Comments on: Public Financing of Professional Sports Stadiums

By: dustbury.com

dustbury.com — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 16:14:14 +0000

How the game is played... Michael Bates is justifiably incensed at what he calls "Sonics madness," and wants to know what happened to all the fiscally-responsible Republicans in this state. My guess is, they're queuing up for free tickets. The idea of state incentives was......

By: Carlos de Paula

Carlos de Paula — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 21:12:34 +0000

I do believe that most major league sports teams in the USA have plenty of money and if they want a stadium they should pay for it. They would have money, if they didn't pay ridiculous salaries to ballplayers. Plus the supposed benefits they bring local communities are not all that great.

By: James Joyner

James Joyner — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 19:58:54 +0000

In short, is there any direct monetary gains to be realized by the stadium owners or do the teams get to own the stadium too?

The deals vary but usually the city gets some cut from concessions and whatnot. In all cases, though, the city counts on the ancillary benefits in tax revenues offsetting the costs.

By: Jeffrey W. Baker

Jeffrey W. Baker — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 19:56:46 +0000

There are obvious issues of urban design that this post doesn't even approach. The new stadium for the Yankees is built upon a park in the Bronx. The stadium includes 9,000 subsidized parking spaces, paid for with the $225m tax-free public bond. The only jobs added to the neighborhood are an (estimated) 12 full time garage attendants at a whopping $11/hour. So the neighborhood loses several hundred acres of prime parkland, gains a few thousand bucks in annual wages, and also gains 9,000 cars worth of pollution and asthma per home game. Meanwhile, the Metro-North rail station that was supposed to serve the stadium will not be built.

These public priorities seriously need to be rethought. The city is bankrolling free parking for thousands of Yankees fans from New Jersey while ignoring their own public transportation needs, which would be a much more appropriate application of public money.

By: Patrick T. McGuire

Patrick T. McGuire — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 18:22:30 +0000

Is there any flip-side to this? That is, do the teams have to pay any usage fees to play in the stadium in the form of a lease or something similar to offset the cost of building it? Is there any revenue sharing or taxes applicable to sales of team branded merchadise? What about the ad revenues from the stadium banners, who gets it?

In short, is there any direct monetary gains to be realized by the stadium owners or do the teams get to own the stadium too?

By: Bithead

Bithead — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 18:16:51 +0000

In the specific case of the Yankees, who derive phenomenal benefit from the local media market, the city is presumably in a better bargaining position. The Steinbrenners would be foolish to move the team to, say, Charlotte. Then again, New York City has “lost” both of its NFL franchises, the Jets and the Giants, to neighboring New Jersey, which has kicked in the money to build two consecutive stadiums.

Of course the issue here, is the tourism dollars brought on by the Yankees being there, which I expect far outstrips the 1.3 billion they're asking for.

Then again, given the ardor of some yankees fans, one wonders if this doesnt sross the line into government support of Religion...

(smirk)