Since 1990 municipal and state governments have devoted a positively embarrassing amount of money to publicly financing sports stadiums in the United States. The first of the new wave – Comiskey / US Cellular Field in Chicago – in 1991 is now one of the oldest stadiums in Major League Baseball (only Dodgers Stadium, Fenway Park, and Wrigley Field are older). It is also a rare example of a stadium built with borrowed funds (the State of Illinois did a bond issue) that were actually – hold your breath – paid back by the team. As far as public stadium deals go, that's about as good as it's going to get. Most of them are so much worse, and the new Atlanta Braves stadium swindle is perhaps the worst yet.
Almost every publicly financed stadium is approved by local governments (and sometimes, but not always, by referendum or ballot measure) based on the twin fallacies of promises of massive economic benefits and zero tax increases for local residents. The economic benefits tend to be either short-term (the city hosts one Super Bowl, and then what?), accrued entirely to a handful of people (team owners, concessionaires, and whoever got the parking rights), or greatly exaggerated (turns out that demand to buy expensive tickets to see a mediocre or bad team is insufficient to fill a stadium). As for the zero tax impact argument, it depends on a very specific and, shockingly, deceptive definition of that concept.
Municipal budgets are close to a zero sum game. There are ways to generate new revenue but they are politically unpopular and tend to be measures of last resort for elected officials. So, in the Braves current situation, it is true that the county is not raising taxes to pay for the stadium. What they will have to do is raise taxes to pay for everything else in the budget that they can no longer afford since they devoted all of their resources to the stadium. It's like someone blowing their entire paycheck on the casino and then asking to borrow rent money; the lender isn't really paying the rent, it's paying the person's gambling habit that precludes them from paying their own rent.
No matter how many times this trick is played, local governments seem to keep falling for it because WOO SPORTS! and a dozen local real estate and construction companies stand to benefit tremendously from the arrangement. Those same business interests tend to have a loud voice in government at the state, county, and municipal level. The fact that Cobb County had to monkey with the rules to prevent the public from having any input on the stadium decision suggests that voters have begun to figure out what a boondoggle these deals are. The fact that the public was not allowed to vote or have input suggests that the people behind the deal knew, or strongly suspected, that voters would never willingly swallow the costs involved. We might learn our lessons slowly, incompletely, and at times incorrectly, but there are enough examples in the last two decades to convince even the most enthusiastic sports fan to think twice before supporting free handouts to help people who are already obscenely rich make even more money.
Brian M says:
There is plenty of fun sniping about the Sacramento Kings new Deathstar. In defense of the Deathstar, it does at least appear to be sparking private investment in a very moribund downtown.
Quicksand says:
I get your point, which is absolutely correct, but there are other MLB stadiums older than Comiskey: (Anaheim, Oakland, KC, Toronto, Tampa Bay).
Probably none worse than the Oakland Coliseum, which appears in person to be every bit its age and then some.
Wel mostly says:
Thanks for focusing on a local topic. Sports stadiums are the worst of the lot, but convention centers and those oh so necessary downtown hotels are right behind. Tax concessions, incentives, imminent domain, etc. It's almost as if the free market couldn't work without government help. Oh, wait! That would violate economic philosophy and free trade agreements, so that can't be true. And let's remember this: local politics is the training ground for state and national levels, with only, cough cough, the best and brightest going all the way.
I like baseball but let's have stadiums paid for like everything else in sports, beer sales. That's how it's supposed to work. Right?
Robert says:
Every time I hear someone lamenting about the possible departure of some Large League team from the greater San Francisco Bay Area, this is what I think of. Oakland taxpayers are still subsidizing the return of the Raiders from LA, and whoever currently owns the A's are apparently dissatisfied with the Doom Bunker. I can count all of the professional baseball games I've attended on the fingers of one hand, but I use the municipal library several times a month. Thank Bob I live in a city that still *has* one.
Delbort says:
"think twice before supporting free handouts to help people who are already obscenely rich make even more money"
This is a lesson that Americans at large are incredibly enthusiastic about not learning, no matter how many times it's taught and no matter the damage. I don't see why sports fans and local governments would be any different.
