In Florida and elsewhere, stadium plans come with hefty public costs

Standing on a portable stage erected at home plate of the Milwaukee Brewers ballpark, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers recently praised the professional baseball team as an “essential part” of the state’s “culture and identity” and “economic success.”

With fanfare, Evers then signed off on $500 million in public aid for the stadium’s renovation, adding to a remarkable run of such blockbuster deals. This year alone, about a dozen Major League Baseball and National Football League franchises took steps toward new or improved stadiums.

A new wave of sports facility construction is underway. One driven, in part, by a race to keep up with rivals and one that could collectively cost taxpayers billions of dollars despite skepticism from economists that stadiums boost local economies.

Though the Brewers primarily cited a need for repairs, many of the other new projects are much more than that. In some cases, sports teams are even seeking a new jolt of public funding for state-of-the-art stadiums while public entities are still paying off debt from the last round of renovations a couple of decades ago.

“These facilities are not physically obsolete. It’s not as if the concrete is falling down and people are in grave danger if they attend a game,” said Rob Baade, a retired economics professor at Lake Forest College in Illinois.

“Teams are clamoring for new stadiums because it’s in their economic interest to do so,” Baade said, adding, “The new stadium model is one that spills over the stadium walls.”

The Tampa Bay Rays illustrated that example in September, unveiling plans for a $1.3 billion baseball stadium as the centerpiece of a $6.5 billion development in St. Petersburg, Florida, that also features housing, retail stores, restaurants and bars and a Black history museum.

They joined the Jacksonville Jaguars, the Buffalo Bills and the Tennessee Titans, all of whom announced plans for or began construction on new billion-dollar football stadiums with luxury amenities.

Those projects all also came with public funding, including the $760 million in local bonds the Nashville City Council approved to go with $500 million in state bonds to pay for the Titans’ new $2.1 billion stadium. As part of the deal, the Titans agreed to pay off the remaining $30 million of public debt owed for their current stadium, which opened in 1999.

Ultimately, not everyone supports efforts to renovate or replace stadiums, or the trend of asking taxpayers to bear the cost.

The Titans’ new stadium carries the nation’s largest public subsidy for a professional sports facility. But voters delivered a rebuke in September, electing a progressive councilman who voted against the subsidy to serve as mayor.

Public opinion appears mixed.

A survey conducted last year for the Global Sport Institute at Arizona State University found professional sports teams were viewed as a necessary cultural component of communities by 60% of respondents. Yet fewer than half believed state and local governments should provide public funds for sports stadiums.

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Published courtesy of the Associated Press.