The Never-Ending Stadium Boondoggle

[Suzanimal]

As the 2015 NFL season kicks off and all the excitement that comes along with it, let us not forget that U.S. taxpayers are bearing a large part of the cost. In the past 15 years alone, over $12 billion of the public’s money has gone to privately owned stadiums—constituting essentially a massive transfer of wealth from everyday Americans to the super-rich owners and players involved in these billion-dollar sports franchises.

The Dallas Cowboys ushered in the era of the billion-dollar stadium when their current facility opened in 2009. Taxpayers assumed the cost for over a quarter ($325 million) of its $1.2 billion dollar price tag.

At the under-construction U.S. Bank Stadium, where the Minnesota Vikings will eventually play, public dollars account for roughly half the cost—an estimated $498 million—of the total $1.06 billion bill. Although Minneapolis initially required a public referendum to approve funding for the stadium, a “stadium authority” was able to override the referendum and authorize the budget without taxpayers’ consent.

The Atlanta Falcons’ new Mercedes-Benz Stadium—not to be confused with the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans—is slated to open in 2017 at a projected cost of $1.5 billion, with the public picking up an estimated $600 million of its tab.

Even Buffalo, where the existing Bills stadium received $130 million in public funding last year for renovations, is considering building a new, $800 million to $1 billion NFL facility.

The decision to build or renovate stadiums is not one that cities make on their own. The NFL can and does apply pressure for stadiums to be upgraded if they’re not seen as up to par. In 2010, the league threatened to take Miami out of the running for future Super Bowls unless its stadium was substantially renovated after rain marred the 2007 edition of the game there. When lawmakers—reeling from the aftershock of a massive taxpayer subsidy for the Marlins baseball stadium—rebuffed efforts for public financing, the team’s ownership decided to undertake the $400 million-dollar-plus renovation, on its own dime.

Twenty other NFL stadiums have opened since 1997, at a cost of nearly $5 billion in taxpayer funds, according to one analysis. Judith Grant Long, a leading expert on sports stadium funding at the University of Michigan, estimates that taxpayers have actually spent as much as $10 billion more on professional sports stadiums and arenas than is typically acknowledged after various hidden costs are taken into account.

The threat of relocation

One tactic that is frequently employed to get the public to fork over money is to threaten to move a beloved team to a new city. The Baltimore Colts moved to Indianapolis in 1984, after Baltimore failed to accommodate the team’s demands for a new stadium. Owner Robert Irsay shopped the team to several cities, including Phoenix and Jacksonville, before settling on Indianapolis, which had a new stadium built and waiting for an NFL team.

In 1996, Art Modell moved the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore, where they became the Baltimore Ravens and acquired a new $200 million stadium. (On the day after their move was announced, Cleveland residents voted decisively to remodel their own stadium.) After three years, the NFL created a new expansion team for Cleveland—the cost of which was yet another new stadium.

In 2014, the San Francisco 49ers moved from their historic home at Candlestick Park to the $1.3 billion Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara after a protracted bidding war between the two cities. Santa Clara taxpayers ended up on the book for between $150 and $200 million in subsidies—an amount that exceeds the entire city’s annual budget of $140 million.

Currently, Los Angeles—which has no NFL team after losing the Rams to St. Louis and the Raiders back to Oakland in the mid-1990s—is chomping at the bit for a pro football franchise (a situation reflected in a key plotline of this season’s Ray Donovan). A plan is being floated around, modeled on the 49ers deal, to build a $1.7 billion stadium in Carson City that could host two teams at once—the Raiders and the San Diego Chargers.

This has, not surprisingly, generated counter proposals from both Oakland and San Diego, who are seeking to retain their teams. San Diego has proposed a $1.4 billion stadium adjacent to the existing Qualcomm Stadium, backed with as much as a billion in public subsides. Oakland has countered with a $900 million stadium to keep the Raiders in town as part of a much a larger $4.2 billion mixed-use development deal.

The threat of moving a team puts cities and their mayors on the proverbial hot seat: They can either ante up the dough or watch their fan’s beloved team go elsewhere. As Stanford University’s Roger Noll, a leading expert on sports economics, points out: “Cities have very little bargaining power with an NFL team. As long as there are cities without NFL teams that are willing to subsidize a stadium, cities will have to pay part of the cost of a new stadium.” What mayor or council wants to be on the hook for that? Supporting billionaire owners may look bad, but sitting idly while the local team moves to another city can also mean getting tossed out of office.

The stark reality is that cities and their leadership are mainly complicit in stadium boondoggles. Even when residents vote down these deals, they often frequently reappear under the guise of stadium development authorities and other non-democratic ways to obtain public funding. A comprehensive 2006 study of the local growth coalitions of business and politicians that foist stadium deals on taxpayers found that public officials are frequently active participants in stadium shakedowns—far from the neutral brokers they like to claim. The study concludes that “the default position of local governments (with only rare exceptions) is to believe in the wonders of publicly subsidized sports stadiums."

