OT: The Economics of Sports Stadiums and bye-bye to the Oakland A’s

[XXtwindad]

My hometown Oakland A’s are moving to Sin City just like their gridiron brethren. No surprise, really. The Fisher family has long been considered the worst owners in baseball and the City of Oakland refused to foot a large part of the bill for a proposed move to Jack London Square.

It’s a sad day for Oakland, which has also lost the Raiders (as above) and the Warriors to San Francisco. The A’s leave a rich legacy in Oakland: the heyday of Charlie Finley’s renegades (Reggie, Rudy, Rollie, etc..) the BillyBall era (Rickey), the Bash Brothers era, and the MoneyBall era. Great memories.

Which brings me to my central question? How much should a city pony up for a sports team? I know that several teams/cities (San Francisco, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh come immediately to mind) have revitalized downtown areas and made beautiful ballparks. But should a city allow an owner to hold them hostage? Are the economic and civic benefits worth it?

[Elefantino]

The city came up with a package of incentives worth $375 million and that still wasn't enough for Fisher, a silver-spoon punk.

Across the bay, the Giants built Pac Bell Park (then AT&T, now Oracle) with no public funds, just a $10 million tax abatement and promises (since fulfilled) from the city to extend the Muni Metro line to the park.

Not to be political, but I agree with Chris Christie, who as NJ governor had this to say when the New Jersey Nets tried to extort taxpayers for a new arena: "My message to the Nets is goodbye. You don't want to stay? We don't want you. I mean seriously, I'm not going to be in the business of begging people to stay here ... They want to leave here and go to Brooklyn? Good riddance. See you later ... There will be no tears shed on my part tonight. They go? They go."

[prototoast]

There's a lot of economic research on the question, and aside from the consultants who are hired to try to persuade municipalities to pay for the stadium, the evidence overwhelmingly supports the conclusion that the costs exceed the benefits for publicly subsidized stadiums. To the extent there are benefits, they tend to be highly concentrated, particularly to team owners, and to a lesser extent, a narrow group of sports fans. Some other businesses may benefit, but the spillover benefits tend to be quite small compared to the total dollar subsidy, and in particular other non-sports uses of public money.

[tomato coupe]

Originally Posted by prototoast

There's a lot of economic research on the question, and aside from the consultants who are hired to try to persuade municipalities to pay for the stadium, the evidence overwhelmingly supports the conclusion that the costs exceed the benefits for publicly subsidized stadiums. To the extent there are benefits, they tend to be highly concentrated, particularly to team owners, and to a lesser extent, a narrow group of sports fans. Some other businesses may benefit, but the spillover benefits tend to be quite small compared to the total dollar subsidy, and in particular other non-sports uses of public money.

If it doesn’t fall under the category of corporate welfare, nothing does.

[Elefantino]

From seven years ago, still relevant. (Although he does put most of the blame on greedy sports-team owners, mostly ignoring the politicians who kowtow with taxpayer money.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcwJt4bcnXs

[Mr. Pink]

Moneyball.

[deluz]

It is a private for profit business with billionaire owners.
City should pay zero.
Chargers left San Diego after the city paid the Spanos family millions in subsidies while the the city infrastructure suffered. Good riddins, I could care less about a professional sports team here. Let some other sucker city pay for it.

[makoti]

Originally Posted by XXtwindad

My hometown Oakland A’s are moving to Sin City

Let's be very clear.
Your "Hometown" A's deserted KC to move to Oakland. And that was after they deserted Philadelphia for greener pastures in KC.
Vagabonds in search of better will leave in a minute. No great loss.

[IJWS]

https://www.propublica.org/article/t...lions-in-taxes

No sports team needs any kind of public money.

[echappist]

Originally Posted by makoti

Let's be very clear.
Your "Hometown" A's deserted KC to move to Oakland. And that was after they deserted Philadelphia for greener pastures in KC.
Vagabonds in search of better will leave in a minute. No great loss.

Good ole City of Philadelphia, where someone who could do WFH job stationed at another locale needs to fork out ~4% of income for the privilege of living there (or pay at most 1% for living in any one of the surrounding towns), while the city took out bonds to finance new stadia, to the tune of $35M for 50 years ($1.75B all said and done). And that's before we get to the State's share of that bond.

Panem et circenses dates back two millennia, but at least back then there was still bread for the masses. Now it's just a literally travelling circus, looking to settle at which ever polity willing to fork out the most subsidy.

If there's one reason for choosing to live in a small city/ large town than in a large city, this would be it. Democratizing the cost of something that is not essential to public welfare is just all sorts of wrong, and it would appear that the best way of avoiding it is to live where there isn't a sport team looking to get its fill at the feeding trough.

[redir]

Originally Posted by XXtwindad

Which brings me to my central question? How much should a city pony up for a sports team?

Zero dollars IMHO.

[72gmc]

I think the athletes should get what they can get … that said, all you have to do is look at a few recently announced contracts and you know these businesses can be run without public funding of stadiums. They may need to be run differently, and some spoiled brat owners may need to accept not getting everything they want just because they want it, but it can be done.

[prototoast]

Originally Posted by tomato coupe

If it doesn’t fall under the category of corporate welfare, nothing does.

Technically I believe many teams are owned by partnerships, not corporations.

[eddief]

would he keep selling off his best players?

[XXtwindad]

Originally Posted by echappist

Good ole City of Philadelphia, where someone who could do WFH job stationed at another locale needs to fork out ~4% of income for the privilege of living there (or pay at most 1% for living in any one of the surrounding towns), while the city took out bonds to finance new stadia, to the tune of $35M for 50 years ($1.75B all said and done). And that's before we get to the State's share of that bond.

Panem et circenses dates back two millennia, but at least back then there was still bread for the masses. Now it's just a literally travelling circus, looking to settle at which ever polity willing to fork out the most subsidy.

If there's one reason for choosing to live in a small city/ large town than in a large city, this would be it. Democratizing the cost of something that is not essential to public welfare is just all sorts of wrong, and it would appear that the best way of avoiding it is to live where there isn't a sport team looking to get its fill at the feeding trough.

There’s a civic pride in having a major sports club. Some clubs and cities just do it better than others (such as the SF Giants) It’s the same with Futbol clubs no? You would be better informed than I. There’s no “major” American city without a sports club. Except one (shortly): Oakland.