34 ms·

Why a city should not build a stadium for an NFL team

328 points by finid 11y ago

draw_down 11y ago
No, that's not why. Cities shouldn't do it because sports are not a public concern.
- rmxt 11y ago
  Sports are a form of entertainment....entertainment can and does drive spending.... and spending can contribute to more jobs and more tax revenue. Seems fair that sports are, in turn, a public concern. That isn't to say that building a stadium or hosting the Olympics is inherently a profitable affair.
  - GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
    I'd be ok with this argument only if the leagues were nationalized.
    - noxToken 11y ago
      What is the need for nationalization before a city should foot the bill? This isn't to say that cities should pay for a stadium, but there are definitely dynasty franchises that are guaranteed to generate income for many years. Would I build a stadium for the Rams? Not likely. Would I build a stadium for the Patriots? Immediately.
      - yourapostasy 11y ago
        Generate the lion's share of income for who? If a city's citizens are ponying up tax revenue to support a team, then the city should do it right, and be a shareholder in the team, and capture a proportional share of the lion's share of the income that flows to the team's owners. Forbes has a good breakdown of the profitability of the teams to their owners [1]. PBS Marketplace has a good overview of how much of that profitability makes it to the city [2]. You can read many papers examining the economic impact of letting a sports team walk, here is one [3] such paper. Given the level of profitability to owners, the statistically insignificant economic impact of teams on cities, and the accumulated data to date continuing to support these conclusions drawn so far, city managers giving away valuable consideration as if they're supporting charity cases are simply using taxpayers to purchase extremely expensive political points. [1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2015/09/14/the-most-valuable-teams-in-the-nfl/#57e6c731326f http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2015/09/14/the-most-... [2] http://www.marketplace.org/2015/03/19/business/are-pro-sports-teams-economic-winners-cities http://www.marketplace.org/2015/03/19/business/are-pro-sport... [3] http://uknowledge.uky.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1024&context=mpampp_etds http://uknowledge.uky.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1024&c...
  - draw_down 11y ago
    Except, whoops, the bucks only ever go to sports teams.
    - rmxt 11y ago
      What of all the employees of the stadium? Of all the travel to and from the stadium? Of the merchandising deals? And any other numerous subsequent results... what does the money that goes to the employees or third-parties count as? They don't get paid in company scrip. That's akin to saying that the money for any government funded project only go to the party directly responsible for building/supporting it, and all of the consequences from the initial project are inherently zero.
    - dionidium 11y ago
      As has been mentioned elsewhere in this thread, public money funds all sorts of entertainment and cultural endeavors, from operas to art museums to 5K fun runs and so on and so on.
  - lotyrin 11y ago
    Last I was aware, there was no evidence that this investment provided any return. Not that it matters because that still wouldn't justify a huge investment by the public into a private entity without any ownership stake. If the idea was really to create something resembling a grant to private organizations to create business that stimulates the economy, you would rationally have some kind of process around for screening candidates based on merit and be more diversified in your awards. I'd like to believe it's anything other than a kind of blackmail where these organizations use their media power (== public opinion) with impunity to bully municipalities into providing them the tax revenue of citizens, wasting money that could otherwise be used for individual or public good, but that's all I can make out of it.
- noxToken 11y ago
  Sports aren't an inherent public concern, but the idea is that there will be a future return. I don't claim that building a stadium/arena for a professional sports team will generate profit for the city. It's supposed to be an investment. The city foots the bill for the stadium. The team generates revenue over X years to cover the costs, and it also provides jobs for the city's residents. It's an idealistic win-win. Again - this doesn't always work as intended.
- CamperBob2 11y ago
  The explanation I heard is that professional sports are a key element of "urban pacification." It makes sense to some extent, in a panem et circenses kind of way.
- bmelton 11y ago
  And yet cities and states are often in the business of luring large employers to their area, and tax advantage is almost always the bait. Everybody complains about sweetheart deals that so often go along with the seduction of an employer into their area, but almost nobody complains about the jobs. Perhaps in San Francisco the situation is reversed, but almost anywhere else is happy to accept your runoff, even if profitability isn't in the short term agenda. More jobs means more people employed which in turn drives up employee competition, and hence wages, which equate to increased tax revenues and better quality of living. I think that the stadium deals tend to be overboard, but not only is it not a net negative, it is at least more straight-forward plot than the backroom deals done as enticement for businesses.
  - digikata 11y ago
    The economic effects of stadiums are often put forward as positive during the 'deal' phase of placing them, but many studies have reported only a small positive or negative effect on economic activity. http://www.marketplace.org/2015/03/19/business/are-pro-sports-teams-economic-winners-cities http://www.marketplace.org/2015/03/19/business/are-pro-sport...
  - st3v3r 11y ago
    "Everybody complains about sweetheart deals that so often go along with the seduction of an employer into their area, but almost nobody complains about the jobs" Probably because, in most cases, the amount that those jobs cost has not been worth it.
  - draw_down 11y ago
    So, did this defunct stadium inflate the job numbers in St Louis somehow, or am I misreading your comment?
- tremon 11y ago
  Sports definitely are a public concern. Exercise improves health (well maybe this doesn't apply to football ;). A better question would be whether these grand spectacles actually increase sport participation in the general population, and if that same effect can't be attained in a cheaper way.
jacalata 11y ago
The article seems to focus on "because they might leave" but the real reason is this line: > Even before the team decided to leave, the city's stadium revenues didn't cover its payments, leaving the city with annual shortfalls.
georgefrick 11y ago
Money a city gives towards a stadium should be returned in the form of shares in the team. Otherwise no deal. St. Louis should be selling their shares to LA for a profit right now...
- gist 11y ago
  Unlikely. There is competition from other geographic areas. If a team can simply play one venue against another they do have the upper hand unfortunately.
  - ashark 11y ago
    Do any cities own their own teams? I was thinking about this the other day, and as someone who doesn't really follow sports I think I'd actually be more supportive of things like stadium building if the city were involved more heavily—namely, if the city owned the team(s), or at least a controlling share. I'd also be way more likely to care about and cheer for "our" team if they couldn't just pull up stakes and move to another city if we don't bribe them enough to keep them. Fan loyalty to commercial teams that don't have any real ties to the home city (they don't even have to give up their name if they leave!) strikes me as bizarre.
    - cadlin 11y ago
      The Green Bay Packers aren't owned by their city, exactly, but they're publicly owned and no individual can have more than 4% of the shares. They have 360,584 owners. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Bay_Packers#Community_ownership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Bay_Packers#Community_ow...
    - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
      If I understand correctly, the Green Bay Packers cut up the ownership of the team something like 3,000 different ways. They did this deliberately so that the team could never move, because it would be impossible to get a majority in favor of moving. When the (first) Cleveland Browns moved, the city negotiated that they had to use a different name. They became the Baltimore Ravens, and Cleveland was able to call the new franchise the Browns.
drpgq 11y ago
So what happens to the Edward Jones sponsorship?
- giarc 11y ago
  They likely have a section in their contract that covers this and can probably back out if no NFL team is present.
adamjcook 11y ago
This article reminds me of a report that John Stossel did some years ago on the economics of sport stadiums. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bGNIgdOLa0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bGNIgdOLa0
randycupertino 11y ago
Between the scam of municipalities losing so much $$ on stadiums, how the stadiums cause urban blight sitting empty most of the time then causing major traffic headaches the other times, and the CTE injury rate, I can't fathom how football still exists today as a popular sport. Seems like the whole thing is a house of cards that needs to collapse.
- Touche 11y ago
  I don't understand why it exists as a popular sport anyways, it's 5 seconds of action followed by 30 seconds of two guys talking about it. The average football game has 11 minutes of action[1]. Everything but the last ~8 minutes of the 4th quarter is boring. Yet Americans love it. I don't get it. [1] http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704281204575002852055561406 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527487042812045750028...
  - danharaj 11y ago
    There's a lot of strategy between plays. Because the action isn't continuous it has a different flavor from a continuously played game like the other football. It's sort of a hybrid between a real-time game and a turn-based game, which is cool. I think it would be much more interesting if there were more time on the field, but i'm sure the NFL and their advertising partners love all that time that can be filled up with ads. I dislike the game because the players get horribly injured, either immediately, or decades later. The NFL is a company that makes money by encouraging degenerative brain disease in its employees.
