In the spring of 1989, a bewildered Kevin Costner stood in an Iowa
cornfield attempting to decipher a strange promise whispered to him in barely
audible tones: "If you build it, they will come." Since the release
of Field of Dreams, the call for new stadiums has mounted to a
deafening roar, as our cities witnessed an unprecedented boom in professional
sports arena construction.
Just last week, our brand-new President threw out the first pitch at
Milwaukee’s brand new Miller Park; he is well-acquainted with the wonders
that a new ballpark can deliver. While owner of the Rangers, Bush opened a new
ballpark in Texas, enabling him to turn his $600,000 investment into a cool
$14.5 million when he sold the team in 1998. The details of this swindle and a
great many more are detailed in a lively new book by Johanna Cagan and Neil
DeMause, appropriately entitled Field of Schemes.
Given that sports is largely organized on a for-profit basis, it’s not
surprising that the new enthusiasm for better arenas should have little to do
with athletics and lots to do with money. Like owners in other branches of
industry, the captains of sport (who often are also owners in other branches
of industry) entered the 1990s on the offensive. As team owners came up to
speed on corporate welfare and community blackmail, new stadiums — or more
exactly, new publicly financed stadiums — emerged as their preferred
instrument for raising return on investment.
‘RIGHTSIZED’?
Viewed as business plans, stadium blueprints show that they capture
earnings not by selling more product but by selling more expensive
product. Square footage devoted to clubhouses and luxury booths — seating
that appeals to season-ticket holders and corporate renters who both pay a lot
and pay up front — is greatly increased in every new arena. And despite all
we hear about the "intimacy" of new stadiums like Baltimore’s
Camden Yards, the actual footprint of these "cozy" "rightsized"
structures is often larger than those of the "impersonal" and
"oversized" arenas that they replaced. Why? In addition to the space
gobbled up by the exclusive luxury decks, acres are needed for expanded
concessions and elaborate kitchens catering to the refined tastes of more
upscale spectators. In "upgrading" facilities in this way, owners
are clearly reckoning with rising income inequality and attempting to turn it
to good account. As it becomes harder for many families to afford any ballgame
at all, it becomes easier for a few — an intimate and cozy and rightsized
few — to manage a $400.00 outing.
THE GENEROUS TAXPAYER
But the price of a new stadium runs to hundreds of millions. How much
better it would be to sell luxury booths, seat licenses, naming and broadcast
rights, concession leases and proprietary logos without either the
construction bill or the sunk costs of stadium ownership! The vast majority of
premier league sports stadiums built in the past decade are financed partly,
and often largely, by taxpayers — by local and state taxpayers in cities
where arenas are built, and by all federal taxpayers, who subsidize the
tax-free municipal bonds that are invariably floated to raise construction
cash.
Why do taxpayers build arenas? Often it is done against their will.
Detroit, Houston, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, and Seattle are cities in which
residents formally voted against public financing for new stadiums — and got
them anyway. And in virtually every city where residents are polled prior to
stadium construction, initial sentiment runs against them. Faced with public
opinions they don’t like, owners campaign hard. (Here it helps that team
owners and media owners are often the same corporation.) Their themes are all
too familiar. With one hand, they dangle the carrot of jobs and development;
with the other, they brandish the stick of team relocation. To residents and
officials of urban centers flattened by de-industrialization, such promises
and threats have meaning.
Thus, despite the fact that most of the jobs that stadiums create are
part-time, seasonal and low-wage, despite the fact that each such new job
costs an average $300,000, despite the fact that economic
"development" around stadiums is mainly a matter of transferring
entertainment dollars from one part of a city to another, despite the fact
that in their overall economic impact new stadiums act mainly as money pumps,
drawing money out of communities and putting it into the pockets of owners,
and despite the fact that most city residents and politicians know all of
these facts before ground is even broken on their new stadium, city upon city
has capitulated.
Describing the concessionary logic that led to two new stadiums in Seattle,
one councilman remarked, "We cave in not because we believe in their
positive impact, but because we’re afraid to take the chance that there isn’t
any." Until we stop building stadiums and build real power for working
people, the great sports con will remain the only game in town.
(Gaff is an intern working in the UE International and Research
departments; Frank is UE Research director.)