Safety Man! says:
Down in Macon, Ga there was a case where a high school attempted to privately finance their own football stadium, but ended up having to use county funds to finish it. Word eventually got out, I'm not sure of all the legal hijinks, but enough arms got twisted that since they used public funds, their stadium was now public use. It was a battle, but at least it worked out in the end. So there is hope…
Katydid says:
The mega-millionaire owner of the local sportsball team has found yet another way to line his pockets–he has a contest every year in which schoolkids (and their parents) work for free in the concessions and stadium-cleaning jobs. The family that puts in the most hours wins a trip to Disney. The sportsball owner gets free labor. The inner-city neighborhood dwellers whose neighborhood and lives are put in hell all season by the noise, drunken idiots, and traffic of the stadium-goers can't even console themselves with minimum-wage concessions and janitorial jobs.
Netizen Denizen says:
I was living in Milwaukee when they started the extra sales tax to "pay" for the new Brewers stadium. They gave the usual pitch about tourism, etc etc bringing in all this money to Milwaukee on a yearly basis. The tax was supposed to run for 10 years in 1996 and they are projecting it *might* be done away with by 2020. Somehow they keep finding ways to NOT pay off the debt the tax is supposed to be paying off. My prediction: it stays in effect even after the debt is supposedly satisfied, because an extra slice of a percent sales tax is a tough revenue for municipalities to give up.
Isaac says:
This all happened before I was old enough to vote, but I was vaguely aware and disgruntled at the time. Basically, King County, Washington State voters rejected a bond to build a new stadium for the Seahawks, because the lovely Kingdome was like, dropping pieces of the roof on people or something. Then Governor Locke, Paul Allen, and other rich assholes managed to turn it around into a thing so the whole state would get to fund it. http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&File_Id=3582
Now they are a sometimes winning team so I guess it paid off for somebody.
gakster29 says:
I feel like I need to comment, but there is so much about this that gets me angry as a citizen and as a sports fan who is a minimalist about the experience of going to the game. It's just layers and layers of shit whenever I think about this.
Just…#executeallsportsexecutives
Skepticalist says:
But they are so pretty.
a worker says:
Sacramento's downtown isn't moribund. It's an employment center. It's supposed to be dead after dark because the workers have gone home, the same as San Francisco's Financial District, Chicago's Loop, and suburban office parks.
Midtown is the neighborhood where people live, shop, eat, and drink, and it was doing fine before stadium construction and is doing fine now.
I find the midtown/downtown divide endlessly funny. On the east side of 14th Street, there has been since the 90s a vibrant, walkable neighborhood of little apartment buildings and organically growing and dying small businesses. It is the regional center for going out at night, too. And, what do The City Fathers do with it? Pass weird blue laws, obstruct liquor licenses, smother unconventional businesses, and otherwise ignore it when they're not actively stifling it.
On the west side of 14th, the City Fathers have an endless amount of subsidies, former redevelopment funds, and harebrained schemes to try to turn an government employment center–bureaucrats are GONE at 5pm!–into a district of entertainment and posh living. It's got all of the old tropes from all eras of urban renewal and redevelopment–a regional theater! a convention center! an IMAX! a light rail! weird modern and suburban apartment buildings in superblocks! overwrought nightclubs for guys in shiny shirts! When those didn't turn it into a little Manhattan, they got creative with weirder things that they re sure will bring the coveted "I'm 40 and still go out until 2am" demographic: Frisky Rhythm (District 30)! Ed Hardy Pizza! The mermaid bar!
That this iteration of silly downtown revitalizers are successful is not due to any sudden insight or hitting-of-the-mark by these goofball developers and nightclub impressarios; it's because people's tastes have changed such that they enjoy going out where you can walk from dinner to the movies or to dancing instead of driving.
Jim Barntt says:
Same with damn casinos they try and cram through. Make sure to put them in the last towns where the retiring blue-collar middle-class have pentions!
Jonas says:
To hit the point some commenters above have made, some cities are really suckers. I was in Cleveland when in went all-in and spent more tax money on stadiums than any other city in North America!
