":"post-285318","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-accessibility","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-community-benefits","11":"tag-election-day","12":"tag-new-arena","13":"tag-san-antonio","14":"tag-sanantonio","15":"tag-spurs","16":"tag-texas","17":"tag-ticket-affordability","18":"tag-tx","19":"tag-united-states","20":"tag-united-states-of-america","21":"tag-unitedstates","22":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","23":"tag-us","24":"tag-usa","25":"tag-voter-decision"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115336085323459651","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}