# Taxpayer money should not be used on stadiums **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 11, 2015, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxpayer-money-should-not-be-used-on-stadiums/737296 "2015-11-11T16:24:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2015, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxpayer-money-should-not-be-used-on-stadiums/737296/61 "2015-11-12T22:04:47Z")
> [@ISiddiqui](#): > > Multiple countries with essentially one major league compared to one country with basically three major leagues (I don’t count hockey as competing with talent with football). … what? Association football competes in the UK, Italy and France with two flavors of rugby; in France, Spain and Italy with basketball; in the UK with cricket, and so on. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2015, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxpayer-money-should-not-be-used-on-stadiums/737296/62 "2015-11-12T22:13:47Z")
Dr Cube: > [@](#): > > Maybe I’m ignorant here, but are minor leagues a baseball-only phenomenon? Hockey has minor leagues, and basketball has one minor league. Football has no associated minor leagues, although arena football fills a niche in cities too small for NFL teams. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2015, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxpayer-money-should-not-be-used-on-stadiums/737296/63 "2015-11-12T22:39:25Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > … what? Association football competes in the UK, Italy and France with two flavors of rugby; in France, Spain and Italy with basketball; in the UK with cricket, and so on. How much of that is an actual “competition”? Do you have a lot of reports of UK kids being really conflicted about choosing between soccer, rugby, or cricket or some trying out professional cricket before going back to soccer? I mean some of the biggest pro football stars in the US were courted by other sports - John Elway famously used it (the Yankees were offering him quite a lucrative deal) to create leverage for his trade from the Colts to the Broncos. For example, from the wikipedia entry on Rugby League in England: > [@](#): > > Rugby league is one of a number of sports vying for (distant) second place to association football in the nation’s affection. Historically, rugby league has been the second biggest spectator sport in England with 6.8 million spectators attending the 1948-1949 English season. > > The MORI Sports Tracker consistently reports that rugby league interests around 15% of British adults. It was the fourth most popular team sport in the February 2005 list behind football, cricket and rugby union; 12% of British adults watched it regularly.[28] > **[Rugby league in England](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_league_in_England)** > > Rugby league is played across England but is most popular in Northern England, especially Yorkshire and Lancashire where the game originated. These areas are the heartland of rugby league. The sport is also popular in Cumbria where the amateur game is particularly powerful. > Within its Northern heartlands, rugby league is often referred to as "rugby", a term that in the rest of England would normally refer to rugby union, and occasionally as "football", which even in the North of England norm... ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2015, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxpayer-money-should-not-be-used-on-stadiums/737296/64 "2015-11-12T22:44:38Z")
Sure. [Geoff Hurst](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2813735/How-Sir-Geoff-nearly-ended-Lord-s-World-Cup-hero-Hurst-reveals-considered-quitting-football-cricket-four-years-1966-World-Cup.html), most famously, but there are plenty more. [Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain](http://www.tribalfootball.com/articles/arsenal-almost-lost-oxlade-chamberlain-rugby-1931271), if you want an example with rugby. I think if we’re going to go any further than this we should probably start a new thread, though. ---
**Author:** ![ISiddiqui](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/97f17d/32.png) [@ISiddiqui](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ISiddiqui)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2015, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxpayer-money-should-not-be-used-on-stadiums/737296/65 "2015-11-12T22:46:09Z")
And Rugby Union in England: > [@](#): > > The percentage of people declaring to be interested in rugby union in England has been fairly constant over the period 1996-2005, for which we have data.[6] This proportion decreased slightly from 24% in 1995 to 18% before the 2003 Rugby World Cup, it jumped to 27% after England’s victory over Australia in the World Cup final. In 2005, 23% of the population were declaring an interest in rugby union, placing this sport at the 6th place in England. To the question whether they watch rugby union on TV, 21% of sampled people answered positively in 2005, up two points relative to 1996 (19%). In this category, it places rugby union at the second place in England behind football. The viewing figures for the final of the Premiership indicate that 91,000 viewers watched the 2011 final on TV when it was broadcast on ESPN for the first time. In 2010, the final was watched by 225,000 viewers on Sky.[7] > > In terms of average attendance, the Aviva Premiership is the third best attended club competition in England behind the top two association football leagues, the Premier League and The Championship. The highest club attendances at Aviva Premiership matches are starting to become similar to some of the lower attended matches in football’s Championship, with game attendances averaging 12,500 in 2011 compared with 17,400 in the football Championship.