I think my confusion is based on what "local" means in that article. My interpretation was literally the City of Boston, vs the regional catchment area for a t

I think my confusion is based on what "local" means in that article. My interpretation was literally the City of Boston, vs the regional catchment area for a team's fan base. Tourism in the umich article, and the sources it cites, is region to region. i.e. Someone coming from NH to Boston wouldn't be considered tourism as that's intra-region travel. Looking at the study the umich study notes that stadium would little effect on net regional exports, which makes sense. However, that betters supports "governments shouldn't pay for stadiums" as a conclusion than narrowly defining it as "cities". That said, the fans come for the team more than they do for the stadium, and I agree with the conclusion that governments shouldn't be paying for these things.