Indians/Cavs used a sin tax that was supposed to be removed after a few decades, and the Browns stadium with a city-wide parking tax (which I had to partially fund as a grad student at CWRU-sure I suppose I didn't 'need' to live far away enough to drive, but I did) and an extension of the sin tax.
Famously, the Indians/Cavs issue was on the ballot at the same time as a tax increase to fund Cuyahoga Community College, and city voters voted down the stadium and for the college, but the rest of the county overwhelmingly voted for the stadium and against the college, so we got that.
Despite hearing throughout the '80s that Cleveland had been revitalized already and was the comeback city, it was sold on revitalizing the city. When I go back they still talk about revitalizing the city. Cleveland is the once and future comeback city.
Chicagojon says:
I'm shocked this didn't end with the Miami Marlins and yet I also wanted dearly for Chicago to lose 3 billion dollars to the 2016 olympics. At some point doesn't it matter which the "sports cities" are? States and municipalities give tax breaks and make accommodation business all the time.
IDK. I know it's a mess and I don't think any of the top ~15 "best markets" (size, historical, tv market, etc should pay a dime, but there will always be St Louis sized cities ready to lose a team and Las Vegas, Charlotte and others ready to try to make themselves a "real city"
Dave Bearse says:
Business Week column from last month:
The Braves Play Taxpayers Better Than They Play Baseball
http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-atlanta-braves-stadium/
"Over the last 15 years, the Braves have extracted nearly half a billion in public funds for four new homes, each bigger and more expensive than the last."
The astonishing thing about the Atlanta Braves taking Cobb County taxpayers for a $400M ride is that the Braves AAA farm team took Gwinnett County, located a mere 30 miles east of Cobb County, for a $65M ride in 2008. The Gwinnett Braves stadium cost over 40% more than it was supposed to, the $19M overrun entirely at the expense of taxpayers, and the acres of new development around the stadium has yet to happen.
mago says:
While infrastructure crumbles.
Mo says:
Taking our bread to build the circuses. Progress?
jeneria says:
Not only is Milwaukee paying for the stupid Brewers but now we'll be paying for the even stupider Bucks. There was no public input, no vote on the matter. A bunch of rich old white dudes decided that a new Bucks arena was a good thing. And don't even get me started on the stupidest trolley car ever that only goes through wealthy neighborhoods so college kids can pub crawl in a wider radius.
I moved to Milwaukee only 8 years ago so the Brewers thing was a done deal. But I am absolutely pissed about this waste of money that will be the Bucks arena. Because that team won't even be here in 6 years.
Steve in the ATL says:
@ Katydid:
"The mega-millionaire owner of the local sportsball team has found yet another way to line his pockets–he has a contest every year in which schoolkids (and their parents) work for free in the concessions and stadium-cleaning jobs."
If there is not something more to it, this violates the Fair Labor Standards Act. Can't work for free at a for-profit enterprise.
blakenator says:
Its the new American way. If you lost your house because you were "downsized" out of a job, you're an irresponsible loser and a "taker." If you used your political connections and empty promises to bilk the public out of millions, you are a "job creator" and to be admired. The American public hates bad liars and "small timers" but embraces good liars and "big time" crooks.
sluggo says:
As if the White Sox were ever going to leave Chicago for Tampa. Any businessman worth his salt would rather have a bad stadium and a large market than a new stadium with a small market.
Things like this are why I am a small government liberal.
verbal says:
You see the Samantha bee episode where the Seattle city counselors who voted against the new stadium got a ton of death threats?
Jesse says:
Maybe marginally related, but do people actually give a shit about new stadiums anyway, from a fan perspective? Why is it assumed that fans are averse to attending a sporting event in a facility older than 15-20 years and, therefore, we must recycle these facilities continuously? I don't see any truth to that.
To be fair I live in a medium-sized city out in the middle of nowhere so our biggest sports are low-minors or collegiate. So maybe I don't understand the appeal of having the latest and greatest. That said I've traveled, taken in major league sports, taken in plenty of lower-level local sports in facilities typically derided as insufficient (the same mentality seems to be trickling down to the minors & collegiate ranks), and I just don't get it. I'm there for the game, a beer, and a dog; I don't care what year the stadium was built to be honest and the "modern architecture" or wow factor or whatever only slightly influences my enjoyment level.
