I have been told that the NFL stadiums in PA have paid back the taxpayers for the money to build them.
Is this true and how do I even find this out?
Who told you this? I can find no reference to this, anywhere, at all.
Not as of 2010. According to this article, the Steelers and Eagles are just as big deadbeats as every other billionaire-owned pro sports team that cries poverty whenever they want a new stadium:
I think his question relates more to the economic impact for the area around the stadium. Since the Steelers and Eagles have been playing in their stadiums (with a $130 million upgrade a few years back) for 16 and 14 years, respectively. Seeing economic uptick of $18 million per year, given 10 home games (plus playoffs), seems very possible.
It’s a different scenario, but back in 2009, the Green Bay Packers estimated a bit less than $90 million in spending from non-residents that would most likely not occur without the stadium/team, another $40 million in indirect impacts, and ~$9 million in additional tax revenue. So that’s one data point, though probably at the high end given the small size of the surrounding city and large playerbase.
We both live in PA. I find it a little funny that he says this about PA teams only.
He is an Eagle fan, so, I take it with a grain of salt and a couple shakes of pepper. This sounds like a cop-out.
I just wanted to find out if it was true or not.
Unless that $18 million economic uptick means additional tax revenue, that just means that some businesses recouped the money the public spent. The public didn’t get it back.
Well those businesses provide jobs for the public, so there’s that benefit.
If the money people are spending at surrounding businesses or at the stadium itself would have been spent on something else in the state anyway, it doesn’t make sense to count it as a benefit brought on by the stadium.
I doubt they’ve paid us back.
I remember from the local news media when we got screwed and had to pay for the Iggles’ stadium. Various experts said that the team would NOT and could not leave the city of brotherly love. Various experts said the stadium would NOT bring in additional revenue. I read the testimony of these experts in the Inquirer (for youse who don’t know, the Ink is the newspaper of note here), and in the alternative weeklies.
The local government paid for the new stadium anyway.
I am 90% sure Heinz and PNC Park are both still in debt. We didn’t finally pay off Three Rivers until 2010 almost 10 years after we blew it up.
Not totally on point but interesting:
https://www.watchdog.org/pennsylvania/billion-and-counting-for-state-s-taxpayer-funded-stadiums/article_d5f040af-fd5e-5272-8a5b-aac4b41f1dd4.html