04/19/24
September 08, 2010
As Stadiums Vanish, Their Debt Lives On: It’s the gift that keeps on taking. The old Giants Stadium, demolished to make way for New Meadowlands Stadium, still carries about $110 million in debt, or nearly $13 for every New Jersey resident, even though it is now a parking lot. New Jerseyans are hardly alone in paying for stadiums that no longer exist. Residents of Seattle’s King County owe more than $80 million for the Kingdome, which was razed in 2000. The story has been similar in Indianapolis and Philadelphia. In Houston, Kansas City, Mo., Memphis and Pittsburgh, residents are paying for stadiums and arenas that were abandoned by the teams they were built for.
posted by tommytrump to general at 12:11 PM - 18 comments
In summary, governments should not be involved in helping fund privately owned stadiums.
posted by grum@work at 12:28 PM on September 08, 2010
The N.F.L. Plays, the Public Pays
This link is broken.
posted by bperk at 12:29 PM on September 08, 2010
The N.F.L. Plays, the Public Pays
The Giant & Jets, Patriots, Racists, Panthers & Dolphins are the only NFL teams who play in 100% privately funded stadiums.
The Rams, Saints, Buccaneers, 49'ers, & Packers play in 100% publicly funded facilities.
There we go.
posted by tommybiden at 12:48 PM on September 08, 2010
I love LA. The citizens preferred to let teams leave than to be held hostage to the owners for taxpayer funded stadiums.
posted by Atheist at 01:58 PM on September 08, 2010
It is a fair question to ask how much tax revenue the stadiums generated, though. Not just from football, but from other events. You can't count much from ticket and merchandise sales, since those are mostly from locals who would likely have spent most of that money elsewhere in the state, but taxes from player salaries and shares of media revenue (neither of which a state would get if there was no team there) can add up pretty quick, especially in a highly-taxed state like New York (or New Jersey).
The point is: A stadium is an investment, not a straight expenditure. I'm not saying that it's always a good investment (it is best if you make it serve more purposes than just playing 10 football games per year), but if done right, it creates a revenue stream for the state as well as the team.
Of course, then the government goes and wastes that money and begs for more, but that's a topic for a different board. :-)
posted by TheQatarian at 02:11 PM on September 08, 2010
I agree that it would be nice to get more in-depth about how much money stadiums lose. The article showed why they are a bad idea since the economics of stadiums are complicated and local government is inept. It seems that at the very least local governments should charge lease payments that will actually pay off the stadium before it is obsolete.
posted by bperk at 02:56 PM on September 08, 2010
The old Giants Stadium still carries about $110 million in debt, or nearly $13 for every New Jersey resident
And an incalculable burden of uncertainty for the Hoffa family.
posted by beaverboard at 04:08 PM on September 08, 2010
It is a fair question to ask how much tax revenue the stadiums generated, though.
I think the relevant question is not how much tax revenue the stadiums generate, but how much revenue the sports would continue to generate if there was not a race to the bottom. Without government providing stadiums, the NFL would continue to thrive.
If all local and state government stopped providing subsidies to the billionaire owners, there would be a lot more benefit for all the local governments (although LA might benefit at St. Louis's expense).
I like sports, but I do not think the government should be subsidizing adult millionaire players or the franchise owners.
posted by Aardhart at 04:47 PM on September 08, 2010
It is a fair question to ask how much tax revenue the stadiums generated, though.
Let's ask away, then, but let's be rigorous about it -- and let's not restrict it to tax revenue, or even to revenue overall, but to revenue and costs. For example, two common arguments of stadium proponents are that they "create jobs" and that they bring in people who "spend money". So let's ask the question: what jobs are created, and who gets them? If all the good-paying jobs go to people outside the community, and local folks can only get part-time work as a seasonal peanut vendor, is that really the upside we ought to be looking for? How about the "spending money" argument -- who profits from that? Does the revenue stay in the community, or does it line the pockets of outside business owners? Does the presence of a stadium skew the business mix in a way that favors casual sports tourists (logo gear, junk food, alcohol) and fails to serve the needs of residents (groceries, hardware, laundry)?
Indeed, let's do ask the question. Let's ask a whole bunch of them.
posted by lil_brown_bat at 06:51 PM on September 08, 2010
Does keeping a team help to preserve revenue streams that would otherwise dry up? Does having pro sports help a city remain vibrant and one that corporations might be more likely to move their headquarters to?
For a market like LA, it is easier to say goodbye to certain teams, as they know they have numerous other revenue channels to live off of. For smaller markets, it may be a different story. As TheQatarian noted, a stadium has additional uses beyond the sports team they were supposedly built for. Also, people coming into an area to attend a game/concert are very likely to spend additional dollars on hotels/food/ etc. Some of that money might be from locals that would have spent it in the area anyways, but a lot is from visitors.