That's just another reason why, to me, the whole thing seems like a scam. The premise that new stadiums are appealing to fans and old ones are deterrent doesn't hold water in my mind.
Kaleberg says:
Convention centers often do pay for themselves. In a major city, they have to be large scale to compete nationally and to fill a number of hotel rooms commensurate with the city's hotel market. They often require other infrastructure improvements. I know the Seattle convention center has more than paid for itself, and as a bonus, Seattle has a nice park over its main freeway. There is talk of covering more of the freeway to grow the convention center, and my guess is that will more than pay for itself as well.
Not all that long ago Seattle built a cruise ship terminal to compete with the one in Vancouver, BC. During cruise season, the hotels are full of people spending a day or two exploring the city before or after their cruises. The taxes and fees from the tourists and the cruise lines and their suppliers are substantial.
There are infrastructure projects that can benefit a region. Building things like parks, port facilities, airports, convention centers, highways, museums and the like can pay off quite handsomely. Airports and port facilities have a long history as government investments that pay off. Convention centers do as well, especially if they are tied in with the urban environment. Sports facilities are more of a problem, as there are only so many sports, sports teams and special events that require such venues. They are also much less likely to be tied in with the urban environment and could be located anywhere.
D.N. Nation says:
@Skepticalist
Actually, the new Braves stadium is merely a near carbon copy of their current one (albeit with less seats, and a split upper deck, thus jacking up the price of the cheapest tickets, surprise surprise). The idea was to take the current game experience, flash freeze it, and microwave it up in the burbs with the only aesthetic difference being a distinct lack of *those* people.
It's a scam, and white flight ATL fell for it completely. Or at least the Neal Boortz types they elect did.
Brian M says:
a worker: You do make some good points. I was actually going to comment that Midtown is a successful urban neighborhood despite no miracle project like an arena. I love Midtown.
However, much of the Downtown core, and K Street, were (are) pretty grim, probably for a variety of reasons, including shithole property owners and local government incompetence.
dat worker doe says:
ughhhh that one block of J Street that is 100% abandoned, right by Cesar Chavez Park.
The K Street boosters were saying, "open K Street to cars! It's dead because there are no cars!" while, on the same blocks of J, it was dead even though there are tens of thousands of cars going by each day.
AND ONE TIME, EVERY SINGLE KIND OF COP CAME OUT BECAUSE THE NATION OF ISLAM SENT SCHOOLCHILDREN TO THE STATE CAPITOL TO ASK FOR BETTER SCHOOL FUNDING. City police, county police, state police, foot police, car police, motorcycle police, bike police, dog police, horse police, riot police, helicopter police, armored car police. And no mention at all in the Bee the next day.
I love Sacramento.
maurinsky says:
I live in CT and work in Hartford, home of one of the most colossally stupid publicly funded sportsball projects ever imagined.
Under cover of night, the City of Hartford negotiated with the owner of the New Britain Rock Cats (AA minor league) to move to the City of Hartford, in exchange for getting a new stadium. Did I mention that the New Britain stadium is only 15 miles apart from each other? So the City of Hartford started building a stadium for their new team, the Yard Goats. New Britain dusted themselves off and got a new AA team, the Bees (who are doing quite well). Dunkin Donuts stadium is still not finished and the City of Hartford has now terminated their contract with Centerplan, who was supposed to have the new stadium up and running by June of this year. Every one I know who works in construction knew before the signatures on the contract were dry that the work would not be done in time. Meanwhile, we have two AA baseball stadiums in the same metropolitan area. Eventually, there will be low paying jobs for a smallish number of locals in Hartford from April to August! Yay?
Khaled says:
A good book, if somewhat dated now, is about the Minnesota sports scene that clued me in on the real things going on in the sportsball stadium plans is called "Stadium Games". Look at every single time a team is on the verge of "relocating" and you'll see it is always a chance to get a new stadium without paying a dime for it, and usually getting "additional revenue streams" from it, which usually means ripping off the local government of non-sports revenue at said stadium.