Subsidizing stadiums is an economic disaster

The overwhelming conclusion of decades of economic research on the subject is that using public funds to subsidize wealthy sports franchises makes zero economic sense and is a giant waste of taxpayer money. A wide array of studies have shown that professional teams add virtually no income to local economies. In fact, some of them find that large subsidies actually have a negative effect, taking money out of the local economy. Aside from the jobs generated by actually building the stadium, most jobs inside the stadium—selling food and beer or working at team concessions—are low-paying temp jobs. It’s even worse for football stadiums, which are used for games at most a dozen times a year, and maybe a few more times for concerts or large events. Public economic development dollars can be put to much better use on things besides subsidizing sports teams and their wealthy owners.

Ultimately, the burden of public subsides falls disproportionately on small cities that are the least able to bear the cost. For example, a $200 million public subsidy for a new stadium ends up costing a small city like Santa Clara roughly $1,650 per resident, compared to just $50 a person for L.A. And, of course, teams in bigger cities, with their bigger markets and more revenue, often do not need subsidies at all.

Stop the madness

It’s time put an end to runaway public subsidies to lucrative sports franchises. Is there any other industry or field of business where taxpayers are asked to hand over astronomical sums to billionaire owners and their millionaire employees?

If cities and states cannot stop themselves, it’s up to the federal government to step in. As Andrew Sharp put it recently at Grantland: “Isn’t this what the federal government is for? If there’s interstate commerce that wreaks havoc on state and local governments as a rule, shouldn’t Congress step in to legislate the business back to sanity?” I could not agree more. Sports economists suggest using federal antitrust laws to keep professional sports teams and leagues in line—something Congress has been reluctant to enforce. President Obama’s 2016 budget proposal called for a ban on using tax-exempt municipal bonds to fund stadiums, but in the current climate, Congress does not appear likely to act on it.

It’s high time to stop this madness once and for all.

http://www.citylab.com/politics/2015...m_source=atlfb

[tod evans]

Don't forget federally funded HS stadiums across the country!

Students can't read but by golly they can play "foo-ball" and "basset-ball"......

[jkob]

This is a more complicated issue than made out to be, to say these stadiums are economic disasters isn't exactly true in my opinion. The idea is that without a professional sports team that consumers will substitute their entertainment dollars elsewhere thus no economic loss but that ignores a couple things like oftentimes these cities already have unprofitable older sports venues that they're publicly supporting and maintaining which can run into the millions every year so there comes a point where it is more profitable to build a new venue versus maintaining the old one, the league and owners obviously put a lot of pressure on these cities with the threat of relocation but these venues host more than just sports and will likely be maintained regardless of who their tenants are. It also ignores that these athletes get taxed for every game they work and living in the state so that's a whole platoon millionaires who like to spend a ton money and thus tax revenue. There is also the idea that these teams add to prestige of the city and gives them a competitive edge in attracting business versus cities that do not have them, how many people in China would know about Milwaukee if they didn't have a professional basketball team? I think there can be a public-private partnership on this type of infrastructure, I don't think the taxpayers should just fork over the money tho so lets make that clear but there can be deals that make fiscal sense in the long run at least in my opinion. If the public is forced to finance these arenas then the team should pay back what they're lent, these teams have open record books and we can see exactly how much profit they make annually and its more than enough to make payments. I'm not sure how the federal government can step in and stop the residents of some city/county/state from voting for these financing plans if that's what the voters want and if the people in one place are willing to do it and you're not then your team will leave.

More and more these teams are becoming global brands which generate more profits away from the gate with TV rights and whatnot so that is money coming in, this will likely only increase as time goes on.

[Voluntarist]

xxxxx

[pcosmar]

Just Paid Advertising for the MIC.

[Zippyjuan]

This is a more complicated issue than made out to be, to say these stadiums are economic disasters isn't exactly true in my opinion. The idea is that without a professional sports team that consumers will substitute their entertainment dollars elsewhere thus no economic loss but that ignores a couple things like oftentimes these cities already have unprofitable older sports venues that they're publicly supporting and maintaining which can run into the millions every year so there comes a point where it is more profitable to build a new venue versus maintaining the old one, the league and owners obviously put a lot of pressure on these cities with the threat of relocation but these venues host more than just sports and will likely be maintained regardless of who their tenants are. It also ignores that these athletes get taxed for every game they work and living in the state so that's a whole platoon millionaires who like to spend a ton money and thus tax revenue. There is also the idea that these teams add to prestige of the city and gives them a competitive edge in attracting business versus cities that do not have them, how many people in China would know about Milwaukee if they didn't have a professional basketball team? I think there can be a public-private partnership on this type of infrastructure, I don't think the taxpayers should just fork over the money tho so lets make that clear but there can be deals that make fiscal sense in the long run at least in my opinion. If the public is forced to finance these arenas then the team should pay back what they're lent, these teams have open record books and we can see exactly how much profit they make annually and its more than enough to make payments. I'm not sure how the federal government can step in and stop the residents of some city/county/state from voting for these financing plans if that's what the voters want and if the people in one place are willing to do it and you're not then your team will leave.

