Can New Orleans Play Its Way Past Katrina? The Role of Professional Sports in the Redevelopment of New Orleans

Victor Matheson and Robert Baade ()
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Robert Baade: Department of Economics and Business, Lake Forest College

No 603, Working Papers from College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics

Abstract: Hurricane Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans in late August 2005, and debates are now underway across the country concerning strategies for reconstructing the City. A key to redevelopment involves encouraging former citizens and businesses to return. Both of New Orleans’s professional sports teams, the National Football League Saints and the National Basketball Association Hornets, have taken up residence in other cities, and the question of what the city should provide in the way of financial accommodation to encourage them to return should be considered in devising a reconstruction plan. Infrastructure to facilitate professional sports and mega-events constitutes a significant fraction of capital budgets for even the largest cities. New Orleans has hosted a disproportionate share of mega-sports events in the United States given its size and demographics. An important question concerns whether these events have contributed enough to the New Orleans economy to justify reinvestment in infrastructure to restore New Orleans’s place as a leading host of professional sports and mega-events in the United States. A careful review of the evidence suggests that the redevelopment efforts of New Orleans are better directed at first providing infrastructure that will encourage the return of its middle class citizenry and the restoration of its culture. Playing host to professional sports and mega-events does have symbolic significance, but it is arguable that the city cannot afford to invite guests until it has the means to accommodate them.

Keywords: sports; public finance; economic impact; New Orleans; Hurricane Katrina (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H25 H40 H71 L83 Q54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2006-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-geo, nep-pbe, nep-pke, nep-spo and nep-ure
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Published in International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing, Vol. 2:5-6, June 2007, pp. 541-554.

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Working Paper: Can New Orleans Play Its Way Past Katrina? The Role of Professional Sports in the Redevelopment of New Orleans (2006)
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