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[Seattle Times] 15 years after moving Sonics, now it’s the Thunder asking for publicly funded arena
(www.seattletimes.com)
this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2023
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I will never understand why public funds should pay for >50% of the funds for a privately owned sports clubs arena
This is one of the biggest taxpayer rip-offs in the country. Under the guise of the limited jobs it creates. Study after study proves what a rip-off it is. New York taxpayers are about to foot 1 billion so the Bills can keep coming up short of expectations.
The data for it's economic impact is murky, but part of that is because it's hard to quantify. They're an economic multiplier. Depending on the city it will have differing levels of impact across a multitude of businesses. But part of the intangibles are creating a brand identity for the city. In your example it also makes Buffalo a bigger travel destination. I'm a lot more likely to travel to Buffalo to visit Niagara Falls and catch a Bills game than I am to travel there to only do one of those things.
That's nonsense. When there are only 8 or 9 home games a year, and the overwhelming majority of tickets go to season ticket holders who live locally and tailgate in the parking lot, the overall economic multiplier impact is negligible. Study after study debunks that claim. Meanwhile you have a giant concrete ring surrounded by an enormous asphalt circle of parking lots, all empty for at least 340 days of the year. A football stadfium is not not only a bad thing to subsidize, it is just a bad use of land, especially high value land in the center of a city or along a river. Subsidizing a football stadium with public money is madness - most cities are better off without football stadiums even if they are built entirely by the teams themselves.
This is not so true for basketball arenas. Many more games, the arena is useful for concerts, conventions, circuses, etc., and if you minimize the parking lots, people will spend money in the local restaurants before the game. Billionaires should still build their own basketball arenas, but throwing some money there is not as ridiculous as a football stadium.
That's a really good point, there are numerous concerts and other events held at most NBA stadiums. Just off the top of my head this year at Gainbridge Fieldhouse they had WWE Fast Lane, a number of concerts, Indiana Fever games, and girls and boys high school finals.