More and more these teams are becoming global brands which generate more profits away from the gate with TV rights and whatnot so that is money coming in, this will likely only increase as time goes on.

For the taxpayers, it is not that good of a deal if they are funding a lot of the cost. It is, afterall, a profitable business enterprise. Should a city put up $500 million tax dollars to build a corporate office structure which is used maybe fifteen times a year? They usually get little of the revenue from the business even though they are 50% partners in the construction and operations of the facility. Profits go to the league and owners. NFL profits could pay the full costs of two new stadiums every year while still remaining profitable. Why should cities subsidize them that much? I enjoy football but think the teams and league and owners should be paying for the stadiums- not the taxpayers. Or if the city puts up half the costs, they should also get half of all revenues.

[euphemia]

We built a stadium because the Houston Oilers didn't think the Astrodome was good enough for them. It is not used very much, and game tickets are not just at the cost of the tickets. Season tickets, for example, require a Personal Seat License of a couple thousand dollars before the season ticket can be purchased.

It came to a vote, and we voted against the stadium. We did not purchase PSLs and have only attended one game. It is just not an affordable option for us. We don't own season tickets to anything else, either. The time and money commitment is more than we can handle. Local sportswriters scolded residents for "sitting on their wallets." I called him and explained that most people don't have enough disposable income to fork over a year's mortgage on football tickets. Shoot, we don't even have an electric dishwasher. I'm not that big a fan of pro football, anyway, and it's not a worthwhile expenditure for me. We were lectured like children about how much revenue it would bring into the city.

Schools are not better, we don't have more police (to direct traffic on game days), or any of the other things you said would happen when you wrote the bill to our taxpayers.

I can't help it that politicians are so star struck that they bend over every time a sports franchise wants something. For once, I would like to see a mayor or governor say, "Ok, fine. You can leave as soon as you return what the taxpayers put into this facility." Our taxpayers put down $500,000 to get you to come here, and you need to return the security deposit before you leave."

[jkob]

For the taxpayers, it is not that good of a deal if they are funding a lot of the cost. It is, afterall, a profitable business enterprise. Should a city put up $500 million tax dollars to build a corporate office structure which is used maybe fifteen times a year? They usually get little of the revenue from the business even though they are 50% partners in the construction and operations of the facility. Profits go to the league and owners. NFL profits could pay the full costs of two new stadiums every year while still remaining profitable. Why should cities subsidize them that much? I enjoy football but think the teams and league and owners should be paying for the stadiums- not the taxpayers. Or if the city puts up half the costs, they should also get half of all revenues.

The sports leagues aren't equal, football stadiums are rarely multi-use these days so you are right they do sit empty most of the time but the NFL is the most profitable professional sport league in the world and football is the most popular sport in America so obviously these franchises are high high demand. I'm a Packer fan so our relationship with the team is unlike pretty much another sport in the America because Packer fans are who own the team and its a non-profit organization that puts it's money back into the team and community, the NFL bylaws make it illegal for any other team besides to Packers to have this set up. I can't imagine municipalities can invest in buying sports teams either, if the NFL is so profitable then why doesn't the city of Los Angeles buy the team and put the profits into their general fund? These billionaire owners definitely don't deserve sympathy.

[surf]

Don't forget federally funded HS stadiums across the country!

Students can't read but by golly they can play "foo-ball" and "basset-ball"......

i'm pretty sure fieldturf made a fortune with their "stimulus" money checks. I've heard it's over a $1/2 million to put down turf over an average soccer/football field, and the recommended life of the product is less than 10yrs.

[enhanced_deficit]

Most of stadiums tend to be neocons .. unless those are soccer/ping pong stadiums.

[phill4paul]

At least name the stadiums

"Extortion Field" or "Eminent SuperDome-ain."

[Zippyjuan]

The sports leagues aren't equal, football stadiums are rarely multi-use these days so you are right they do sit empty most of the time but the NFL is the most profitable professional sport league in the world and football is the most popular sport in America so obviously these franchises are high high demand. I'm a Packer fan so our relationship with the team is unlike pretty much another sport in the America because Packer fans are who own the team and its a non-profit organization that puts it's money back into the team and community, the NFL bylaws make it illegal for any other team besides to Packers to have this set up. I can't imagine municipalities can invest in buying sports teams either, if the NFL is so profitable then why doesn't the city of Los Angeles buy the team and put the profits into their general fund? These billionaire owners definitely don't deserve sympathy.

Which means they can easily afford their own stadiums without blackmailing communities to build them for them. If they were a public company, they would rank #50 on the Forbes list of largest corporations. http://www.sbnation.com/nfl/2015/7/2...deal-7-billion

How much money are we talking?

