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The truth is different than the perception. Stadiums mostly help the billionaire owners.
Another fear is that these billionaire owners hold the city hostage during negotiations. They threaten to move the team. Elected officials are scared what it would look like if their city loses a professional team, much less the fan base being up in arms.
The truth is different than the narratives. I lived in DC and watched two stadiums transform neighborhoods and dramatically increase city prop tax revenue. You're missing the truth by trying to paint a broad brush to fit an opinion in your head that's simply not in line with reality.
Part of the problem with taxpayer subsidized stadiums is that it has contributed to the skyrocketing salaries of professional athletes. Basketball player Jerry Lucas, remember him? (That's a joke, Jerry Lucas is known for his fantastic memory) was one of only a few NBA millionaires. It was common for professional athletes to hold part-time jobs: https://www.cleveland.com/browns/201...on_was_wo.html
When I read that NBA player LeBron James makes $37 million while WNBA player Sue Bird makes $215,000, I don't say that Sue Bird is underpaid, I say that Lebron James is overpaid.
This has nothing to do with players salaries. Lebron is worth exactly what he is being paid. If the owners can afford to pay Lebron that amount, think how much they make. Why is that not part of your complaint? If you had the same skill set as Lebron, I doubt you would be saying pay me what Sue Bird is getting. Owners will charge what the market will pay.
If the owners couldn't make money they would sell the teams. I do not see many teams for sale.
For every example like this one there are 10 examples that show the opposite.
Which ones?
Most new baseball stadiums have benefitted their cities. San Diego, DC, San Francisco, etc. Miami definitely not though.
Football stadiums are a lot different and are not designed to stimulate neighborhood activity. However, only two existing stadiums - the Bills stadium from the 1970s and Raymond James in Tampa built in '98 - were entirely publicly financed.
Most new baseball stadiums have benefitted their cities. San Diego, DC, San Francisco, etc. Miami definitely not though.
Football stadiums are a lot different and are not designed to stimulate neighborhood activity. However, only two existing stadiums - the Bills stadium from the 1970s and Raymond James in Tampa built in '98 - were entirely publicly financed.
As I look at the list of MLB stadiums (NFL is even worse) - there are only a handful that have may have improved the neighborhood. Teams that got new stadiums in the same location cannot be considered a benefit to the neighborhood. Here are a few examples:Yankees, Mets, Phillies, White Sox, Cards, Pirates, Reds, Mariners. The Rangers just got a new stadium in Jerry World after moving from a stadium that opened in only 1994. The Astros stadium is in a dead zone of warehouses in Houston.Tropicana Field in Tampa/St Pete has not done much to improve the area in its 30 plus years of existence.
I would not include SF Oracle Park as that area of SF was on the rise even without the new stadium and the same could be said about PETCO in SD. Are we really going to attribute all that expensive housing near Oracle/PETCO to the stadiums? I would say with or without the stadium, growth of those neighborhoods was inevitable due to the location and popularity of SF/SD.
The Braves got a new stadium in 1997 (Turner Field) and announced they were moving in 2013. They moved to a new stadium 15 miles away in 2016. The Braves beat Cobb County out of a ton of money in order to move out of Atlanta next to a gigantic interstate highway intersection. How soon until they get a better deal and move to another area in Atlanta? Maybe Atlanta will knock down Turner Field/rebuild Turner Field and the Braves can move back.
In no way are the cities/counties/state who front the bonds/land/future maintenance getting their money's worth on these deals. The owners of these team are making out like kings.
Another fear is that these billionaire owners hold the city hostage during negotiations. They threaten to move the team. Elected officials are scared what it would look like if their city loses a professional team, much less the fan base being up in arms.
While I do believe that these elected officials are craven cowards, they also reflect their constituencies. It's because so many sports fans are like addicts on crack, who would revolt if their beloved supplier were to move away, that the elected officials hand over the money. The sports team owners are nakedly greedy, but they also know their customer base and they're willing to use the leverage they have. I have no respect for them whatsoever, but I can't fault them for their business savvy.
Personally, I couldn't care less about sports, and I think that stadiums are a gigantic waste of money that do little for a city other than to tie up its traffic on game days. If we're going to have sports stadiums, I prefer them to be built out by the interstate highway, where the infrastructure can better handle the traffic mess. And if I were mayor, and the team owner threatened to move, I'd help him pack. (I'd also lose my re-election campaign, but oh well.)
2. Most stadiums are seasonal, and sit empty much of the year.
This is one of my biggest beefs against stadiums. If we're going to have them at all, why can't they be built as multi-purpose facilities? There isn't much overlap between the football and baseball seasons (I have no idea about soccer), so it shouldn't be that hard to have one building serve both sports. Yeah, I know, the purists will complain that a multi-purpose facility isn't as aesthetically appealing as a separate one for each sport. But it seems like We the Taxpayers ought to have some say in this.
It’s an inferiority complex. If you’re Buffalo and you’re told your NFL team will move if you don’t build them a new stadium with luxury boxes for rich people and corporations, you probably cave in. When Bob Kraft tried to play Hartford off against Boston, the Massachusetts state legislature said no. He built Gillette with private money. The only state money was Route 1 highway improvements. After getting burned by Giants Stadium, New Jersey didn’t give a dime to fund MetLife Stadium. Of course, the same isn’t true for their other disasters in the Meadowlands so New Jersey clearly has a Manhattan inferiority complex.
I would not include SF Oracle Park as that area of SF was on the rise even without the new stadium and the same could be said about PETCO in SD. Are we really going to attribute all that expensive housing near Oracle/PETCO to the stadiums?
Yes we are, just like Nats Park did in DC, and the California stadiums were privately funded. In all three cases, private development, and the property taxes it created, would have taken much much longer to come about. Having lived in both DC and the Bay Area, I can assure you both neighborhoods went from zero to something when the ballparks open. Not as sharp an improvement, but Downtown LA saw the same thing from the Staples Center.
In other places like St. Louis and Atlanta/Cobb County, real estate projects were connected to the ballparks directly, virtually bringing property tax revenue with them. And in Vegas, residents aren't paying for the Raiders stadium, tourists are through hotel taxes. Every incentive in the world to do that.
Yes, some deals are bad. Stadiums have done little to draw people into downtown Baltimore. That region doesn't have the high paying jobs SF and DC have that have been relocated near their baseball stadiums, nor does have it enough other benefits to pull people downtown like Petco/SD has. Either way, this narrative that any public funds for stadiums don't pay off is overly broad and replaces business judgment with this silliness about greedy owners. There have certainly been cases where the interests of owners and citizens have been aligned.
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