A quick run-down of stuff that hasn't been brought up yet, with a slight emphasis on hockey (go Pens!_
– Glendale, AZ is paying the Coyotes to stay and "manage" the arena because it's more expensive to keep paying the debt on the relatively new arena if it sits empty than if the Coyotes stay and bleed the city dry. An even worse contract was tore up by the city and "renegotiated" to still be awful, but not as awful. At one point the city was paying the Coyotes something like $30 million a year to stay put. An absolute joke. The 'Yotes should have been gone years ago when the league bought the team and kept it in Arizona. After all, the argument to let the teams from actual hockey markets (Quebec City, Minnesota, Winnipeg, and Hartford) was that no one wanted to own teams there. Now the Coyotes are looking for yet another new arena, this time in downtown Phoenix, blaming the lack of attendance on the location of the arena. Keep in mind that the arena is literally next door to the successful Arizona Cardinals NFL team that actually does okay in that stadium. And if it was "location" and the traffic and distance from downtown that keeps attendance down, you would expect the attendance to increase on the weekends, which it does not. The owners are full of shit.
-Sunrise, FL is also paying extortion money to the Panthers to stay. Two years ago they had absolutely garbage attendance (the new owners got rid of ticket promos, effectively dramatically increasing the price of tickets) and had even worse local TV ratings. They averaged 5,000 households for a broadcast in the Miami media market, which is one of the top ten in the US. Informercials get better ratings because of people falling asleep with the TV on. But the arena actually makes money for the Panthers' owners, because of all of the concerts, etc., that take place there. And the city of Sunrise needs the Panthers to stay put otherwise they would leave and the city would be stuck with the cost of an empty arena.
-Ralston, NE, on a much smaller scale, shows what happens when you build an arena and no one comes. They have an empty arena that is bankrupting the town (a small suburb of Omaha). They had no permanent tenant lined up, but somehow expected college teams to rent out the arena even though they were located miles away and were in the processes of getting own arenas built (with state money). It's an expensive lesson.
– Columbus, OH. Major Kong can probably speak better of this, but the local hockey team, the Blue Jackets, have, surprise surprise, not hit the projected numbers and now the city schools will suffer because of revenue shortfalls.
– Why was LA not have a NFL team for so many years? No new stadium and it was great leverage for the rest of the league to get new stadiums built. The taxpayers of many places are paying because of the threat of relocation.
I could keep going on, but everyone stopped reading awhile ago.
Steve Watkins says:
And in Las Vegas, the tax payers are being asked to fork over $500,000,000 (millions) to help the poorest billionaire of all, Sheldon Anderson, to build a new stadium and lure the Oakland Raiders, or some other major league here.
Talk about welfare for the rich.
Brian M says:
This is a depressing litany of crimes by a faction of the 1%. Meanwhile, I get right wing chain emails complaining about the poors and how they are subsidized by their betters in the Job Creator class.
Infuriating.
Brian M says:
dat worker: One way traffic sewers like J Street are rarely good environments for business. Some cities are actually beginning to correct the mistakes of the "Our main goal is to move traffic quickly" era. Heck, if people are in a school of cars travelling at 45 mph, for some reason, they don't often stop at local stores.
Napa recently eliminated their one way pairs downtown. The Napa Valley Register was full of portents of doom from local codgers (God, I hate the older cohorts in my generation) that "traffic would not flow omg".
I actually agree with opening up K Street, though. You can count on maybe two hands the number of "pedestrian malls" in the United States that have not been dismal failures (for a variety of reasons). Fresno is almost spooky, except for the cluster of Mexican owned businesses at one end. But, there was opposition to rethinking their mall as well (50% vacancy rate!) because the hideous 1970s landscaping and public art might be rejiggered.
I promise. No more urban planning nerdery. :)
cackalacka says:
As someone who was in ATL when they tore down Fulton Co for the Ted, which seems like yesterday (and to be fair, given the life-cycle of more necessary public works infrastructure kinda is yesterday) and as someone who watched all the honkies flee MARTA, all I have to say is: enjoy your new found commute lo these summer night games.