The NFL split a massive $7.24 billion in revenue with all 32 teams last season. Each team received $226.4 million as part of the split, most of which comes from the various television deals. The numbers come from the Green Bay Packers' annual financial report, via the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

If you're having trouble grasping the meaning of that massive amount of money, the NFL would qualify as one of the richest countries on the world, at least according to Wikipedia. Their numbers would put them somewhere in the 145 range. The league would rank somewhere around No. 50 overall when it comes to private companies as well, according to this list from Forbes.

More comparisons to help put $7.24 billion in context:

More than every Steven Spielberg movie ever at the box office, according to Box Office Mojo.
The NFL could buy four space shuttles.
10 Pluto missions with enough left over to pay Peyton Manning to run them.
Since 1997, American taxpayers have contributed a total of $4.7 billion for NFL stadiums.
Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers makes an average annual salary of $22 million -- to put this into perspective, the Packers made just over 10 times that amount in national revenue alone.

As the only NFL team publicly owned by fans, the Packers are required to release this financial information on a yearly basis. The numbers are up significantly from last year, in which roughly $6 billion was split between the teams. That's a pretty significant increase, which isn't surprising given the fact that new TV deals kicked in this past season.

Those TV deals include new basic deals with CBS, NBC, Fox, ABC, ESPN and the NFL Network, including the Thursday Night Football package for CBS. That deal was worth $275 million, and has been renewed for 2015 at $300 million. It's possible these numbers will be even more massive next year, as DirecTV and the NFL agreed on a new deal for NFL Sunday Ticket, which kicks in this season.

The national revenue sharing is up by a massive 120 percent over the last 11 years, according to Darren Rovell of ESPN. That also factors in inflation. To compare, for the 2012 season, teams received a $179.9 million slice of the pie. National revenue growth per team from 2005-10 was 16.2 percent, while from 2010-14 it grew a massive 136 percent. Needless to say, the TV deals are being awfully kind to the NFL these days. For the Packers themselves, they also reported a record of $375.7 million in revenue in 2014, up more than $50 million from the previous year.

Want to buy a team? Estimated value of the average team is $1.17 billion but if one was sold, the price would likely be higher. http://www.thephinsider.com/2014/6/1...-nfl-franchise

According to Forbes the value of all the NFL teams combined was approximately $37.44 billion dollars in 2013 ($1.17 billion average per team). As the chart below shows, the earlier you bought in to your franchise or the longer you have owned your team the more value your investment has gained as compared to inflation over the same period. Of course what a team is "valued" by a source like Forbes is often far less than the price for which the team can be sold. This is best proven by the recent auction of the L.A. Clippers that may or may not now go through (see fanshot on this deal vs NFL values HERE). Future additions to each picture like the team gaining a new stadium or, as in the Dolphins case, upcoming stadium upgrades that will bring in additional revenues to the team will also help drive up the value of the franchise.

Although the Dolphins, Sun Life Stadium and surrounding land was all sold to Stephen Ross as a package deal, only the potential revenue brought in by the stadium along with NFL revenues and sponsorships, not the value of the stadium, is figured in to the overall value of the team. Ultimately the true value of the team will be what the team can be sold for and as a package deal the team is worth more today than what was paid just six years ago. To date no NFL team has sold for more than what Ross paid for the Dolphins, with or without adjustments for inflation. The lowest price ever paid for an NFL team was when the Green Bay Packers joined the league in the inaugural season. The Packers joined the league for a franchise fee of $50, or $675.68 in 2014 dollars. Now that's a sound investment!

More at link.

[Suzanimal]

You're Paying for the Playoffs, Whether You Watch or Not
The taxman is the NFL's MVP

After a crazy NFL Wild Card weekend, in which the Cincinnati Bengals managed to snatch a loss from the jaws of victory and the Minnesota Vikings kicker blew a chance at an easy game-winning field goal, Americans are ready for another round of playoff football. Fans should tune in this weekend, as they are paying for the NFL whether they watch the games or not.

NFL owners are professionals at convincing politicians to fund their stadiums with taxpayer dollars through the use of tax-free municipal bonds. Though these financing tools were originally created by Congress to help fund roads and schools, they are now used to support a league that is worth $45 billion.

To show the varying ways that NFL owners shift the costs of new stadiums to local taxpayers, here are four examples from teams that will play in this weekend's divisional round: the Denver Broncos, Arizona Cardinals, New England Patriots, and Carolina Panthers.

Denver Broncos

The Denver Broncos play at Sports Authority Field at Mile High Stadium. Taxpayers took on a $300 million share of the $400 million cost of the stadium when construction began in 2002. One of the ways this public financing was paid for was through a 0.1 percent sales tax that was applied to taxpayers in six Colorado counties until 2012.

Taxpayers funded the majority of the stadium, but they are forced to split the $6 million annual profits from naming rights 50-50 with the Broncos. This is still better than the situation faced by Pittsburgh residents. The Broncos are playing the Steelers this weekend. The Steelers keep all of their $2.9 million a year in naming rights for Heinz Field, even though the public covered 61 percent of the cost.

