Taxpayers cover, on average, 78 percent of the cost of stadium constructions, even as the NFL rakes in $13 billion a year and team owners typically maintain their own sources of independent wealth. Football (not to mention baseball, basketball, and hockey, whose leagues are just as guilty here) is big business with big money behind it. Why should it get such big subsidies?
Of course, for politicians, the answer is easy: Lots of people like sports, so if you’re the governor or mayor whose refusal to comply with a team’s every demand is cited as their reason for moving, there’s a strong chance you will no longer be governor or mayor. Still, PR benefits don’t guarantee a wise financial decision. Stadiums are “big, discrete projects,” explains Craig Depken, a sports economist at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. “They’re very obvious. Politicians can point to them. Team owners can point to them. Even fans can look at the stadiums and enjoy them.”
None of that changes the fact, Depken adds, that when economists consider “whether or not the subsidies to publicly funded stadiums are worth it or the benefits outweigh the costs,” nearly nine in 10 say subsidies should be eliminated outright.
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