    - Touche 11y ago
      That doesn't explain the popularity, strategy is invisible to the viewer. Chess is not a popular spectator sport.
      - danharaj 11y ago
        It's not invisible. i'm not a serious sports fan, but when i'm around them they notice a great deal more detail than i do. a seasoned football fan can identify a play rather quickly. they know the styles and predispositions of their favorite players and coaches very well. they understand how field conditions and the state of the game influence the decisions made. it's rather fun to watch with a knowledgeable friend. having some sort of depth is required for popularity, even if it is not sufficient. chess is not a popular sport for other reasons, probably the lack of money and the sheer marathon that is a high level game. soccer has been gaining ground in the US because moneyed interests have been pushing the sport and trying to build the franchises for years. the level of investment required for a nationally popular sport is steep. no one's going to put that money into chess any time soon. like all things in our world, capital is often the difference between "is" and "isn't", but other ingredients are also required.
mc32 11y ago
"This is why no city..." "Any city" sounds more like non English grammar. That said, I most certainly agree that cities should not be in the business of subsidizing sports teams, when those are private money making enterprises. St. Louis should sue the NFL and all cities in the same position (potentially liable for stadium costs, if team were to leave) should hold out till the NFL guarantees debts. Build schools, get more teachers, do something worthwhile with the tax dollars you have.
joshstrange 11y ago
John Oliver did a good piece on this as well and how crazy it is that the public pays so much for these things: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcwJt4bcnXs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcwJt4bcnXs
whyenot 11y ago
I don't know. When cities get involved in a venture like this, it's usually because that is what their citizens want. For example, Levi Stadium in Santa Clara went before the voters, who approved it's funding model (1). On a moral level, I have a real problem with a sport that when played successfully leads to debilitating brain damage (2), but it's pretty clear I am in the minority on that. 1. Without going too far out on a tangent, there was more to the story, see here: http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_20107165 http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_20107165 2. "Stabler is the seventh former N.F.L. quarterback to be found to have had C.T.E. by Boston University, which has found C.T.E. in 90 of the 94 former N.F.L. players it has examined" http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/04/sports/football/ken-stabler-nfl-cte-brain-disease.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/04/sports/football/ken-stable...
- giarc 11y ago
  You could likely argue that the people that show up to vote for a stadium funding model are more likely to be sports fans. Probably wasn't a true representation of the citizens desires. Which isn't an excuse, everyone had the ability to vote, but still the decision can't be applied to everyone.
- throwaway60453 11y ago
  Excuse me, local resident here. Santa Clara City residents approved $400 million in financing. City Council went ahead with a promise for ... $1.3 billion so far. So most of it was not voted on at all.
  - bringles 11y ago
    But how were the council members appointed? Resident approval must be involved somehow. If this city council is doing a bad job (seems like it), push for a new council. If the tide is too strong against, you have to challenge ideas. A lot of folks seem to believe there's a legal apparatus we need to invent that can solve this, when it's perfectly sufficient to just get traction for a critical stance on concussionball (gasp!)
    - 11y ago
beastman82 11y ago
I'm from St. Louis. The Cardinals also bilked > $500M towards their new stadium despite being the most profitable MLB team. The mayor went around telling everyone it was a good idea. Of course the touted economic benefits are usually an order of magnitude above reality. IMO basically capitalized on a huge inferiority complex.
- patmcguire 11y ago
  From St. Louis as well. It was weird when the Rams left. There wasn't much of an attitude of how great of fans St. Louis has and what a betrayal it is. It was more resignation. "Well, we're St. Louis, what did we expect?"
  - dionidium 11y ago
    Also from St. Louis. I don't agree with this. r/stlouis wouldn't shut up about it, for example, and the opinions ranged all across the board.
    - patmcguire 11y ago
      Oh man, that is a rabbit hole of rage. I've been away too long.
- tamana 11y ago
  The mayor derives personal benefit from being involved in the stadium. (Throw out a pitch, meet players, etx) It's corruption.
- vermontdevil 11y ago
  $500M? The stadium cost $365M and most of it private money. The county loaned $45M for improvements. Busch Stadium had a final cost of $365 million when it opened in 2006. Of that cost, $45 million (12%) came from a long-term loan from St. Louis County. Private financing came in the tune of $90.1 million in cash from the Cardinals, $200.5 in bonds paid by the team, and $9.2 million in interest earned on the construction fund the Cardinals held. The stadium has a seating capacity of 46,861 and is owned by the St. Louis Cardinals. The stadium does not have a roof, or its own named expressway. I was unable to determine who paid for the cost overruns of $20.2 million. http://urbanmilwaukee.com/2009/05/28/miller-park-vs-busch-stadium-milwaukee-vs-st-louis/ http://urbanmilwaukee.com/2009/05/28/miller-park-vs-busch-st...
btreesOfSpring 11y ago
For those interested in the topic, this book [0] is a pretty good starting point for understanding the modern stadium construction game. [0] http://www.amazon.com/New-Cathedrals-Politics-Construction-Entertainment/dp/0815631324 http://www.amazon.com/New-Cathedrals-Politics-Construction-E...
- frandroid 11y ago
  Now if only stadia were built to last, like cathedrals...
elchief 11y ago
https://www.kansascityfed.org/~/media/files/publicat/econrev/econrevarchive/2001/1q01rapp.pdf https://www.kansascityfed.org/~/media/files/publicat/econrev... "So does it makes sense for metro areas to use public funds to attract and retain major league sports franchises? The answer is definitely not if benefits are limited to increases in economic activity and tax revenue collection. A strong case can be made, however, that the quality-of-life benefits from hosting a major league team can sometimes justify the large public outlays associated with doing so" Either way, there's always a risk of teams relocating, and this should be taken into account.
- Someone1234 11y ago
  That report or whatever it is is really low quality. I just read the "How hosting a professional sports team contributes to quality of life" (page 71) section, and it reads like a middle schooler's homework. It is devoid of facts and has questionable logic and very questionable conclusions. Honestly it is junk. Essentially their entire quality of life argument boils down to "BUT SPORTS ARE AWESOME!!!" then just pull random dollar figures out of thin air and attach them to how awesome it is for fans to enjoy watching sports (????).
  - scythe 11y ago
    >Formally, the quality-of-life benefit to a particular fan who attends a sports game is the amount above the admission price they would have been willing to spend to attend the game. For instance, if someone is willing to spend $30 to attend a game that only costs $20, they receive a $10 quality-of-life benefit. Adding up the individual quality-of-life benefits of all residents who attend games yields the total metro area’s quality-of-life benefit from game attendance. Nope, this is real economic theory. It's not something the Fed invented out of thin air, and it's used in a wide variety of fields. Of course, there is a (widely-acknowledged) epistemic problem in assuming a person's desire for something is proportional to the happiness they will receive from it -- this is called "the theory of revealed preferences", and it is used primarily because all of the alternatives people have been able to think of so far (for assessing happiness) are even worse.
- 11y ago
stplsd 11y ago
I am from Europe and this looks almost surreal for me. It is unheard of here that team simply packs players and go to other city. Sport culture and sport business so different in USA.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
  - untog 11y ago
    I always wonder why people from Europe always use "As a European" to preface smug comments, there's got to be a sociology study there. I mean, it's pretty necessary for the context of what the OP is saying. Americans say "As an American" less often because they just assume everyone is an American in the first place. I'm not sure that's better and, come on, it's not like Americans aren't capable of smugness now, is it? Anyway, you guys have almost exactly the same behavior in UEFA teams Do they? I'm certainly not aware of any, and the lack of franchising makes the whole situation different (a team will very, very rarely ever move city. It's basically unheard of). And yes, I agree the original comment was flippant. But citing fan racism in soccer isn't exactly raising the tone either.
    - icebraining 11y ago
      Why do you consider it flippant?
- philwelch 11y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relocation_of_Wimbledon_F.C._to_Milton_Keynes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relocation_of_Wimbledon_F.C._t...
  - theoracle101 11y ago
    This was literally blasphemy in the UK, so not sure what you're point is?
giarc 11y ago
I live in Calgary and our NHL arena is nearing the end of it's life. Our mayor, Naheed Nenshi, has been very vocal about public funding for arena's and is holding the owners group and the NHLs 'feet to the fire' so to speak. >I have said for a long time — and continue to strongly believe — that public money must be for public benefit and not private profit. [0] I don't think he's necessarily against using public money, but he's not willing to just throw money at a stadium just because the Calgary Flames and the NHL say it's a good idea, or because 'that's the way it's done'. [0] - http://calgaryherald.com/sports/hockey/nhl/calgary-flames/mayor-nenshis-statement-on-the-flames-arena-project http://calgaryherald.com/sports/hockey/nhl/calgary-flames/ma...
- wesd 11y ago