Arizona Cardinals

Since 2006, the Cardinals have played at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. Though Glendale only has 240,000 residents, state and local taxpayers picked up $312 million of the stadium's $455 million cost. More than 40 percent of the city's debt comes from its sports complexes.

One of the ways the public bonds were paid back was through a 3.25 percent tax on rental cars. This is no longer an option because an Arizona judge struck down the tax in June 2014 (the state's constitution requires vehicle taxes to be used on highway-related purposes).

This annual loss of $12 million equals about a third of the yearly revenue used to cover stadium-related debt and costs. Due to another ruling in September 2015, the state also has to refund about $160 million in rental car taxes that it wrongfully collected.

It looks like local taxpayers will be paying off their team's current stadium for many more seasons, possibly even after the Cardinals move to a new venue. This problem is not limited to Glendale. On Saturday the Panthers play the Seahawks, and Seattle taxpayers just paid off the public debt from their team's previous stadium — 15 years after it was demolished.

New England Patriots

The hated New England Patriots treat local taxpayers surprisingly well. Patriots owner Robert Kraft arranged 100 percent private funding for the construction and maintenance of Gillette Stadium, which is located outside Boston.

Gillette Stadium and MetLife Stadium (shared by the New York Jets and Giants) are the only two NFL stadiums that were built and renovated without public funds. But even here there are still hidden costs for taxpayers.

Most public stadium cost figures are underestimated since other costs, such as maintenance expenses, capital improvements, municipal services, and the abatement of local property taxes, are not taken into account. Massachusetts agreed to spend $72 million on updating the infrastructure surrounding Gillette Stadium, and property taxes are not levied on the stadium.

Taking all these kinds of added expenses into account, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Patriots' opposition this weekend, actually received more in public funds for Arrowhead Stadium than it cost to build.

Carolina Panthers

The Panthers' home field since 1996, Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina, was billed as "privately financed," even though the city provided $40 million for land, and the county provided $10 million for building relocation.

In April 2013 the Charlotte City Council voted unanimously to give the Panthers $87.5 million to upgrade their stadium and renovate luxury suites. In exchange for this handout, the Panthers promised to stay in Charlotte for six more years. One of the reasons for the package's unanimous approval was a fear that the team would pack up and move to the Los Angeles area. This concern was overstated, as Carolina offers an attractive market for an NFL team. The Panthers took in $325 million in revenue and $78 million in operating income last season.

The specter of a hometown NFL team moving to LA is a common occurrence. This week, NFL owners voted on allowing a NFL team (or teams) to move to Los Angeles next season. The St. Louis Rams are now the LA Rams, and the option is open for the San Diego Charges or Oakland Raiders to join them.

Even though all three teams are profitable, their owners are upset with the offers they received to stay put. Missouri offered to pay for 40 percent of a new $1.1 billion riverfront stadium for the Rams. In response to this generous offer, Rams owner Stanley Kroenke said it would lead to "financial ruin."

St. Louis taxpayers should be glad that they've rid themselves of the burden of keeping their "first tier promise" to the ungrateful tenants of the Edward Jones Dome, the Rams' previous home stadium. Because of a lease agreement signed over two decades ago, the city was responsible for paying for upgrades to keep Edward Jones Dome in the top 25 percent of NFL stadiums.

The NFL does not need public funding to survive, and the argument that publicly funded stadiums "pay for themselves" is an economic fantasy (Check out this ReasonTV video for more on the empty promise of stadium subsidies.)

Even in the face of substantial public costs that are not covered by the few associated tourism benefits, no mayor or governor who wants to win reelection would let a team leave. Crazed fans refuse to consider the costs (if you want to watch an irate fan screaming at a mayor who questioned if a stadium subsidy was worth the cost, check out this video), and public officials are also embroiled in bidding wars for teams whose owners are all too happy to take advantage of generous taxpayer subsidies.

For these reasons, and because the abuse of public funds has gotten so out of hand, a federal solution is necessary.

In his 2016 budget, President Obama attempted to take away one of the main reasons that it is so common to use public funds to support private sports profits. He called for an end to the use of tax-exempt government bonds for stadium financing.

If President Obama's proposal is put into law, "bonds to finance professional sports facilities would be taxable private activity bonds if more than 10 percent of the facility is used for private business use." This means that NFL owners would lose their access to public, tax-free funds.

The tax reform efforts in 1986 also tried to limit this abuse of taxpayer funds by limiting to 10 percent the share of a bond's debt that could be repaid with ticket or concession sales. However, to get around this limitation states and localities resorted to rental car taxes, hotel taxes, or sales tax increases on their residents.

Though this limit was intended to stop the use of public funds to support private gains, it ended up forcing general taxpayers instead of NFL owners to pay off public loans. To put it another way, by law, at least 90 percent of these bonds have to be paid back by taxpayers instead of stadium-related revenue.

