Brandon Brown
The tragicomedy of the Oakland A’s relocation served as a sharp reminder about how entitled sports team owners feel when it comes to obtaining public funds for stadium projects. Of course, this is not a new phenomenon, and the line of owners seeking these handouts is a constant presence in major professional team sports.
On Monday, Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred was asked about this question during his appearance at the 2024 Associated Press Sports Editors Commissioners Meetings. Here is his response:
“There is a long history of public funding not just of baseball, but also of sports facilities in general. Expenditures, public funds that people consider justified as part of the quality of life and entertainment opportunities available to residents in specific cities, as well as Certainly On that last point, I recognize this is something some will debate, but whatever its merits in general, investing in baseball facilities is the best of (sports) investments due to the numbers at the games just attracting more people to it. the entertainment market than any other sport, just based on sheer volume. I think in today’s world, almost every project, whether it’s new stadiums, major renovations, all those types of projects, almost without exception – and this is. different from what it was a few decades ago – these are public-private partnerships with team owners who make really substantial investments, hundreds of millions of dollars. I think the Las Vegas project is a great example of this: it is a billion and a half dollar project where public financing, I think the number is US$380 (million) and the rest of this investment will be made by the owner. ”
This is not a notable departure from the usual approach given to such things by team owners or those who represent their interests. One person’s “public-private partnership” is another person’s corporate welfare. Manfred’s observations, however, invite new evaluations of these arguments typically presented to justify the use of tax dollars to build stadiums.
Manfred is right that the practice of public financing of professional sports facilities is entrenched. Equally entrenched, however, is the evidence that the “economic engine” aspect of stadium construction is non-existent. The academic research on the issue is unequivocal: cities and states do not receive anything approaching an adequate return on their investments in professional sports facilities, be they stadiums, basketball arenas, football stadiums, or anything else. To name just one, here is the result of economist Robert Baade’s extensive 1994 study of 48 cities over 30 years:
“Far from generating new revenue from which other projects can be financed, sports ‘investments’ appear to be an economically unsound use of a community’s scarce financial resources.”
More specifically, Baade found that of the 30 cities with new facilities, 27 showed no signs of measurable economic growth and the other three recorded per capita income. to decrease after the respective site has been financed and built. This is not an atypical study. It is representative of an overwhelmingly robust consensus, and no amount of superficial rejection by those who hope to defend handouts can change those facts.
The other noteworthy part of Manfred’s comments is the $380 million price tag on the public if the A’s move to Las Vegas actually happens. Manfred’s recollection is correct, as $380 million is the supposed amount Nevada taxpayers will cover. In fact, Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo signed a $380 million public financing bill in mid-June. However, as Neil DeMause explained in Field of Schemes, the real price of the public contribution will almost certainly be much, much higher. This is no coincidence, as property owners and the commissioners who defend them have a chronic habit of decreasing the amount of money the public will end up contributing to projects that often turn out to be wasteful. Even in the rare projects considered entirely financed by private money, we often see donations of valuable city-owned land, infrastructure improvements that would not otherwise be needed being paid for by the public, and property tax reductions granted to citizens. team that hurt the municipal bottom line as much as any direct debit would.
Ignoring these realities is, of course, what is necessary to make the project seem more palatable to a suspicious public. Speaking of which, it’s no coincidence that when these projects are put to public referendum, they usually fail. That was the case recently in Kansas City when both the Chiefs and Royals looked for handouts; more than 58% of voters rejected the state tax referendum in April. That’s why teams and local officials who pine for some kind of vanity project often do what they can to prevent the public from having a direct say in how their money is spent. The A’s and team-friendly civic leaders in Las Vegas did just that. Popular opponents of using tax dollars for sports facilities generally want nothing more than to put it to a vote, and those on the other side are determined not to let that happen, because they know what it’s like when the crowd is asked whether a team billionaire owner should receive part of the tax money.
Most likely, the answer to questions like the one asked of Manfred will not change – it will continue to be a mixture of obfuscation and evasion. You, however, have the power to recognize the facts and not believe what you are told, no matter how many times you hear it.