  It's a terrible time to try to get public funding for a billion dollar project in Alberta while thousands of people are losing their jobs due to oil price. They will try again. Here is a Grantland picce that covert it: http://grantland.com/the-triangle/how-to-sell-a-stadium-in-six-easy-steps-calgary-gets-the-high-pressure-pitch/ http://grantland.com/the-triangle/how-to-sell-a-stadium-in-s...
- chucksmash 11y ago
  *Atlanta Flames
- swehner 11y ago
  The NHL strike a few years ago had hardly any effect on people. They just went out to restaurants more, and bars. So hockey's loss = someone else's gains. If not, < Calgary should be fine without a stadium for those games
tshtf 11y ago
Relevant Onion article, which Chinese media reported as true: http://www.theonion.com/article/congress-threatens-to-leave-dc-unless-new-capitol--98 http://www.theonion.com/article/congress-threatens-to-leave-... http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/U-S-satire-tricks-Beijing-paper-Satire-fools-2829911.php http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/U-S-satire-tricks-Beijing...
st3v3r 11y ago
Not just stadiums. This is why no city/state should be able to offer anything like this for any private entity, be they sports team, movie crew, or private company.
- ec109685 11y ago
  There is never a case when there is a net positive benefit for th city by enticing a corporation to move in?
  - st3v3r 11y ago
    You'd have to measure that against other things that money could have done. And in many times, the company would be moving anyway.
onetwotree 11y ago
The Green Bay packers have an interesting approach to this problem, although it requires a fanatical fan base and special ownership provisions, and the fact that the team can't leave Green Bay (without a vote by the shareholders, who are all fans, which will never, ever, happen). When they want to improve their stadium, they issue stock and sell more season tickets. This works because Packers stock cannot be sold or traded after purchase, and a season ticket is, for many working class Wisconsin families, an heirloom. A friend who's a Wisconsin native was put on the waiting list for season tickets at birth, and is in his parents' will to inherit his mother's ticket. His mom is probably going to die before he breaks 10,000th on the list, so that position will go to his kids. It's insane like that. But it means that the taxpayers of Wisconsin, including those of us who, like myself, could really care less about football, don't have to foot the bill for maintenance and improvements to the Packers' stadium. But again, the Packers have a uniquely fanatical fan base, were created with provisions to keep them in Green Bay forever, and are owned by the fans.
- voidlogic 11y ago
  >without a vote by the shareholders, who are all fans Doesn't the German football team system work like this too? I think it at least does for Bayern.
  - sehr 11y ago
    Yep! The club/members have to own >50% of the club to compete in the German pro leagues In the past, private ownership wasn't even allowed but that changed in the 90s. Even cooler, the 2 largest football clubs on earth, Real Madrid & Barcelona are completely fan owned. They even vote for the presidency of the club! So refreshing compared to American sports, though without a salary cap their competitions are 1000x more predictable & boring. (ex. RM won their league match on Sunday 6-0, and Barca just won today 7-0)
    - tragic 11y ago
      I guess the biggest difference is that, in European soccer (especially in lovely England), the clubs are vastly more powerful than the leagues and governing bodies of the sport. In the NFL, NBA etc, the opposite seems to be the case - the teams are more like suppliers to the league. Both systems, to put it mildly, have their warts.
greenbay_ftw 11y ago
Green Bay has an interesting structure in that it is a non-profit with the community owning shares of it, and have no financial incentive to own it -- only team support and voting rights. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Bay_Packers#Community_ownership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Bay_Packers#Community_ow...) It would be a fascinating experiment if more teams did this, but I can't imagine an owner giving up control like that.
- richsherwood 11y ago
  The Saskatchewan roughriders do this as well. Its CFL though.
cowardlydragon 11y ago
Convert them to exotic hanging gardens of babylon public spaces then. Or water parks. or something similar. There has to be SOMETHING you can do with a structure like that.
- prawn 11y ago
  At one point, ignoring the significant maintenance costs, you could buy a huge stadium in Detroit for less than my house is worth. A friend and I would joke about living in the corporate suites and raising livestock and crops on the interior field.
cowardlydragon 11y ago
The NFL is a unionized, state-supported, maximally regulated market with rigid spending requirements, price fixing, supply shortages... ... held up as the conservative free market jingoistic ideal.
- brandonmenc 11y ago
  > held up as the conservative free market jingoistic ideal I've never heard anyone claim the NFL is an example of a free market, even by fans of both.
- quadrangle 11y ago
  Unions only come into existence because of capitalism. In a cooperative, the employees are the owners, so there's no such thing as a union. The NFL is certainly not maximally-regulated, in that more regulations are possible. But the key here is that corrupt corporate wealthy powerful people are always happy to claim that whatever they are doing to stay wealthy and powerful is actually based on some ideal whether that's socialism or capitalism or whatever. It's basically never true, of course.
  - icebraining 11y ago
    Unions only come into existence because of capitalism. In a cooperative, the employees are the owners, so there's no such thing as a union. What about unions of public workers? Even in the USSR there were unions. Worker cooperatives are not the only alternative to capitalism.
    - quadrangle 11y ago
      True, I really meant more like "capitalism naturally leads to unions" rather than implying that nothing else can do so. But unions don't exist within cooperatives. The bigger point is: Unions are a symptom of bigger systemic problems.
samstave 11y ago
Douchebags. Got it. HAHA - yet again, criticizing GS on HN results in downvotes. So now we have to worry about GS VC shills on HN as opposed to just eglin shills on reddit?
- tamana 11y ago
  Hard call to make. It is reasonable to ban teams whose owners are technically incapable of ever changing their (legal) mind about any future question.
  - wavefunction 11y ago
    Hey man, corporations are people! Except when it's inconvenient for other corporations, I guess.
  - gozur88 11y ago
    That's why corporations have CEOs. I think it's more that the owners realize without this rule cities will demand some kind of civic ownership of teams before they'll be willing to shell out tax money for stadiums and such.
- jacalata 11y ago
  I have no idea what you are talking about and downvoted you for the drive-by stupidity, not because I (necessarily) disagree with you.
  - samstave 11y ago
    Context: some time ago on reddit there was a post about the most popular cities that use reddit. One of the cities was the one where Eglin Air Force Base is in Florida. It is known that the cyber-ops team is based from there. There was a lot of astro-turfing going on, and in one of the wikileaks(?) post that came out - it was revealed that one of the founders of reddit was attempting to sell his services to the USG and others to show them how to drive/control/manipulate online sentiments (shilling). There are a number of other cases about this online and in reddit in particular. My comment was based on the fact that anything negative about GS appears to be immediately downvoted regardless of the veracity of the statement, if it even appears to be slightly negative. My statement, then, is that I feel that GS is running/paying for a service to monitor any mentions of them and either (on social sites that allow votes) downvote these statements or, at times, post shill responses. However, on a site like HN, any overly positive response to any denigrating response to GS would certainly be too transparent as astro-turfing, thus they simply downvote.
ashwinaj 11y ago
So it's just like Wall Street, tax payers take the losses while the team owners take all the profits. Brilliant, when will the so called "fans" comprehend this?
bdcravens 11y ago
> Houston’s iconic Astrodome, once dubbed the Eighth Wonder of the World, sits empty a decade after the facility housed 25,000 evacuees of Hurricane Katrina and nearly 20 years after the Oilers left. It's worth noting that the Astrodome sits in the NRG complex, next door to the NRG Stadium where the Texans play, and in the same parking lot as the NRG Center, where events like the Houston Livestock and Rodeo take place. Just this week they were planting grass outside of the Astrodome to beautify it for the upcoming Rodeo. (NRG Arena is in the same complex) In other words, it's not the isolated abandoned property that other properties in the article describe. (it's not finalized, but it will likely become a park to bridge NRG Center and Stadium)
- fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
  > but [the Astrodome] will likely become a park to bridge NRG Center and Stadium Only because so many people are too sentimental for the damn thing to knock it down. It's likely to become a greater boondoggle than anything else that exists on the property.
  - bdcravens 11y ago
    costs to demolish have been estimated between $30m-$60m
ck2 11y ago
The billionaire owners in the NFL socialize the costs of building stadiums, not paying cheerleaders, etc. but keep the profits for themselves. I wonder how little in taxes they pay.
maxxxxx 11y ago
What I find fascinating that the most anti-government people (usually right wing) are usually for these deals and the more pro-government people (usually left wing) are against these deals. At least this is my observation. Scott Walker for example signed a stadium deal in Wisconsin and campaigns on small government.
- ZanyProgrammer 11y ago
  Because its often more a cultural issue than not. And right-wingers are hardly anti government when it suits their own ends.
- rhino369 11y ago
  Woe be to the Governor of Wisconsin who loses a sports franchise.
JackFr 11y ago
It's not an unreasonable position for a municipality to chose lose money on a stadium. They typically lose money on symphony orchestras, ballets and performing arts centers. That one is considered low culture and the other considered high culture is not relevant is we assume that the people are being ably represented. But what seems to infuriate people is that orchestras and ballets are typically not owned by billionaires, and they are not part of a league with a multi-billion dollar budget.
