25 July 2008

Questioning stadium deals

From the Wall Street Journal:
"Economists have long argued that publicly financed stadiums are a waste of taxpayer money. And they have the data to prove it."
Their article is focused primarily on the new stadium in DC for the Nationals. Which looks absolutely great, by the way.

But other stadium deals keep getting negative publicity, too. The "secret deal" behind a Triple-a team moving from Virginia to Georgia had a professor questioning the nature of the deal. Often time the costs turn out to be understated or underestimated. And sometimes teams even seem to dump the high salary players because the new stadium will sell the tickets for them. Three is even a website, called Field of Schemes, dedicated to this stuff.

(and, with all of the recent local news, it is worth pointing out that the Rutgers stadium expansion is a different situation than these publicly financed deals and Rutgers isn't threatening to move their team to another state or promising to boost the economy of the neighborhoods around the stadium)

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