...

http://fee.org/anythingpeaceful/the-...-the-nfls-mvp/

[Zippyjuan]

Chargers have a year open to decide what they want to do. They can move to LA and join the Rams or stay home and try to get a new stadium here. If they become joint partners in the LA stadium, they will be sharing the costs of the stadium (estimated to be over $1 billion so they will need at least half a $billion for that) as well as paying $550 million (another half billion) for the rights to move. Meanwhile proposals for building a stadium in San Diego have the team paying about half the costs (taxpayers subsidies covering the rest) and they complain that their $500 million share would be too expensive for them. While spending twice as much to leave town is being considered an "economically viable" option.

Chargers ownership said they are considering leaving town to "protect their market share" but if they are in San Diego or in Los Angeles they are still facing competition from the Rams. In LA they are going to be competing directly for the exact same potential ticket buyers in the same geographic region- in San Diego they are competing for local ticket buyers here.

Then there is the now raised possibility that should San Diego move to LA the Raiders move to San Diego giving them even more competition for sales. If the Chargers stay in San Diego then the Raiders get the option to work out a deal with the Rams. Either way, the Chargers are in a weaker position than before it was agreed that the Rams could build their stadium in LA. They have less leverage to extort stadium money from San Diego too. Another suggested option is that the Chargers owners sell the team.

If a business wants to fund and build their own stadium like the Rams, go for it. I don't think tax payers should give them the money to do it with. San Diego still has to pay about $5 million a year for the next decade for improvements they made a long time ago to the stadium. Costs to the city for upkeeping the stadium for the next 20 years are estimated to cost the city $250- $300 million- even if the don't build a new one.

Other Chargers option is to lease space in the LA stadium. That means lower costs up front but lower profits in the future (smaller share of stadium revenues). It is all about the dollars.

[euphemia]

The Rams belong in LA. That's all I have to say about that.

[Suzanimal]

NFL Subsidies: Taxpayers Left High and Dry After Rams Move to Los Angeles

With a great deal of fanfare from the National Football League (NFL) and the owner of the St. Louis Rams, the announcement was made on January 14 that the St. Louis Rams would be moving to Los Angeles. What was left out of that announcement was that taxpayers would still be on the hook paying for the Edward Jones Dome in. St. Louis.

St. Louis and Missouri taxpayers paid the full $280 million cost of construction for the Edward Jones Dome in 1995. In an effort to keep the Rams in St. Louis, government officials tried to persuade the team to stay with the promise of $500 million for a new billion-dollar stadium. Rams owner, and billionaire, Stan Kroenke decided to move despite the generous taxpayer gift. The problem is that Missouri taxpayers aren’t off the hook because they will be paying $12 million until 2022 on the Edward Jones Dome.

http://www.againstcronycapitalism.or...o-los-angeles/

[Voluntarist]

xxxxx

[Suzanimal]

SunTrust Park parking restricted near Cobb County stadium

Fred Beloin and his partners bought the office building on Heritage Court in 2003, long before the Atlanta Braves announced their intention to move in next door with a new stadium and sprawling mixed-use development.

Beloin said they had planned substantial investment in the property because of SunTrust Park’s opening next year — they’d need fencing, walls, and some combination of security gates and guards for the parking lot. The attorney had hoped to earn back a portion of that money by charging fans for use of their 100-space parking lot on some game days.

But Cobb County shut down that idea, when commissioners in February quietly passed an ordinance that outlaws property owners within a half-mile of the stadium from charging for parking during games and other special events at the stadium. SunTrust Park is partially funded with $400 million from Cobb taxpayers.

“This irks the (heck) out of me,” said Beloin, who has previously tangled with the county over zoning around the stadium, and was unaware of the ordinance until told about it by an Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter. “They say they’re increasing my property value and then they do everything in their power to make sure I get no benefit out of it.”

The ordinance closes off potential revenue for dozens of businesses that own more than 10,000 private spaces — many of which could compete with the team for parking revenue.

County officials say the law is necessary for public safety, and note that property owners ineligible for a license because of their proximity to the stadium can file an appeal to the county commission. But critics see it as a heavy-handed attempt to protect Braves parking revenue, and help the team as it negotiates leases with nearby lot owners for supplemental parking.

The Braves collected $4.6 million in parking revenue last year at Turner Field, according to documents the team provided to the Atlanta Fulton County Recreation Authority.

For thousands of fans, the restriction could mean fewer parking options on game days, making it less convenient or more expensive to go to a stadium with no direct MARTA access. The full impact isn’t known because the Braves haven’t yet released their own parking plan.

“Why would the Cobb Commission not want fans to be able to park this close to the stadium?” Beloin said.