- jpindar 11y ago
  Don't forget the "stupid jocks picked on me in school so fuck them" factor.
  - pyre 11y ago
    I really think it has more to do with the examples that we are discussing. Cities throwing money at teams with no strings attached, and then the teams leave and the cities are still paying off the debt. It's ridiculous that they didn't at least make sure that the team couldn't take such an action. There's also the fact that the cities are basically footing the bill for some rich people to make more money.
- aidenn0 11y ago
  > But what seems to infuriate people is that orchestras and ballets are typically not owned by billionaires, and they are not part of a league with a multi-billion dollar budget. Naturally; orchestras and ballets would struggle to exist without taxpayer money. Sports teams do not have this issue, which is why people complain; essentially every dollar spent by the taxpayers on a stadium is another dollar in the pocket of the team owner. I don't know about football, but no owner in the history of baseball has lost money on their team; even those operating at a negative cash-flow have seen net increases due to the increasing value of their team.
- gozur88 11y ago
  What infuriates people is these deals are always sold to the public as some sort of net-positive redevelopment, instead of what's really happening, which is a transfer of tax money to team owners. With orchestras and ballets and performing arts centers everybody knows up front you have an ongoing financial liability. And the numbers are smaller.
vermontdevil 11y ago
To be fair, that stadium now can be used for conventions. It's attached to a large convention center. The problem was for years the Convention Authority couldn't use the stadium 6 months a year (August to Jan) as NFL releases their schedule around March (I think). Conventions are typically planned far ahead than NFL. Now maybe the Convention Authority can start to utilize the space and pare down the debt faster. Who knows.
kwoff 11y ago
The article linked to is promising. http://www.alternet.org/noam-chomsky-why-americans-know-so-much-about-sports-so-little-about-world-affairs http://www.alternet.org/noam-chomsky-why-americans-know-so-m...
NamTaf 11y ago
Why aren't stadiums shared multi-use endeavours? Here, square stadiums are used by rugby (union and league) in the winter and soccer in the summer. Oval stadiums are used by AFL in the winter and cricket in the summer. In between, they occasionally host concerts - for example, when there's away games, or mid-week, or between seasons. This seems like a way better approach than the NFL one. Is it just because NFL / baseball / basketball (the 'big 3' in the US as far as I can tell) are all so radically different in field/court size and design that they can't be housed together? Is there any overlap that can occur in stadium mixed-use?
- tosseraccount 11y ago
  They used support both football and baseball. Oakland has the last multi-purpose stadium for MLB and NFL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O.co_Coliseum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O.co_Coliseum Baseball needs a large oval and foot ball needs a rectangle. The compromise to support both baseball and football leads to a suboptimal solution for both.
- bluedino 11y ago
  The NHL (ice hockey) and NBA (basketball) share some stadiums. The NFL (football) and MLB (baseball) used to share a few but I think only one or two still do, if any. But you will find things like monster truck events, dirt bike racing. or concerts at sports stadiums quite often.
  - some-guy 11y ago
    I live in Oakland and both the Oakland A's and the Oakland Raiders share a stadium, which is considered the worst stadium in both sports. They do have some monster truck events as well and used to host the San Jose Earthquakes on occasion before they got their own stadium.
- etler 11y ago
  They used to be very common. There used to be football and baseball shared stadiums as well as basketball and hockey shared stadiums too. I don't know why exactly it changed, I think everyone just wanted their own special place.
NamTaf 11y ago
Why aren't stadiums shared multi-use endeavours? Here, square stadiums are used by rugby (union and league) in the winter and soccer in the summer. Oval stadiums are used by AFL in the winter and cricket in the summer. In between, they occasionally host concerts - for example, when there's away games, or mid-week, or between seasons. This seems like a way better approach than the NFL one. Is it just because NFL / baseball / basketball (the 'big 3' in the US as far as I can tell) are all so radically different in field/court size and design that they can't be housed together? Is there any overlap that can occur in stadium mixed-use?
blisterpeanuts 11y ago
Phoenix built a huge sports stadium, then gave the naming rights to University of Phoenix in return for a donation, which rankled a lot of taxpayers who had footed most of the bill. They levy a tax of several bucks on every car rental called the "stadium tax", ostensibly to help fund the stadium, although critics say it punishes tourists and locals who need a rental car, and anyway the money is apparently routed to other uses. I see nothing wrong with building a world class sports facility. Build it, and they will come. It brings in millions of dollars in tourism and related business. The problem is when cities that build these things don't know how to budget properly, don't monetize the stadium properly, and piss away a lot of the money in corruption, fraud, nepotism, are taken advantage of by unscrupulous contractors and unions, and so forth. Probably a public-private consortium would do a better job in the long run. Public to get the initial rights-of-way and easements, private to run the thing efficiently and profitably and defend against the con artists who plague all such major projects.
speeder 11y ago
I am from Brazil. You should not build any stadiums for a private team using public money, the only stuff you should build with public money is stuff aiming for public use (example: community centers, bicycle race tracks that anyone can use, public olympic swimming pools for anyone that wanna learn and train, and so on). The World Cup stadiums are right now mostly abandoned, and giving us lots of trouble, some of them saw like 3 games during the tournament, and were never used again, it is a waste of money and land. Other stadiums now we found out that were just a means to funnel corruption money in certain people pockets, and even the stadiums that ARE in use, don't made the government profit. The World Cup in fact made the country lose money, the tourist spending don't covered all the money we lost. (and no, it didn't drove the economy either, one of the effects of the World Cup is that the government defaulted on many companies, that were forced to also default, and so on, resulting in my parents shop being defaulted too, and now we are in deep shit, including struggling to buy food sometimes, my parents are unsure when a potential new costumer shows up, if they sell because we desperately need the money, or if they refuse the sale because we've been defaulted too much and cannot afford another default).
gerbilly 11y ago
Cities shouldn't go into debt for stadiums. But...I can see spending some public money towards sports venues. I mean not everyone takes a stroll in city parks, or uses the library or visits the aquarium, but it would be peevish to insist that people only pay for what they themselves use.
natch 11y ago
"The fans are left holding the bag." If only that were the case. Unfortunately, it's the taxpayers, not the smaller subset that are fans, who are left holding the bag.
ArkyBeagle 11y ago
The contrary view is the story of why the Brooklyn Dodgers left for California. Ball clubs are semi-public goods, so it gets tedious very quickly trying to factor it all out.
tgb29 11y ago
I think the Raiders should be moved to Las Vegas. The theme of the stadium vision should be conservation of the region's resources and the project should lead to a stronger initiative on renewable energies for Las Vegas. Lake Mead, the lake that flows to the Hoover Dam, has lower water levels every year and the issue of its real sustainability hasn't been fully addressed. Fortunately, The sun shines often, and outside of Vegas there are areas of the Desert with high winds. The gambling issue will be better for the NFL as the league continues to grow and become a global brand. If there are any problems with the gambling, then smart regulations can be implemented with the trends of electronic currency in mind. The stadium should have the ability to host other events so that football doesn't need to be the main revenue driver. Most importantly, the groups who made their money through gambling would be able to give back to the city, and their capital should be respected. I'm biased because I enjoy Las Vegas, Laughlin, and Northest Arizona and I like the green energy developments in the area. I agree that the project would be a great challenge.
thetruthseeker1 11y ago
I dont agree with the way the title is worded: as if to indicate that it is wrong in principle to build a stadium for NFL team. I think this is a case of a bad business deal or contract. The NFL clearly had a better contract here. If the deal was worded such that St. Louis Ram's teams were obligated to play there for X years or something else that guarantees cash flow, probably the city wouldn't have had such a loss. It is just poor deal making.
BuckRogers 11y ago
It looks pretty clear, unless you have the NY or LA market, you're going to pay some team to play in your city. Dallas, Atlanta, SF, NE are runners up on getting a team to invest their own money. You would think at being the 3rd largest market, Chicago would be in the same situation as NY/LA, but I'm assuming the systemic corruption led to the bad deal on Soldier Field.
yeehong 11y ago
Because NFL have been allowed to set up artificial caps on the number of franchises that can exist, owners have repeatedly used the threat of relocation to extort municipalities into paying for stadiums. While European soccer clubs are punished by relegation into a lower league for sustained mediocrity, the pro sports monopolies in the U.S. ensure that even the most poorly-managed franchises are still immensely profitable.
danr4 11y ago
obligatory Last Week Tonight video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcwJt4bcnXs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcwJt4bcnXs
JackFr 11y ago
Why are these stadiums not financed with revenue bonds? Municipalities typically issue bonds as general obligations or as revenue bonds where there is no obligation to the broader municipality, only to the revenue producing entity.

