Evaluating Subsidies for Professional Sports in the United States and Europe: A Public-Sector Primer

Robert A. Baade

Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 2003, vol. 19, issue 4, 585-597

Abstract: The character of subsidies for the construction of professional sports stadiums is changing in Europe and the United States. The incidence of these subsidies and the manner in which they are changing offers insight into an evolving relationship between the public and private sectors in building sports facilities. The changing financial imperatives this paper identifies and analyses suggest that the myopic concerns of cities coupled with powerful financial incentives for leagues and teams to build stadiums account for the spate of facilities constructed in the USA since Joe Robbie stadium in 1987. Growing public scepticism and resistance to stadium construction has been responsible for the private sector bearing a larger portion of the stadium construction costs, but teams have been more than compensated with increasingly generous leases. Cities have placated the public through the imposition of taxes that are either too small per capita to justify strong resistance or through deflecting the tax burden stadiums impose to non-residents. Since cities taken together are adopting the same strategies, the reality is that stadiums collectively are being paid for by local taxpayers. The public will continue to pay for stadiums until cities recognize their shared interests and take a collective stand against the professional sports monopolies. As long as the leagues continue to maintain an excess team for franchises, cities will continue to comply with team and league financial demands while searching for ways to placate an increasingly sceptical taxpaying public. Copyright 2003, Oxford University Press.

Date: 2003
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (12)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:oxford:v:19:y:2003:i:4:p:585-597

Access Statistics for this article

Oxford Review of Economic Policy is currently edited by Christopher Adam

More articles in Oxford Review of Economic Policy from Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().