The ordinance was requested by the Braves and passed without public debate just three months before stiff primary election challenges to Commission Chairman Tim Lee and Commissioner Bob Ott, whose district includes SunTrust Park. Lee and Ott were co-sponsors of the ordinance.
....

http://www.myajc.com/news/news/local...ts-at-s/nrpz7/

[Suzanimal]

The New Vikings Stadium Is a Broken Window Metaphor Come to Life

Friday's grand opening of U.S. Bank Stadium, the $1.1 billion new home of the National Football League's Minnesota Vikings, was marred by a bit of vandalism. The façade of the new stadium was damaged last week when a vandal tossed a rock through one of the hundreds of glass panels that cover every inch of the stadium's exterior.

The result: a hole big enough for a small human to crawl through, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. The 10-foot-by-five-foot exterior glass panel was smashed, though an interior panel did not break.

The newspaper said stadium security suspect the rock responsible for the damage was part of a "pile of decorative rock" located adjacent to the stadium's north side.

You have to wonder about the wisdom of leaving "piles of decorative rock" next to billion-dollar rendition of a Jawa sandcrawler covered in glass. It makes a very inviting target if you find it pleasant to break something from time to time, or if you're frustrated by the expense of the publicly funded stadium and want to make Austrian economic parables come to life.

That's because U.S. Bank Stadium, like many of today's taxpayer-funded professional playgrounds, is itself a giant testament to the enduring power of the broken windows fallacy.

Minnesota taxpayers fronted $348 million for the stadium, thanks to legislation signed in 2012 by Gov. Mark Dayton. The same bill required Minneapolis to fund an additional $150 million for the stadium, which the city did by increasing hospitality taxes.

Like the broken window in Bastiat's parable—which points out that economic activity redirected from one "unseen" purpose to another "seen" one, as in when a broken window is repeaired, does not produce a net positive in economic activity—new stadiums don't generate new economic activity, they merely redirect it.

In other words: What could have been done with those millions of dollars had they remained in the hands of Minnesota families and businesses? We'll never know.

But we do know that the stadium is unlikely to generate net economic benefits for the Twin Cities.

"Sports facilities attract neither tourists nor new industry," concluded economists Andrew Zimbalist and Roger G. Noll at the Brookings Institute in a report published nearly two decades ago, as cities across the country were embarking on a stadium-building binge. "A new sports facility has an extremely small (perhaps even negative) effect on overall economic activity and employment."

At the end of the 2010 season, the average public bill for the 121 professional sports stadiums in the United States was $259 million, according to research from the University of Michigan. The same study found that taxpayers lost $31 billion in net economic costs for stadium construction.

A 2012 analysis by Bloomberg found that taxpayers were on the hook for more than $4 billion in bond payments for professional sports stadiums built since 1996.

Yet local governments keep committing big bucks to stadium projects.

In Hartford, Connecticut, local officials have blown through $63 million on a publicly financed stadium and still don't have anything to show for it. In Cobb County, Georgia, county officials had to raise taxes to keep public parks open after spending $400 million on a new stadium for baseball's Atlanta Braves.

The list goes on and on. And on.

Incredibly, the Vikings say it will take up to two months to replace the damaged window at U.S Bank Stadium, since all the glass panels were custom-made. There's no word on how much those massive, custom-made glass panels will cost to replace, but they probably won't be cheap.

......

http://reason.com/blog/2016/07/26/ne...://reason.com/

[Suzanimal]

The New Vikings Stadium Is a Broken Window Metaphor Come to Life

Friday's grand opening of U.S. Bank Stadium, the $1.1 billion new home of the National Football League's Minnesota Vikings, was marred by a bit of vandalism. The façade of the new stadium was damaged last week when a vandal tossed a rock through one of the hundreds of glass panels that cover every inch of the stadium's exterior.

The result: a hole big enough for a small human to crawl through, according to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. The 10-foot-by-five-foot exterior glass panel was smashed, though an interior panel did not break.

The newspaper said stadium security suspect the rock responsible for the damage was part of a "pile of decorative rock" located adjacent to the stadium's north side.

You have to wonder about the wisdom of leaving "piles of decorative rock" next to billion-dollar rendition of a Jawa sandcrawler covered in glass. It makes a very inviting target if you find it pleasant to break something from time to time, or if you're frustrated by the expense of the publicly funded stadium and want to make Austrian economic parables come to life.

That's because U.S. Bank Stadium, like many of today's taxpayer-funded professional playgrounds, is itself a giant testament to the enduring power of the broken windows fallacy.

Minnesota taxpayers fronted $348 million for the stadium, thanks to legislation signed in 2012 by Gov. Mark Dayton. The same bill required Minneapolis to fund an additional $150 million for the stadium, which the city did by increasing hospitality taxes.

Like the broken window in Bastiat's parable—which points out that economic activity redirected from one "unseen" purpose to another "seen" one, as in when a broken window is repeaired, does not produce a net positive in economic activity—new stadiums don't generate new economic activity, they merely redirect it.

In other words: What could have been done with those millions of dollars had they remained in the hands of Minnesota families and businesses? We'll never know.

But we do know that the stadium is unlikely to generate net economic benefits for the Twin Cities.