[8] > **[Rugby union in England](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_union_in_England)** > > Rugby union in England is one of the leading professional and recreational team sports. In 1871 the Rugby Football Union, the governing body for rugby union in England, was formed by 21 rugby clubs, and the first international match, which involved England, was played in Scotland. The England national team compete annually in the Six Nations Championship, and are former world champions after winning the 2003 Rugby World Cup. The top domestic men's club competition is Premiership Rugby, and En... ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2015, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxpayer-money-should-not-be-used-on-stadiums/737296/66 "2015-11-12T23:13:00Z")
> [@ISiddiqui](#): > > How much of that is an actual “competition”? It’s not competition in the same way as actors competing for a role or interviewees competing for a job, but athletic kids grow up playing the sports that are popular. And as they progress, they start specializing. And somewhere along the line they have to make a choice of what sport to specialize in. This is all long before the talent scouts see them, but it’s important. For example, the US no longer medals in Olympic weightlifting. We used to be the best, in the days of York Barbell and Strength and Health magazine. China, with a hundred million kids they can funnel through the system like a sieve, eats weightlifting medals like candy these days. USA Weightlifting, on the other hand, has to settle for whichever athletes couldn’t make it in the NFL or MLB. High school kids don’t want to be the next Norbert Schemansky. They want to be the next Michael Jordan, or Tom Brady, or Albert Pujols. So the competition is there, it’s just not visible, because it happens in high school, before kids make it to the professional level. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxpayer-money-should-not-be-used-on-stadiums/737296/67 "2015-11-13T00:48:22Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Really I think this is the only hoenst answer. > > Look, sports tadiums are a bad investment in terms of expected return. A city that spends $500 million on a stadium is NOT going to get $500 million back. All the talk of economic benefit and jobs is bullshit. Everyone knows it’s bullshit. Every study ever done has conclusively demonstrated it’s bullshit. > > There is, however, absolutely nothing stupid about pride. Cities SHOULD spend money on things that don’t have a tangible economic return - parks, libraries, putting pretty trees up, Christmas lights, that kind of thing. A sports team can be a point of great civic pride. A city’s job is to make itself a pleasant place for people to live, not to serve as an investment vehicle. I see nothing wrong with a city building a sports venue for pride \*if the people are given an honest vote on it. \* > > If the City of Toronto went to the people and said “We have a chance to get an NFL team if we build a $800 million stadium. Fact is it’s probably $800 million we’ll never see again, but then Toronto will have an NFL team and that would be awesome. Vote yes and we get awesome; vote no and we save the money” then that is an honest and fair thing to do, and the people can have their say. > > What’s wrong is if they do it without asking the people, or if they lie about it by saying “oh, don’t worry, we’ll make money on this.” Agreed on all points, and there is no better example of all of this – both the good and the bad – than the Skydome in Toronto, now the [Rogers Centre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogers_Centre) and home of the Blue Jays. It cost $570 million to build decades ago – almost $1 billion in today’s dollars – which was a huge cost overrun. The majority of it was public money. It then had a history of financial problems and was finally bought by Rogers for the astoundingly cut-rate price of just $25 million, which is less than the selling price of some upscale Toronto homes. OTOH, it’s an icon of the city and an integral part of its skyline along with the CN tower. Except it’s of more practical value – besides Blue Jays games, it’s a venue for lots of large-scale events and was the site of many of the events of the recent Pan Am games. ---
**Author:** ![PhillyGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ed655f/32.png) [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxpayer-money-should-not-be-used-on-stadiums/737296/68 "2015-11-13T02:41:14Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > Maybe not with In-n-out, but numerous companies whore themselves out to many cities, for subsidies, tax holidays, cancellable loans, etc. to move their operations there. Happens everyday across America. Corporate welfare at its best. Right. This should be illegal because it results in moving job around the country, disrupting families, with no net benefit. I’m not sure exactly how to word the law, but I do favor some sort of commercial taxation uniformity clause that bans cities and states giving companies a break for reasons such as building new facilities or threatening to leave town. A likely side effect is that they couldn’t subsidize stadiums. Fine with me. ---
**Author:** ![Snnipe\_70E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5a626/32.png) [@Snnipe\_70E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snnipe_70E)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxpayer-money-should-not-be-used-on-stadiums/737296/69 "2015-11-13T07:13:10Z")
The only tax payer money that should be used is minor road changes. Stadiums should be built with private money. If a team wants a new stadium then they can build it. Using tax payer money to build a structure that the profit from activities there goes to private industry is wrong. If a stadium is going to be built for a team the team should sign a contract paying rent until the cost of the stadium is paid for and if the team moves to another stadium they should have to still pay until the stadium is fully paid off. Also why should the citizens of a city pay for a stadium for the people that live around the city and do not pay taxes in the city. The citizens of Oakland got stuck with a large bill when Jerry Brown as mayor signed the contract with the Raiders. But a large number probably over half the people that attend Raiders games live in other cities and counties. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxpayer-money-should-not-be-used-on-stadiums/737296/70 "2015-11-13T13:30:51Z")
You’re all such unimaginative Americans. Even you Canadians. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxpayer-money-should-not-be-used-on-stadiums/737296/71 "2015-11-13T13:36:56Z")
> [@Snnipe\_70E](#): > > Also why should the citizens of a city pay for a stadium for the people that live around the city and do not pay taxes in the city. The citizens of Oakland got stuck with a large bill when Jerry Brown as mayor signed the contract with the Raiders. But a large number probably over half the people that attend Raiders games live in other cities and counties. That would technically be to the BENEFIT of Oakland, not its detriment. If people from outside the city come into it to spend money, that’s good for Oakland, not bad. It still doesn’t make a stadium a positive financial investment, but this is a strange argument. ---
**Author:** ![LH75](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lh75/32/4438_2.png) [@LH75](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LH75)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxpayer-money-should-not-be-used-on-stadiums/737296/72 "2015-11-13T14:45:57Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > How do you feel about gym class? > > Personally, I’m for youth sports, I think they’re an important part of learning and that the city/state should subsidize them to some extent. Professional adult sports teams are another thing entirely. They’re a private business and should succeed or fail on their merits, same as any other private business. I oppose tax breaks for Boeing and Toyota too. But some tax breaks are one thing, “Here, we’ll build your billion dollar facility for you” is several orders of magnitude worse. > > Hell, I’m not even a fan of the monopoly protections the NFL and MLB are granted by the feds either. I’d like to see new leagues sprout up to challenge them once in awhile. Hey there **DrCube** Gym class, as part of the curriculum, doesn’t concern me. The taxpayer money spent on fielding varsity sports is money that could be much better spent on educational resources available for all of the students rather than the select few of the more popular and athletic kids. You want your kid to play varsity football? Then you pay for it. Don’t dig into my pocket for it. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Wiggler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/red_wiggler/32/13190_2.png) [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxpayer-money-should-not-be-used-on-stadiums/737296/73 "2015-11-13T14:54:49Z")
> [@LH75](#): > > Hey there **DrCube** > > Gym class, as part of the curriculum, doesn’t concern me. > > The taxpayer money spent on fielding varsity sports is money that could be much better spent on educational resources available for all of the students rather than the select few of the more popular and athletic kids. > > You want your kid to play varsity football? Then you pay for it. Don’t dig into my pocket for it. I’m having an ongoing conversation about this topic with a new co-worker from Slovakia, who is astounded at the amount of time and expense spent on sports in our public schools. I think making athletic activities as publicly available as possible is a worthwhile endeavor; I just don’t think the schools are the best venue for doing so for lots of reasons. ---
**Author:** ![LH75](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lh75/32/4438_2.png) [@LH75](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LH75)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxpayer-money-should-not-be-used-on-stadiums/737296/74 "2015-11-13T15:50:32Z")
Where I live there are team sorts available for any level, age and ability. All of them are available outside of taxpayer funded schools. My Nephew plays select Baseball. He practices year round, and plays three or four games a week all spring and summer. His parents pay for this. My daughters played fast pitch softball from age 8 to 16. I paid for it and served on the board of the organization sponsoring the teams. Let the schools educate. ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/82dd89/32.png) [@Kearsen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxpayer-money-should-not-be-used-on-stadiums/737296/75 "2015-11-13T16:31:20Z")
> [@boffking](#): > > It is a ridiculous waste of money to use tax funds to build stadiums for teams. Sports teams that make their own profit I might add. Any other business has to pay for its own facilities, why should sports teams be any different? Stadiums and sports teams bring in gobs of money for the city, GOBS. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxpayer-money-should-not-be-used-on-stadiums/737296/76 "2015-11-13T16:50:12Z")
