Where are our priorities? Rethinking the public funding of sports stadiums.

Where Are Our Priorities? 

In short:

1. Public Funding for Stadiums: We are funding billion-dollar stadiums for wealthy team owners while facing severe infrastructure issues like flooding and failing sanitation systems.

2. False Promises of Economic Benefits: Claims that new stadiums will attract tourists and drive economic activity often fall flat, as seen in St. Petersburg with the Tampa Bay Rays.

3. Inadequate Job Creation: Stadium jobs are typically low-wage and part-time, offering little in terms of sustainable economic growth.

4. Unnecessary New Stadiums: Teams demand new stadiums every few decades for ego rather than necessity, while older stadiums like Fenway Park continue to function well.

5. Successful Private Funding: Examples like Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Allianz Arena, and SoFi Stadium prove that stadiums can be built without taxpayer money.

The full story:

When it comes to sports stadiums in the U.S., we’ve seemingly lost our perspective. Yes, we love sports—just like the rest of the world. But what’s troubling is that we’ve come to accept the idea that the public should foot the bill for these massive stadiums, which are essentially playthings for wealthy team owners. Meanwhile, players earn astronomical salaries, more in one year than most people will make in a lifetime. And on top of that, ticket prices have skyrocketed, making it unaffordable for many fans to attend games. And while this is happening our homes are flooding, and our toilets don’t flush from hurricanes, but we don’t have the money to fix the problems.  So why are we, the public, paying for stadiums. 

It often seems that local officials sell the community a bill of goods, promising all sorts of benefits. But do these claims hold water? Take St. Petersburg, for example. Proponents of a new stadium for the Tampa Bay Rays claim that it will attract tourists. But if you look at actual attendance figures, it’s clear that this isn’t happening. Baseball season, which stretches through the hot summer months, hardly aligns with peak tourist times. So, where are the tourists they promised? 

And then there’s the claim that baseball drives economic activity. But why would it? The fact that nothing of significance developed around Tropicana Field for the first 20 years of its existence should give us pause. Why would any company decide to relocate to St. Petersburg simply because there’s a baseball team? Companies base their decisions on factors like infrastructure, talent pool, and tax incentives—not whether there’s a local sports team. If that were true, why aren’t companies flocking to snowy Buffalo to be near the Bills? 

And the idea that baseball creates jobs? Well, let’s look closer. The high-paying jobs in the Rays’ organization—presidents, executives, and top-tier management—are mostly filled by a handful of people making six or seven figures. But the bulk of the “jobs” created by the stadium are part-time, low-wage positions—selling beer, peanuts, and tickets. These jobs are often seasonal, with employees working only a few days a week during game season, making minimum wage or slightly above. So, how exactly does this contribute to the broader economy? These are not the kinds of sustainable, well-paying jobs that build long-term economic growth in a community. Instead of improving the financial well-being of local residents, these stadium jobs often offer little more than temporary employment for a handful of hours a week. 

The real economic value comes from companies that provide solid, year-round jobs—not stadiums that generate a fleeting economic boost while mostly enriching a small number of wealthy individuals. 

Another point worth considering: Why do teams need new stadiums every 30 or 40 years? Are the old ones really so structurally unsafe they’re going to collapse? Of course not. The truth is, the owners simply want the latest and greatest—something to flaunt, something to stroke their egos. Just look at Fenway Park in Boston, a century-old stadium still in use. No one’s talking about tearing it down anytime soon, because it works.  

The same can be said for many famous football stadiums around the world that have stood the test of time. Take the Camp Nou in Barcelona, home to one of the world’s most famous football teams, has been in operation since 1957. And let’s not forget Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, which opened in 1950 and has hosted multiple World Cup finals. Despite the passage of time, the stadium remains a key venue for international football matches, showcasing how older stadiums can still be viable, functional, and iconic. 

So, why the obsession with tearing down and building new stadiums in the U.S. after just a few decades? And why do communities keep paying for new stadiums? Why don’t they just say no? The answer is often fear. Officials worry that if they don’t appease the owners with a shiny new stadium, the team will leave. But why should communities be held hostage by the threat of a team’s departure? What makes a community a great place to live isn’t the presence of a sports team, it’s things like schools, public safety, affordable housing, and access to good jobs. If a team threatens to move because they can’t get a taxpayer-funded stadium, maybe it’s time to just say no.  

There are plenty of examples where professional sports stadiums have been built without public funds. In London, the Tottenham Hotspur stadium was built privately, funded entirely by the team’s ownership group. Similarly, in Germany, the Allianz Arena in Munich, home to Bayern Munich, was financed without a cent of taxpayer money. These examples prove that stadiums can be built without relying on public money. The private sector has the means to do it, as long as the financial incentives are structured properly. 

Another glaring example of a stadium funded almost entirely by private money is the new SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles. Opened in 2020, SoFi Stadium, home to the LA Rams and LA Chargers, cost a whopping $5 billion to construct. And unlike many stadiums across the U.S., which rely on taxpayer funds to cover construction costs, SoFi was almost entirely privately funded by Rams owner Stan Kroenke and his business partners. The project was financed through a mix of private equity, loans, and stadium naming rights deals, with Kroenke himself contributing a significant portion of the funding. This stadium shows that it is possible for billionaires to build the state-of-the-art facilities they desire without dipping into public coffers. SoFi Stadium is a modern, luxurious venue, proving that high-quality sports venues don’t need public handouts to thrive. 

Now, let’s turn to the situation in St. Petersburg, where local officials have bent over backwards to accommodate the Rays and their owners. The city and Pinellas County have offered to pay $600 million—almost half the cost—to build a new stadium, while also selling the Rays’ owner 64 acres of prime – ready for development land – for a song. This sweetheart deal was justified by the promise that the Rays would cover any cost overruns. But was that really good enough for the team’s billionaire owner? Apparently not. 

Despite the generous offer, when there was a 21-day delay by Pinellas County in approving the sale of bonds, the Rays claimed that construction costs had gone up by hundreds of millions and that the stadium would now be delayed by a year. As a result, they said they could no longer afford to cover the increased costs. Can anyone believe this nonsense?  This puts the entire financial burden on the taxpayers, raising the question:  

Why should the public be on the hook for these escalating expenses?  And why should St. Petersburg and Pinellas County do anything but tell the Rays to move on? The public has already been asked to make an enormous investment in a new stadium, and even that hasn’t been enough for the team’s owner. At what point does the public say, “Enough is enough”? This is, perhaps, the most expensive public stadium deal ever proposed, and it’s based on the unproven idea that sports teams can “revitalize” entire neighborhoods. If the team’s own commitment to the deal is so flimsy, why should taxpayers continue to bear the burden? 

Instead of paying players tens of millions of dollars a year, as is common in U.S. sports, owners could restructure contracts to better reflect the economic realities of a privately funded stadium. If players were paid $1 million or $2 million per year—still an astronomical sum compared to the average worker—they would still earn far more than almost anybody in any community. This could free up local tax dollars for things that genuinely improve the quality of life for residents, like schools, healthcare, and stop the flooding, instead of subsidizing millionaire sports teams and their lavish stadiums. 

With all of this in mind, we need to rethink our priorities. Are we really getting the promised benefits from these stadiums, or are we just feeding the egos of already wealthy team owners? The time has come for communities to stand up and say no to subsidizing billionaire playthings. It’s time to invest in what truly makes a city a great place to live—and it’s not the latest sports complex. Stadiums can and should be built by the private sector, without public funds, and players can still make plenty of money without the taxpayers footing the bill.