328 points by finid 11y ago

draw_down 11y ago

No, that's not why. Cities shouldn't do it because sports are not a public concern.

rmxt 11y ago
Sports are a form of entertainment....entertainment can and does drive spending.... and spending can contribute to more jobs and more tax revenue. Seems fair that sports are, in turn, a public concern. That isn't to say that building a stadium or hosting the Olympics is inherently a profitable affair.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
  I'd be ok with this argument only if the leagues were nationalized.
  - noxToken 11y ago
    What is the need for nationalization before a city should foot the bill? This isn't to say that cities should pay for a stadium, but there are definitely dynasty franchises that are guaranteed to generate income for many years. Would I build a stadium for the Rams? Not likely. Would I build a stadium for the Patriots? Immediately.
    - yourapostasy 11y ago
      Generate the lion's share of income for who? If a city's citizens are ponying up tax revenue to support a team, then the city should do it right, and be a shareholder in the team, and capture a proportional share of the lion's share of the income that flows to the team's owners. Forbes has a good breakdown of the profitability of the teams to their owners [1]. PBS Marketplace has a good overview of how much of that profitability makes it to the city [2]. You can read many papers examining the economic impact of letting a sports team walk, here is one [3] such paper. Given the level of profitability to owners, the statistically insignificant economic impact of teams on cities, and the accumulated data to date continuing to support these conclusions drawn so far, city managers giving away valuable consideration as if they're supporting charity cases are simply using taxpayers to purchase extremely expensive political points. [1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2015/09/14/the-most-valuable-teams-in-the-nfl/#57e6c731326f http://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2015/09/14/the-most-... [2] http://www.marketplace.org/2015/03/19/business/are-pro-sports-teams-economic-winners-cities http://www.marketplace.org/2015/03/19/business/are-pro-sport... [3] http://uknowledge.uky.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1024&context=mpampp_etds http://uknowledge.uky.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1024&c...
- draw_down 11y ago
  Except, whoops, the bucks only ever go to sports teams.
  - rmxt 11y ago
    What of all the employees of the stadium? Of all the travel to and from the stadium? Of the merchandising deals? And any other numerous subsequent results... what does the money that goes to the employees or third-parties count as? They don't get paid in company scrip. That's akin to saying that the money for any government funded project only go to the party directly responsible for building/supporting it, and all of the consequences from the initial project are inherently zero.
  - dionidium 11y ago
    As has been mentioned elsewhere in this thread, public money funds all sorts of entertainment and cultural endeavors, from operas to art museums to 5K fun runs and so on and so on.
- lotyrin 11y ago
  Last I was aware, there was no evidence that this investment provided any return. Not that it matters because that still wouldn't justify a huge investment by the public into a private entity without any ownership stake. If the idea was really to create something resembling a grant to private organizations to create business that stimulates the economy, you would rationally have some kind of process around for screening candidates based on merit and be more diversified in your awards. I'd like to believe it's anything other than a kind of blackmail where these organizations use their media power (== public opinion) with impunity to bully municipalities into providing them the tax revenue of citizens, wasting money that could otherwise be used for individual or public good, but that's all I can make out of it.
noxToken 11y ago
Sports aren't an inherent public concern, but the idea is that there will be a future return. I don't claim that building a stadium/arena for a professional sports team will generate profit for the city. It's supposed to be an investment. The city foots the bill for the stadium. The team generates revenue over X years to cover the costs, and it also provides jobs for the city's residents. It's an idealistic win-win. Again - this doesn't always work as intended.
CamperBob2 11y ago
The explanation I heard is that professional sports are a key element of "urban pacification." It makes sense to some extent, in a panem et circenses kind of way.
bmelton 11y ago
And yet cities and states are often in the business of luring large employers to their area, and tax advantage is almost always the bait. Everybody complains about sweetheart deals that so often go along with the seduction of an employer into their area, but almost nobody complains about the jobs. Perhaps in San Francisco the situation is reversed, but almost anywhere else is happy to accept your runoff, even if profitability isn't in the short term agenda. More jobs means more people employed which in turn drives up employee competition, and hence wages, which equate to increased tax revenues and better quality of living. I think that the stadium deals tend to be overboard, but not only is it not a net negative, it is at least more straight-forward plot than the backroom deals done as enticement for businesses.
- digikata 11y ago
  The economic effects of stadiums are often put forward as positive during the 'deal' phase of placing them, but many studies have reported only a small positive or negative effect on economic activity. http://www.marketplace.org/2015/03/19/business/are-pro-sports-teams-economic-winners-cities http://www.marketplace.org/2015/03/19/business/are-pro-sport...
- st3v3r 11y ago
  "Everybody complains about sweetheart deals that so often go along with the seduction of an employer into their area, but almost nobody complains about the jobs" Probably because, in most cases, the amount that those jobs cost has not been worth it.
- draw_down 11y ago
  So, did this defunct stadium inflate the job numbers in St Louis somehow, or am I misreading your comment?
tremon 11y ago
Sports definitely are a public concern. Exercise improves health (well maybe this doesn't apply to football ;). A better question would be whether these grand spectacles actually increase sport participation in the general population, and if that same effect can't be attained in a cheaper way.

jacalata 11y ago

The article seems to focus on "because they might leave" but the real reason is this line: > Even before the team decided to leave, the city's stadium revenues didn't cover its payments, leaving the city with annual shortfalls.

georgefrick 11y ago

Money a city gives towards a stadium should be returned in the form of shares in the team. Otherwise no deal. St. Louis should be selling their shares to LA for a profit right now...

gist 11y ago
Unlikely. There is competition from other geographic areas. If a team can simply play one venue against another they do have the upper hand unfortunately.
- ashark 11y ago
  Do any cities own their own teams? I was thinking about this the other day, and as someone who doesn't really follow sports I think I'd actually be more supportive of things like stadium building if the city were involved more heavily—namely, if the city owned the team(s), or at least a controlling share. I'd also be way more likely to care about and cheer for "our" team if they couldn't just pull up stakes and move to another city if we don't bribe them enough to keep them. Fan loyalty to commercial teams that don't have any real ties to the home city (they don't even have to give up their name if they leave!) strikes me as bizarre.
  - cadlin 11y ago
    The Green Bay Packers aren't owned by their city, exactly, but they're publicly owned and no individual can have more than 4% of the shares. They have 360,584 owners. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Bay_Packers#Community_ownership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Bay_Packers#Community_ow...
  - AnimalMuppet 11y ago
    If I understand correctly, the Green Bay Packers cut up the ownership of the team something like 3,000 different ways. They did this deliberately so that the team could never move, because it would be impossible to get a majority in favor of moving. When the (first) Cleveland Browns moved, the city negotiated that they had to use a different name. They became the Baltimore Ravens, and Cleveland was able to call the new franchise the Browns.

drpgq 11y ago

So what happens to the Edward Jones sponsorship?

giarc 11y ago
They likely have a section in their contract that covers this and can probably back out if no NFL team is present.

adamjcook 11y ago

This article reminds me of a report that John Stossel did some years ago on the economics of sport stadiums. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bGNIgdOLa0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bGNIgdOLa0

randycupertino 11y ago

Between the scam of municipalities losing so much $$ on stadiums, how the stadiums cause urban blight sitting empty most of the time then causing major traffic headaches the other times, and the CTE injury rate, I can't fathom how football still exists today as a popular sport. Seems like the whole thing is a house of cards that needs to collapse.

