Are Sports Stadiums Worth It? From football and baseball to the Olympic games; most major cities have stadiums or sports arenas that hold those events along with their own professional teams. Some stadiums are almost brand new and usually don’t get very old before they are torn down and built brand new again. While they may be nice, they do come at a cost. Taxpayers are often the ones that pay for them. But do the benefits really outweigh the costs?
To build sports arenas and stadiums cities need support financially. They end up raising taxes for the local taxpayers. Cities typically raise the locals property taxes. Sometimes they can raise the income tax, sales tax and even tax on gas. The teams tell the locals that they should vote for
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Which makes sense but you can't rob them of all their money either. Plus they won't completely benefit from it. But taxpayers shouldn't be on the hook for it. “There's a lot of other people that couldn't care less about a sports stadium. You're telling me you can't charge your fans but you can go to these people and reach in their wallet and make them pay so you get a new stadium?”(McCombs). The team can persuade everyone that it’s a good idea and pretty much force you to pay for it. The teams should find a better way of paying for them like everyone pitches in; the players, fans, locals etc. The locals could also petition to build something else. “Other billion dollar facilities like a major shopping center or large manufacturing plant will employ many more people and generate substantially more revenue and taxes”(Noll). The locals need to do their homework and actually, see if they really want the stadium and know that it's not going to make as much money as the team says it will. From football and baseball to the Olympic games, taxpayers are paying for new stadiums to be built all the time. Unless you are a huge sports fan and don't care about the money, the benefits really don't balance or outweigh the
The sports franchise gains by reducing the amount of capital that it has to spend in building the new stadium. They receive a new stadium with more seats and therefore they receive more profit. The local businesses gain financially as well with increased traffic of fans who come to the games. More fans means more meals, rooms, and souvenirs sold. In addition, as least at the beginning of the project more construction jobs are created in order to build the new stadium and possibly new jobs are created at the stadium itself. The elected officials is motivated by receiving a good track record of successful referendums, by trying to sell the stadium to the public as something they should really want in their communities. The people who are losing through the outcomes of the new stadiums are those who do not want one in their community. Perhaps people who do not like sports and will never attend a game or people who do not appreciate the added traffic on the roads on game days. These people are forced into paying for something they will never use as well as something they may despise and the added traffic they have to deal with is a nuisance to
Siegfried, J., & Zimbalist, A. (2000). The economics of sports facilities and their communities. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, , 95-114.
As long as fans willingly pay $120 dollars for a replica jersey, six dollars a beer, and two thousand for courtside tickets to the Los Angeles Lakers, the owners will continue to pass on that money to their stars. People act like they're getting stiffed. Let me ask you, When was the last time, someone stuck a gun to your head and said 'Watch this football game or else'?
...the citizens of the city socially. It will provide a great night life, as well as other entertainment venues that can be brought in for use of the stadium. However to sell a stadium in a city by claiming economic benefits involves many risks, it will most likely not benefit the city and its people to have a sports team in your city.
There is a nationwide trend in which taxpayers are asked to pay for new stadiums these stadiums benefit a single corporation. A sport construction boom has started, these new stadiums cost a minimum of $200 million to build, but usually cost much more. New stadiums have been built, or are underway, in New York, Pittsburgh, Dallas, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Seattle, Tampa, Washington DC, St. Louis, Jacksonville, and Oakland. This competitive trend replaces old stadiums with high tech flashy stadiums used exclusively for one sport. These stadiums are unnecessary, and not cost efficient. Most of the time new stadiums are not used for multi-purposes, they bring in money exclusively for the professional league and not ...
The players need to make a contract work by agreeing to some form of salary cap, allowing owners to control costs. Players and owners will win, revenues will improve for businesses dependent on games for income, and the fans will win!
These small, mostly private schools are spending millions on Football fields, Gyms, indoor and outdoor tracks and student recreation centers. This battle seems almost unnecessary considering almost zero of these athletes will become professionals and in most cases athletics takes away around 20-25 hours of school work time to there student athletes. Looking at the research there seems to be three reasons why schools sell the idea of how a new facility can bring more then a large bill to the school. These points are first recruiting success that leads to athletic success and the enrollment bump in not only the student athletes but also the student population as a whole. Finally how the sch...