Beyond that, it also comes down to whether, or not, the revenues generated were used to pay off the loan, or diverted to other causes. I would hazard a guess that most of the stadiums mentioned actually earned a fair amount of money, however, much of that revenue went to other causes. Politicians, being politicians, often rob from one program to fund another.
To answer llb\\\'s questions is difficult, in that part-time jobs are very valuable to some, alcohol sales might be viewed negatively by some but it\\\'s still tax revenue, etc. Many sites that rank cities on their attractiveness as a place to live often cite pro sports as a positive. Does the CEO of \\\"X Corp\\\" really place any emphasis on whether, or not, a prospective site for the new home office has pro sports?
posted by dviking at 09:07 PM on September 08, 2010
If we're going to ask those questions, we should also ask if there is any value in the cache of having a major league sports franchise in your town. Is there a value on civic pride and a communal bond?
I'm not saying I necessarily think those are million-dollar deliverables, but it's worth noting. (As is the fact that if you don't have a sports franchise from where you hale, it makes conversations at airports with strangers difficult to navigate.)
For example, the Packers stadium is very, very happily publicly funded.
posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 10:48 PM on September 08, 2010
I don't know the answers to the questions that I and others have posed, of course. I just think it's not a simple as, "We should be funding education instead of stadiums," which was a common argument in these parts when building a new Twins' stadium was proposed. Schools don't generate any revenue, and stadiums (and the teams that play in them) do, so it's an apples and oranges argument. (Not to mention how much money that is supposed to go to education is diverted into pockets of politicians and other semi-related interests before the schools get to see anything.)
posted by TheQatarian at 10:58 PM on September 08, 2010
My favorite is still what happened in Seattle in the 90s. Voters twice turned down a new publicly funded stadium for the Mariners and the state legislature still managed to find a way to stick it to the people in order to build Paul Allen (3rd wealthiest man in America at that time) a stadium.
Second to that is the way Bloomberg manage to give the Yankees (wealthiest team in baseball by a long margin) all kinds of concessions and tax breaks to 'help' them build their stadium (including the destruction of public parks that may not be replaced for years). Not sure why he didn't say 'sure, go ahead, move the Bronx Bombers somewhere else - I double dog dare you.'
I sincerely doubt that there's any way that one could show that the money and taxes sacrificed to help the wealthy profit off their teams couldn't be better spent directly on people's needs.
posted by kokaku at 10:59 PM on September 08, 2010
State and local governments offer all kinds of incentives and tax breaks to lure businesses generally, not just sports teams. Recently, we had a situation where two neighboring states were vying for a corporation's headquarters and the state that offered the best deal wins. We really just need more savvy local and state politicians that care about the long-term prosperity of the community.
posted by bperk at 07:20 AM on September 09, 2010
I don't know the answers to the questions that I and others have posed, of course. I just think it's not a simple as, "We should be funding education instead of stadiums," which was a common argument in these parts when building a new Twins' stadium was proposed.
That's not an argument at all, it's a proposition that could be supported by argument (or not). "Stadiums generate revenue and that is good" is a statement that needs to be supported by hard facts. I'm still not seeing any.
Schools don't generate any revenue, and stadiums (and the teams that play in them) do, so it's an apples and oranges argument.
Only if "revenue = good, all other considerations are secondary" is the basis of your argument. Schools are supposed to generate educated citizens, which is the most essential ingredient in a functioning democracy. Bread and circuses can't compare.
posted by lil_brown_bat at 09:47 AM on September 09, 2010
Schools generate a well-educated populace. There's a direct correlation between education and earning potential, so I'd say the contribution of schools to the tax base is much more clear than that of sports stadiums.
posted by rcade at 09:53 AM on September 09, 2010
State and local governments offer all kinds of incentives and tax breaks to lure businesses generally, not just sports teams.
True, in fact I thought about this myself earlier today, but the question raised previously about what type of jobs are generated and what incentives are offered are, I believe, very different.
Corporate HQs tend to be heavy on the (relatively) well-paying jobs as well as requiring less or unskilled labor for janitorial, reception, security, catering and such. Incentives tend to be around reduced property and sales taxes, maybe some credits for certain types of hiring; however most decent size corporations tend to be very low effective tax rates any way so not sure these are that big of a loss.
If, OTOH, a new stadium had not been built the land would be used for other purposes; almost every stadium is located on desirable property. Even if similar tax incentives as were given to get that corp HQ were made I think the net financial results would be much better for the affected governments and area residents.
And, after all, neither the Giants nor the Jets has ever adopted New Jersey as the location part of their name. Frackers!
posted by billsaysthis at 01:06 PM on September 09, 2010
The N.F.L. Plays, the Public Pays
The Giant & Jets, Patriots, Racists, Panthers & Dolphins are the only NFL teams who play in 100% privately funded stadiums.
The Rams, Saints, Buccaneers, 49'ers, & Packers play in 100% publicly funded facilities.