Touche 11y ago
I don't understand why it exists as a popular sport anyways, it's 5 seconds of action followed by 30 seconds of two guys talking about it. The average football game has 11 minutes of action[1]. Everything but the last ~8 minutes of the 4th quarter is boring. Yet Americans love it. I don't get it. [1] http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704281204575002852055561406 http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527487042812045750028...
- danharaj 11y ago
  There's a lot of strategy between plays. Because the action isn't continuous it has a different flavor from a continuously played game like the other football. It's sort of a hybrid between a real-time game and a turn-based game, which is cool. I think it would be much more interesting if there were more time on the field, but i'm sure the NFL and their advertising partners love all that time that can be filled up with ads. I dislike the game because the players get horribly injured, either immediately, or decades later. The NFL is a company that makes money by encouraging degenerative brain disease in its employees.
  - Touche 11y ago
    That doesn't explain the popularity, strategy is invisible to the viewer. Chess is not a popular spectator sport.
    - danharaj 11y ago
      It's not invisible. i'm not a serious sports fan, but when i'm around them they notice a great deal more detail than i do. a seasoned football fan can identify a play rather quickly. they know the styles and predispositions of their favorite players and coaches very well. they understand how field conditions and the state of the game influence the decisions made. it's rather fun to watch with a knowledgeable friend. having some sort of depth is required for popularity, even if it is not sufficient. chess is not a popular sport for other reasons, probably the lack of money and the sheer marathon that is a high level game. soccer has been gaining ground in the US because moneyed interests have been pushing the sport and trying to build the franchises for years. the level of investment required for a nationally popular sport is steep. no one's going to put that money into chess any time soon. like all things in our world, capital is often the difference between "is" and "isn't", but other ingredients are also required.

mc32 11y ago

"This is why no city..." "Any city" sounds more like non English grammar. That said, I most certainly agree that cities should not be in the business of subsidizing sports teams, when those are private money making enterprises. St. Louis should sue the NFL and all cities in the same position (potentially liable for stadium costs, if team were to leave) should hold out till the NFL guarantees debts. Build schools, get more teachers, do something worthwhile with the tax dollars you have.

joshstrange 11y ago

John Oliver did a good piece on this as well and how crazy it is that the public pays so much for these things: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcwJt4bcnXs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcwJt4bcnXs

whyenot 11y ago

I don't know. When cities get involved in a venture like this, it's usually because that is what their citizens want. For example, Levi Stadium in Santa Clara went before the voters, who approved it's funding model (1). On a moral level, I have a real problem with a sport that when played successfully leads to debilitating brain damage (2), but it's pretty clear I am in the minority on that. 1. Without going too far out on a tangent, there was more to the story, see here: http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_20107165 http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_20107165 2. "Stabler is the seventh former N.F.L. quarterback to be found to have had C.T.E. by Boston University, which has found C.T.E. in 90 of the 94 former N.F.L. players it has examined" http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/04/sports/football/ken-stabler-nfl-cte-brain-disease.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/04/sports/football/ken-stable...

giarc 11y ago
You could likely argue that the people that show up to vote for a stadium funding model are more likely to be sports fans. Probably wasn't a true representation of the citizens desires. Which isn't an excuse, everyone had the ability to vote, but still the decision can't be applied to everyone.
throwaway60453 11y ago
Excuse me, local resident here. Santa Clara City residents approved $400 million in financing. City Council went ahead with a promise for ... $1.3 billion so far. So most of it was not voted on at all.
- bringles 11y ago
  But how were the council members appointed? Resident approval must be involved somehow. If this city council is doing a bad job (seems like it), push for a new council. If the tide is too strong against, you have to challenge ideas. A lot of folks seem to believe there's a legal apparatus we need to invent that can solve this, when it's perfectly sufficient to just get traction for a critical stance on concussionball (gasp!)
  - 11y ago

beastman82 11y ago

I'm from St. Louis. The Cardinals also bilked > $500M towards their new stadium despite being the most profitable MLB team. The mayor went around telling everyone it was a good idea. Of course the touted economic benefits are usually an order of magnitude above reality. IMO basically capitalized on a huge inferiority complex.

patmcguire 11y ago
From St. Louis as well. It was weird when the Rams left. There wasn't much of an attitude of how great of fans St. Louis has and what a betrayal it is. It was more resignation. "Well, we're St. Louis, what did we expect?"
- dionidium 11y ago
  Also from St. Louis. I don't agree with this. r/stlouis wouldn't shut up about it, for example, and the opinions ranged all across the board.
  - patmcguire 11y ago
    Oh man, that is a rabbit hole of rage. I've been away too long.
tamana 11y ago
The mayor derives personal benefit from being involved in the stadium. (Throw out a pitch, meet players, etx) It's corruption.
vermontdevil 11y ago
$500M? The stadium cost $365M and most of it private money. The county loaned $45M for improvements. Busch Stadium had a final cost of $365 million when it opened in 2006. Of that cost, $45 million (12%) came from a long-term loan from St. Louis County. Private financing came in the tune of $90.1 million in cash from the Cardinals, $200.5 in bonds paid by the team, and $9.2 million in interest earned on the construction fund the Cardinals held. The stadium has a seating capacity of 46,861 and is owned by the St. Louis Cardinals. The stadium does not have a roof, or its own named expressway. I was unable to determine who paid for the cost overruns of $20.2 million. http://urbanmilwaukee.com/2009/05/28/miller-park-vs-busch-stadium-milwaukee-vs-st-louis/ http://urbanmilwaukee.com/2009/05/28/miller-park-vs-busch-st...

btreesOfSpring 11y ago

For those interested in the topic, this book [0] is a pretty good starting point for understanding the modern stadium construction game. [0] http://www.amazon.com/New-Cathedrals-Politics-Construction-Entertainment/dp/0815631324 http://www.amazon.com/New-Cathedrals-Politics-Construction-E...

frandroid 11y ago
Now if only stadia were built to last, like cathedrals...

elchief 11y ago

https://www.kansascityfed.org/~/media/files/publicat/econrev/econrevarchive/2001/1q01rapp.pdf https://www.kansascityfed.org/~/media/files/publicat/econrev... "So does it makes sense for metro areas to use public funds to attract and retain major league sports franchises? The answer is definitely not if benefits are limited to increases in economic activity and tax revenue collection. A strong case can be made, however, that the quality-of-life benefits from hosting a major league team can sometimes justify the large public outlays associated with doing so" Either way, there's always a risk of teams relocating, and this should be taken into account.

Someone1234 11y ago
That report or whatever it is is really low quality. I just read the "How hosting a professional sports team contributes to quality of life" (page 71) section, and it reads like a middle schooler's homework. It is devoid of facts and has questionable logic and very questionable conclusions. Honestly it is junk. Essentially their entire quality of life argument boils down to "BUT SPORTS ARE AWESOME!!!" then just pull random dollar figures out of thin air and attach them to how awesome it is for fans to enjoy watching sports (????).
- scythe 11y ago
  >Formally, the quality-of-life benefit to a particular fan who attends a sports game is the amount above the admission price they would have been willing to spend to attend the game. For instance, if someone is willing to spend $30 to attend a game that only costs $20, they receive a $10 quality-of-life benefit. Adding up the individual quality-of-life benefits of all residents who attend games yields the total metro area’s quality-of-life benefit from game attendance. Nope, this is real economic theory. It's not something the Fed invented out of thin air, and it's used in a wide variety of fields. Of course, there is a (widely-acknowledged) epistemic problem in assuming a person's desire for something is proportional to the happiness they will receive from it -- this is called "the theory of revealed preferences", and it is used primarily because all of the alternatives people have been able to think of so far (for assessing happiness) are even worse.
11y ago

stplsd 11y ago

I am from Europe and this looks almost surreal for me. It is unheard of here that team simply packs players and go to other city. Sport culture and sport business so different in USA.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- untog 11y ago
  I always wonder why people from Europe always use "As a European" to preface smug comments, there's got to be a sociology study there. I mean, it's pretty necessary for the context of what the OP is saying. Americans say "As an American" less often because they just assume everyone is an American in the first place. I'm not sure that's better and, come on, it's not like Americans aren't capable of smugness now, is it? Anyway, you guys have almost exactly the same behavior in UEFA teams Do they? I'm certainly not aware of any, and the lack of franchising makes the whole situation different (a team will very, very rarely ever move city. It's basically unheard of). And yes, I agree the original comment was flippant. But citing fan racism in soccer isn't exactly raising the tone either.
  - icebraining 11y ago
    Why do you consider it flippant?
philwelch 11y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relocation_of_Wimbledon_F.C._to_Milton_Keynes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relocation_of_Wimbledon_F.C._t...
- theoracle101 11y ago
  This was literally blasphemy in the UK, so not sure what you're point is?

giarc 11y ago

I live in Calgary and our NHL arena is nearing the end of it's life. Our mayor, Naheed Nenshi, has been very vocal about public funding for arena's and is holding the owners group and the NHLs 'feet to the fire' so to speak. >I have said for a long time — and continue to strongly believe — that public money must be for public benefit and not private profit. [0] I don't think he's necessarily against using public money, but he's not willing to just throw money at a stadium just because the Calgary Flames and the NHL say it's a good idea, or because 'that's the way it's done'. [0] - http://calgaryherald.com/sports/hockey/nhl/calgary-flames/mayor-nenshis-statement-on-the-flames-arena-project http://calgaryherald.com/sports/hockey/nhl/calgary-flames/ma...