He says that these facilities never pay for themselves, that there is an increase in overall community income, but not enough to offset cost. He states that though highly paid, a team employs very few workers. A new stadium offers more amenities that are more expensive, such as luxury skyboxes, thus bringing in more revenues than the old stadiums. The teams do see some of these profits but so do the cities. Noll writes that new stadiums force other entertainment out of town, this can be true, but it also brings in new business in the form of restaurants and pre and post-game entertainment. The profits from transportation can be much larger in the post stadium city.
The sports industry is a very big business that contributes great amounts to the economy in terms of turnover, taxes and jobs. The sports industry has an economic cycle. So it depends on different parts of the year to hold big events. The benefits to be gained are that local communities as suppliers of services and goods obtain increased business.
"Money makes the world go 'round." Sports could not exist without the presence of money. You have high paid athletes asking for multi-million dollar contacts, while at the same time you have doctors not even making close to that amount. There are corporations buying out sports teams, buying stadiums, and buying everything that has to do with sports. Someone may ask why they do this. Sports are one of the most profitable industries in the world. Everyone wants to get their hand on a piece of the action. Those individuals and industries that spend hundreds of millions of dollars on these sports teams are hoping to make a profit, but it may be an indirect profit. It could be a profit for the sports club, or it could be a promotion for another organization (i.e. Rupert Murdoch, FOX). The economics involved with sports has drastically changed over the last ten years. In the United States, we spend about 13% of all money on sports and entertainment. Sports has obviously done its job; entertained and drained money out of our pockets.
According to the Bloomberg article, government subsidized bonds are used to build the new stadium, and those bonds are backed by city taxes. This in turn leads to an increase in taxes for everyone in, around, or travelling to the city. For the city of Arlington, TX to fund the new Dallas Cowboys football stadium, “voters had to accept a 0.5 percent sales tax increase, a 2 percent hotel levy and a 5 percent rental car tax.” (Kuriloff and Preston) That might not seem like too much of a sacrifice, but Kurioff and Preston go on to summarize that “tax exemptions on interest paid by muni bonds that were issued for sports structures cost the U.S. Treasury $146 million a year” with “$17 billion of exempt debt issued to build stadiums since 1986.” (Kurioff and Preston) That’s $17 billion of taxpayer money not going to maintain infrastructure, fund other local projects, or provide economic relief in unsure times.
It is a delicate and confusing situation. If the fans will pay for everything from the hats to the T-shirts, to the tickets to the hot dogs, the teams will generate more money. However, if that happens, come contract time athletes will demand for more money. If the athlete demands more money, the cost of tickets and memorabilia will go up.
In every major sports event, like the FIFA World Cup or the Olympics, there’s always a huge celebration and a positive vibes surrounding such events. Hosting these events are usually a great honor to the selected countries and bring a lot of favorable consequences with it. However, no one realized that whenever these big sporting events occur and are hosted, brings as much negative consequences which counterbalances all the good things that comes with it. So, the question remains, is the Olympics a Cash Cow or a Money Pit to the hosting countries? In my opinion, the Olympics could actually bring more benefit that loss to the selected countries to host it, which are to bring positive economic and cultural benefits, either a Legacy or a Money pit for the hosting countries, hosting this event could promote development for the educational legacy and finally eradicating poverty throughout the citizens.
Are sports facilities worth the money? All sports facilities cost a ton of money, but all this money could be used in a different way. It could be used for things to help the city. These facilities are only helping the sports teams for the most part, but the fans love when these stadiums are built because it makes it creates a fun place to watch the games and lets them interact with people. Just how much money are these cities spending and is the money going to waste or not?
One may disagree that hosting Olympics is not worthwhile as it requires a city or a country to bring out an enormous sum of money for the preparation and planning of hosting the Olympics. Zimbalist (2012, pp. 116) says that the summer Games roughly generates a total of $5-$6 billion and almost half of it belongs to the International Olympic Committee. On the other hand, the cost of the games has increased roughly