"Sports facilities attract neither tourists nor new industry," concluded economists Andrew Zimbalist and Roger G. Noll at the Brookings Institute in a report published nearly two decades ago, as cities across the country were embarking on a stadium-building binge. "A new sports facility has an extremely small (perhaps even negative) effect on overall economic activity and employment."

At the end of the 2010 season, the average public bill for the 121 professional sports stadiums in the United States was $259 million, according to research from the University of Michigan. The same study found that taxpayers lost $31 billion in net economic costs for stadium construction.

A 2012 analysis by Bloomberg found that taxpayers were on the hook for more than $4 billion in bond payments for professional sports stadiums built since 1996.

Yet local governments keep committing big bucks to stadium projects.

In Hartford, Connecticut, local officials have blown through $63 million on a publicly financed stadium and still don't have anything to show for it. In Cobb County, Georgia, county officials had to raise taxes to keep public parks open after spending $400 million on a new stadium for baseball's Atlanta Braves.

The list goes on and on. And on.

Incredibly, the Vikings say it will take up to two months to replace the damaged window at U.S Bank Stadium, since all the glass panels were custom-made. There's no word on how much those massive, custom-made glass panels will cost to replace, but they probably won't be cheap.

...

http://reason.com/blog/2016/07/26/ne...-broken-window

[dannno]

Geez Suz, do you not care about civic pride???

The Chargers’ proposed downtown stadium ballot measure won its biggest endorsement Thursday from the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce.

“No ballot measure is ever perfect,” President and CEO Jerry Sanders told a press conference at the Chargers headquarters, “but in our evaluation, the benefits far outweigh the risks. And more importantly, the positive effect a new stadium will have on this region is good for business and good for civic pride.”

He said of the 46 board members participating, two voted no and several abstained. He declined to give the exact count.

The Chargers successfully gathered enough signatures to put the project on the Nov. 8 ballot. It would authorize a new stadium, east of Petco Park on the MTS bus yard and Tailgate Park lot. A convention center annex would be built close enough to expand onto the playing field.

To pay for the project, the initiative would raise the city hotel room tax from the present 12.5 percent to 16.5 percent. Other funding would come from the NFL and the Chargers via seat licenses, naming rights, sponsorships and other sources. A two-thirds approval by city voters would be required unless the state Supreme Court rules otherwise.

A competing measure, called the Citizens Plan, would raise the tax to 15.5 percent and bar using public funds for the stadium, unless voters later approve. It would also lay out university-related redevelopment and river park options for the Qualcomm Stadium property in Mission Valley.

Chargers Chairman Dean Spanos welcomed the chamber action, which came nearly four months after the team launched its initiative.

“We would not have a chance of success without the support of the chamber,” he said. “It’s a long road ahead of us and we’re up to the challenge. We’re committed to getting this thing approved and we’re going to do it.”

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/...adium-endorse/

[Suzanimal]

Geez Suz, do you not care about civic pride???

Nope.

[dannno]

Nope.

That's actually one reason I've stayed clear of buying a Honda....last thing I need is a car named after the government.

[JustinTime]

I live in a small city, but we too are putting a lot of money into a stadium for our local high school teams.

I'm not saying pro-sports are blameless, they deserve a lot, but we should realize a lot of this is kickbacks to campaign donors who get lucrative contracts for this and that, and/or real estate deals.

My town just remodeled its largest marina, and nothing was wrong with the way it was, but going through the list of people paid by the city during the project, contractors, lawyers, consultants, artists, engineering firms, you begin to realize "Wait a minnit!"

[Danke]

That's actually one reason I've stayed clear of buying a Honda....last thing I need is a car named after the government.

Huh?

[oyarde]

Huh?

I dunno , but all the hotel tax up there may be worth it if the Vikings could be the Packers , Bears & Lions and win the NFC .

[dannno]

Huh?

[kpitcher]

The new HBO Show Any Given Wednesday is a sport talk show. Recently Marc Cuban was on and spoke out against public funding of stadiums. When owners drop 2 billion to buy a sport franchise they can well afford to build any stadium that is needed for their business.

Is the NFL still considered a non profit?

[angelatc]

if the NFL is so profitable then why doesn't the city of Los Angeles buy the team and put the profits into their general fund? These billionaire owners definitely don't deserve sympathy.

Cleveland did that, and the owners quickly changed the rules so it can't be done again.

[angelatc]

The new HBO Show Any Given Wednesday is a sport talk show. Recently Marc Cuban was on and spoke out against public funding of stadiums. When owners drop 2 billion to buy a sport franchise they can well afford to build any stadium that is needed for their business.

Is the NFL still considered a non profit?

Crappy question comes up again and again. The NFL *is* a non-profit. The money the teams make is all taxed - the NFL itself exists only in an administrative capacity.

If you're advocating for revoking non-profit status, you're advocating for double taxation on a forum where most of us believe that #TaxationIsTheft