wesd 11y ago
It's a terrible time to try to get public funding for a billion dollar project in Alberta while thousands of people are losing their jobs due to oil price. They will try again. Here is a Grantland picce that covert it: http://grantland.com/the-triangle/how-to-sell-a-stadium-in-six-easy-steps-calgary-gets-the-high-pressure-pitch/ http://grantland.com/the-triangle/how-to-sell-a-stadium-in-s...
chucksmash 11y ago
*Atlanta Flames
swehner 11y ago
The NHL strike a few years ago had hardly any effect on people. They just went out to restaurants more, and bars. So hockey's loss = someone else's gains. If not, < Calgary should be fine without a stadium for those games

tshtf 11y ago

Relevant Onion article, which Chinese media reported as true: http://www.theonion.com/article/congress-threatens-to-leave-dc-unless-new-capitol--98 http://www.theonion.com/article/congress-threatens-to-leave-... http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/U-S-satire-tricks-Beijing-paper-Satire-fools-2829911.php http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/U-S-satire-tricks-Beijing...

st3v3r 11y ago

Not just stadiums. This is why no city/state should be able to offer anything like this for any private entity, be they sports team, movie crew, or private company.

ec109685 11y ago
There is never a case when there is a net positive benefit for th city by enticing a corporation to move in?
- st3v3r 11y ago
  You'd have to measure that against other things that money could have done. And in many times, the company would be moving anyway.

onetwotree 11y ago

The Green Bay packers have an interesting approach to this problem, although it requires a fanatical fan base and special ownership provisions, and the fact that the team can't leave Green Bay (without a vote by the shareholders, who are all fans, which will never, ever, happen). When they want to improve their stadium, they issue stock and sell more season tickets. This works because Packers stock cannot be sold or traded after purchase, and a season ticket is, for many working class Wisconsin families, an heirloom. A friend who's a Wisconsin native was put on the waiting list for season tickets at birth, and is in his parents' will to inherit his mother's ticket. His mom is probably going to die before he breaks 10,000th on the list, so that position will go to his kids. It's insane like that. But it means that the taxpayers of Wisconsin, including those of us who, like myself, could really care less about football, don't have to foot the bill for maintenance and improvements to the Packers' stadium. But again, the Packers have a uniquely fanatical fan base, were created with provisions to keep them in Green Bay forever, and are owned by the fans.

voidlogic 11y ago
>without a vote by the shareholders, who are all fans Doesn't the German football team system work like this too? I think it at least does for Bayern.
- sehr 11y ago
  Yep! The club/members have to own >50% of the club to compete in the German pro leagues In the past, private ownership wasn't even allowed but that changed in the 90s. Even cooler, the 2 largest football clubs on earth, Real Madrid & Barcelona are completely fan owned. They even vote for the presidency of the club! So refreshing compared to American sports, though without a salary cap their competitions are 1000x more predictable & boring. (ex. RM won their league match on Sunday 6-0, and Barca just won today 7-0)
  - tragic 11y ago
    I guess the biggest difference is that, in European soccer (especially in lovely England), the clubs are vastly more powerful than the leagues and governing bodies of the sport. In the NFL, NBA etc, the opposite seems to be the case - the teams are more like suppliers to the league. Both systems, to put it mildly, have their warts.

greenbay_ftw 11y ago

Green Bay has an interesting structure in that it is a non-profit with the community owning shares of it, and have no financial incentive to own it -- only team support and voting rights. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Bay_Packers#Community_ownership https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Bay_Packers#Community_ow...) It would be a fascinating experiment if more teams did this, but I can't imagine an owner giving up control like that.

richsherwood 11y ago
The Saskatchewan roughriders do this as well. Its CFL though.

cowardlydragon 11y ago

Convert them to exotic hanging gardens of babylon public spaces then. Or water parks. or something similar. There has to be SOMETHING you can do with a structure like that.

prawn 11y ago
At one point, ignoring the significant maintenance costs, you could buy a huge stadium in Detroit for less than my house is worth. A friend and I would joke about living in the corporate suites and raising livestock and crops on the interior field.

cowardlydragon 11y ago

The NFL is a unionized, state-supported, maximally regulated market with rigid spending requirements, price fixing, supply shortages... ... held up as the conservative free market jingoistic ideal.

brandonmenc 11y ago
> held up as the conservative free market jingoistic ideal I've never heard anyone claim the NFL is an example of a free market, even by fans of both.
quadrangle 11y ago
Unions only come into existence because of capitalism. In a cooperative, the employees are the owners, so there's no such thing as a union. The NFL is certainly not maximally-regulated, in that more regulations are possible. But the key here is that corrupt corporate wealthy powerful people are always happy to claim that whatever they are doing to stay wealthy and powerful is actually based on some ideal whether that's socialism or capitalism or whatever. It's basically never true, of course.
- icebraining 11y ago
  Unions only come into existence because of capitalism. In a cooperative, the employees are the owners, so there's no such thing as a union. What about unions of public workers? Even in the USSR there were unions. Worker cooperatives are not the only alternative to capitalism.
  - quadrangle 11y ago
    True, I really meant more like "capitalism naturally leads to unions" rather than implying that nothing else can do so. But unions don't exist within cooperatives. The bigger point is: Unions are a symptom of bigger systemic problems.

samstave 11y ago

Douchebags. Got it. HAHA - yet again, criticizing GS on HN results in downvotes. So now we have to worry about GS VC shills on HN as opposed to just eglin shills on reddit?

tamana 11y ago
Hard call to make. It is reasonable to ban teams whose owners are technically incapable of ever changing their (legal) mind about any future question.
- wavefunction 11y ago
  Hey man, corporations are people! Except when it's inconvenient for other corporations, I guess.
- gozur88 11y ago
  That's why corporations have CEOs. I think it's more that the owners realize without this rule cities will demand some kind of civic ownership of teams before they'll be willing to shell out tax money for stadiums and such.
jacalata 11y ago
I have no idea what you are talking about and downvoted you for the drive-by stupidity, not because I (necessarily) disagree with you.
- samstave 11y ago
  Context: some time ago on reddit there was a post about the most popular cities that use reddit. One of the cities was the one where Eglin Air Force Base is in Florida. It is known that the cyber-ops team is based from there. There was a lot of astro-turfing going on, and in one of the wikileaks(?) post that came out - it was revealed that one of the founders of reddit was attempting to sell his services to the USG and others to show them how to drive/control/manipulate online sentiments (shilling). There are a number of other cases about this online and in reddit in particular. My comment was based on the fact that anything negative about GS appears to be immediately downvoted regardless of the veracity of the statement, if it even appears to be slightly negative. My statement, then, is that I feel that GS is running/paying for a service to monitor any mentions of them and either (on social sites that allow votes) downvote these statements or, at times, post shill responses. However, on a site like HN, any overly positive response to any denigrating response to GS would certainly be too transparent as astro-turfing, thus they simply downvote.

ashwinaj 11y ago

So it's just like Wall Street, tax payers take the losses while the team owners take all the profits. Brilliant, when will the so called "fans" comprehend this?

bdcravens 11y ago

> Houston’s iconic Astrodome, once dubbed the Eighth Wonder of the World, sits empty a decade after the facility housed 25,000 evacuees of Hurricane Katrina and nearly 20 years after the Oilers left. It's worth noting that the Astrodome sits in the NRG complex, next door to the NRG Stadium where the Texans play, and in the same parking lot as the NRG Center, where events like the Houston Livestock and Rodeo take place. Just this week they were planting grass outside of the Astrodome to beautify it for the upcoming Rodeo. (NRG Arena is in the same complex) In other words, it's not the isolated abandoned property that other properties in the article describe. (it's not finalized, but it will likely become a park to bridge NRG Center and Stadium)

fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
> but [the Astrodome] will likely become a park to bridge NRG Center and Stadium Only because so many people are too sentimental for the damn thing to knock it down. It's likely to become a greater boondoggle than anything else that exists on the property.
- bdcravens 11y ago
  costs to demolish have been estimated between $30m-$60m

ck2 11y ago

The billionaire owners in the NFL socialize the costs of building stadiums, not paying cheerleaders, etc. but keep the profits for themselves. I wonder how little in taxes they pay.

maxxxxx 11y ago

What I find fascinating that the most anti-government people (usually right wing) are usually for these deals and the more pro-government people (usually left wing) are against these deals. At least this is my observation. Scott Walker for example signed a stadium deal in Wisconsin and campaigns on small government.