> [@Kearsen](#): > > Stadiums and sports teams bring in gobs of money for the city, GOBS. No, they absolutely do not. Read the thread, then do some research. Look, I know this is sort of a common belief, and it’s how cities sell you on the stadium, but they are absolutely not moneymakers for a city. They never have been. There isn’t an iota of evidence that building a stadium is a good investment. Perhaps more to the point, they are a terrible investment in terms of marginal utility. A $500 million baseball stadium creates some jobs for sure - someone has to build the stadium. But presumably, $500 million in, say, mass transit or highways or water treatment plants would ALSO create jobs. Furthermore, those are things that facilitate economic activity in a city; a sports stadium basically just facilitates the sports team making money, but a better expressway helps almost every business in a city make money. It helps the citizenry spend less time in traffic and more time being productive. Do stadiums cause people to come spend more money in the city? According to the evidence, not to a significant degree; it simply diverts money that would already have been spent on something to being spent on something else. Of course, in the case of professional sports, you also have the fact that much if not most of the money being spent on jobs is being paid to professional athletes, who’re unlikely to spend most of their money locally. [http://americansforprosperity.org/florida/article/the-true-economics-of-taxpayer-funded-stadiums/](http://americansforprosperity.org/florida/article/the-true-economics-of-taxpayer-funded-stadiums/) > **[\- The Atlantic](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/09/if-you-build-it-they-might-not-come-the-risky-economics-of-sports-stadiums/260900/)** > > The trials of the Phoenix Coyotes, the least popular hockey team in the NHL, offer a lesson in public debt and defeat > **[Publicly Financed Sports Stadiums Are A Game That Taxpayers Lose](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydorfman/2015/01/31/publicly-financed-sports-stadiums-are-a-game-that-taxpayers-lose/)** > > Rich sports team owners frequently try to secure public financing for their stadiums on the basis of the economic impact that events at the stadium will generate. That argument does not hold water; here's why. I could post 100 other links if you like. Other posters have touched on a rather excellent question; if the city building a business a new facility was economically logical, why do you rarely hear of cities building facilities for other businesses? If some machine shop goes to the city and says “I’ve got a nice little shop, I employ 50 people, for just a million bucks I’ll relocate into your city” they’d be laughed at. A city like Cincinnati or Boston wouldn’t give them the time of day, since they would correctly conclude that if it’s worth it, the business owner will himself build it. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxpayer-money-should-not-be-used-on-stadiums/737296/77 "2015-11-13T16:53:29Z")
I think he was being facetious. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxpayer-money-should-not-be-used-on-stadiums/737296/78 "2015-11-13T17:37:01Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > That would technically be to the BENEFIT of Oakland, not its detriment. If people from outside the city come into it to spend money, that’s good for Oakland, not bad. > > It still doesn’t make a stadium a positive financial investment, but this is a strange argument. It’s easy to measure, since people going to Raiders games spend money in the stadium and no place else. There isn’t a lot of places to eat around there, and the airport is on the other side of 880, and I doubt if people go downtown on game days. I suspect the city knows they are losing money on the deal. ---
**Author:** ![BeeGee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b5a626/32.png) [@BeeGee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeeGee)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxpayer-money-should-not-be-used-on-stadiums/737296/79 "2015-11-13T19:00:45Z")
Arlington, TX voted to spend $135 mil in the 90’s to build a new stadium for the Texas Rangers. The increase in sales tax allowed the debt to be paid off in 10 years instead of 20. So when the Cowboys were looking for a new home, the citizens of Arlington voted to build them a new stadium in Arlington. It’s paying off again. [http://www.dallasnews.com/news/cowboys-stadium/headlines/20121121-record-sales-tax-revenue-will-allow-arlington-to-pay-off-cowboys-stadium-debt-years-early.ece](http://www.dallasnews.com/news/cowboys-stadium/headlines/20121121-record-sales-tax-revenue-will-allow-arlington-to-pay-off-cowboys-stadium-debt-years-early.ece) [http://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/community/arlington/article10754984.html](http://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/community/arlington/article10754984.html) ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2015, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxpayer-money-should-not-be-used-on-stadiums/737296/80 "2015-11-13T19:13:19Z")
Paying off the bonds earlier than expected says nothing about whether the stadium was a good investment in the first place. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxpayer-money-should-not-be-used-on-stadiums/737296.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxpayer-money-should-not-be-used-on-stadiums/737296.md?page=5)