Stadium Subsidiaries- Not Worth the Cost
By: Samuel Winegar
Submitted to: Dr. S. Ray Barnes
10/21/2014
Thesis
Sports stadium subsidies are government funding for professional sports stadiums. These subsidies can total hundreds of millions of dollars. There are some benefits that come from a professional sports stadium. Many critics disagree with this spending. They feel that the money spent on stadiums can be more useful spent on other things. The question at hand is: Do the benefits of these stadium subsidies outweigh their high costs? This paper will examine these issues.
Introduction
The article “The Impact of Stadiums and Arenas” published in CRE Real Estate (1996) discusses the benefits of stadium subsidiaries. In the…show more content… Where does all of that revenue go? Most of it goes to the teams owners. These owners have also spent little money on the construction of the stadium. The article “NFL Sacks Taxpayers for Billions in Stadium Subsidies and Other Goodies” by Eric Boehm (2013) points out that taxpayers average covering 70 percent of the costs of an NFL stadium. The city and the tax payers who financed the stadium do not see any of that money. Therefore, the already rich team owners are getting richer, while the average tax payer of the city sees an increase in taxes, and no return of his or her investment Gordon (2013). This shows that the stadiums benefit a few people greatly, but the city as a whole does not see as much benefit as would be expected from their costly investment Gordon (2013). The people who make the investment do not see much financial benefit from it Boehm (2013). It is hard to support this being worth the investment since only a few people will be realizing a…show more content… The benefits are ultimately not much better than those of bringing in any other 100 million dollar company. The difference is that there are many companies that can be brought in for much cheaper than the near 500 million dollars required to construct a professional sporting stadium. This shows that there are a lot of other options for stimulating your cities economy that are much cheaper. It appears that the economic benefits of a professional sports stadium are ultimately not significant enough to justify their high