ZanyProgrammer 11y ago
Because its often more a cultural issue than not. And right-wingers are hardly anti government when it suits their own ends.
rhino369 11y ago
Woe be to the Governor of Wisconsin who loses a sports franchise.

JackFr 11y ago

It's not an unreasonable position for a municipality to chose lose money on a stadium. They typically lose money on symphony orchestras, ballets and performing arts centers. That one is considered low culture and the other considered high culture is not relevant is we assume that the people are being ably represented. But what seems to infuriate people is that orchestras and ballets are typically not owned by billionaires, and they are not part of a league with a multi-billion dollar budget.

jpindar 11y ago
Don't forget the "stupid jocks picked on me in school so fuck them" factor.
- pyre 11y ago
  I really think it has more to do with the examples that we are discussing. Cities throwing money at teams with no strings attached, and then the teams leave and the cities are still paying off the debt. It's ridiculous that they didn't at least make sure that the team couldn't take such an action. There's also the fact that the cities are basically footing the bill for some rich people to make more money.
aidenn0 11y ago
> But what seems to infuriate people is that orchestras and ballets are typically not owned by billionaires, and they are not part of a league with a multi-billion dollar budget. Naturally; orchestras and ballets would struggle to exist without taxpayer money. Sports teams do not have this issue, which is why people complain; essentially every dollar spent by the taxpayers on a stadium is another dollar in the pocket of the team owner. I don't know about football, but no owner in the history of baseball has lost money on their team; even those operating at a negative cash-flow have seen net increases due to the increasing value of their team.
gozur88 11y ago
What infuriates people is these deals are always sold to the public as some sort of net-positive redevelopment, instead of what's really happening, which is a transfer of tax money to team owners. With orchestras and ballets and performing arts centers everybody knows up front you have an ongoing financial liability. And the numbers are smaller.

vermontdevil 11y ago

To be fair, that stadium now can be used for conventions. It's attached to a large convention center. The problem was for years the Convention Authority couldn't use the stadium 6 months a year (August to Jan) as NFL releases their schedule around March (I think). Conventions are typically planned far ahead than NFL. Now maybe the Convention Authority can start to utilize the space and pare down the debt faster. Who knows.

kwoff 11y ago

The article linked to is promising. http://www.alternet.org/noam-chomsky-why-americans-know-so-much-about-sports-so-little-about-world-affairs http://www.alternet.org/noam-chomsky-why-americans-know-so-m...

NamTaf 11y ago

Why aren't stadiums shared multi-use endeavours? Here, square stadiums are used by rugby (union and league) in the winter and soccer in the summer. Oval stadiums are used by AFL in the winter and cricket in the summer. In between, they occasionally host concerts - for example, when there's away games, or mid-week, or between seasons. This seems like a way better approach than the NFL one. Is it just because NFL / baseball / basketball (the 'big 3' in the US as far as I can tell) are all so radically different in field/court size and design that they can't be housed together? Is there any overlap that can occur in stadium mixed-use?

tosseraccount 11y ago
They used support both football and baseball. Oakland has the last multi-purpose stadium for MLB and NFL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O.co_Coliseum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O.co_Coliseum Baseball needs a large oval and foot ball needs a rectangle. The compromise to support both baseball and football leads to a suboptimal solution for both.
bluedino 11y ago
The NHL (ice hockey) and NBA (basketball) share some stadiums. The NFL (football) and MLB (baseball) used to share a few but I think only one or two still do, if any. But you will find things like monster truck events, dirt bike racing. or concerts at sports stadiums quite often.
- some-guy 11y ago
  I live in Oakland and both the Oakland A's and the Oakland Raiders share a stadium, which is considered the worst stadium in both sports. They do have some monster truck events as well and used to host the San Jose Earthquakes on occasion before they got their own stadium.
etler 11y ago
They used to be very common. There used to be football and baseball shared stadiums as well as basketball and hockey shared stadiums too. I don't know why exactly it changed, I think everyone just wanted their own special place.

NamTaf 11y ago

blisterpeanuts 11y ago

Phoenix built a huge sports stadium, then gave the naming rights to University of Phoenix in return for a donation, which rankled a lot of taxpayers who had footed most of the bill. They levy a tax of several bucks on every car rental called the "stadium tax", ostensibly to help fund the stadium, although critics say it punishes tourists and locals who need a rental car, and anyway the money is apparently routed to other uses. I see nothing wrong with building a world class sports facility. Build it, and they will come. It brings in millions of dollars in tourism and related business. The problem is when cities that build these things don't know how to budget properly, don't monetize the stadium properly, and piss away a lot of the money in corruption, fraud, nepotism, are taken advantage of by unscrupulous contractors and unions, and so forth. Probably a public-private consortium would do a better job in the long run. Public to get the initial rights-of-way and easements, private to run the thing efficiently and profitably and defend against the con artists who plague all such major projects.

speeder 11y ago

I am from Brazil. You should not build any stadiums for a private team using public money, the only stuff you should build with public money is stuff aiming for public use (example: community centers, bicycle race tracks that anyone can use, public olympic swimming pools for anyone that wanna learn and train, and so on). The World Cup stadiums are right now mostly abandoned, and giving us lots of trouble, some of them saw like 3 games during the tournament, and were never used again, it is a waste of money and land. Other stadiums now we found out that were just a means to funnel corruption money in certain people pockets, and even the stadiums that ARE in use, don't made the government profit. The World Cup in fact made the country lose money, the tourist spending don't covered all the money we lost. (and no, it didn't drove the economy either, one of the effects of the World Cup is that the government defaulted on many companies, that were forced to also default, and so on, resulting in my parents shop being defaulted too, and now we are in deep shit, including struggling to buy food sometimes, my parents are unsure when a potential new costumer shows up, if they sell because we desperately need the money, or if they refuse the sale because we've been defaulted too much and cannot afford another default).

gerbilly 11y ago

Cities shouldn't go into debt for stadiums. But...I can see spending some public money towards sports venues. I mean not everyone takes a stroll in city parks, or uses the library or visits the aquarium, but it would be peevish to insist that people only pay for what they themselves use.

natch 11y ago

"The fans are left holding the bag." If only that were the case. Unfortunately, it's the taxpayers, not the smaller subset that are fans, who are left holding the bag.

ArkyBeagle 11y ago

The contrary view is the story of why the Brooklyn Dodgers left for California. Ball clubs are semi-public goods, so it gets tedious very quickly trying to factor it all out.

tgb29 11y ago

I think the Raiders should be moved to Las Vegas. The theme of the stadium vision should be conservation of the region's resources and the project should lead to a stronger initiative on renewable energies for Las Vegas. Lake Mead, the lake that flows to the Hoover Dam, has lower water levels every year and the issue of its real sustainability hasn't been fully addressed. Fortunately, The sun shines often, and outside of Vegas there are areas of the Desert with high winds. The gambling issue will be better for the NFL as the league continues to grow and become a global brand. If there are any problems with the gambling, then smart regulations can be implemented with the trends of electronic currency in mind. The stadium should have the ability to host other events so that football doesn't need to be the main revenue driver. Most importantly, the groups who made their money through gambling would be able to give back to the city, and their capital should be respected. I'm biased because I enjoy Las Vegas, Laughlin, and Northest Arizona and I like the green energy developments in the area. I agree that the project would be a great challenge.

thetruthseeker1 11y ago

I dont agree with the way the title is worded: as if to indicate that it is wrong in principle to build a stadium for NFL team. I think this is a case of a bad business deal or contract. The NFL clearly had a better contract here. If the deal was worded such that St. Louis Ram's teams were obligated to play there for X years or something else that guarantees cash flow, probably the city wouldn't have had such a loss. It is just poor deal making.

BuckRogers 11y ago

It looks pretty clear, unless you have the NY or LA market, you're going to pay some team to play in your city. Dallas, Atlanta, SF, NE are runners up on getting a team to invest their own money. You would think at being the 3rd largest market, Chicago would be in the same situation as NY/LA, but I'm assuming the systemic corruption led to the bad deal on Soldier Field.

yeehong 11y ago

Because NFL have been allowed to set up artificial caps on the number of franchises that can exist, owners have repeatedly used the threat of relocation to extort municipalities into paying for stadiums. While European soccer clubs are punished by relegation into a lower league for sustained mediocrity, the pro sports monopolies in the U.S. ensure that even the most poorly-managed franchises are still immensely profitable.

danr4 11y ago

obligatory Last Week Tonight video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcwJt4bcnXs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcwJt4bcnXs

JackFr 11y ago

Why are these stadiums not financed with revenue bonds? Municipalities typically issue bonds as general obligations or as revenue bonds where there is no obligation to the broader municipality, only to the revenue producing entity.