The public cost of Minor League Baseball stadium subsidies

John Charles Bradbury

Economic Inquiry, 2026, vol. 64, issue 3, 1079-1096

Abstract: Public financing of major league sports venues has been widely studied, but government support for minor league facilities has not been systematically documented. This study introduces a new database of Minor League Baseball stadium funding to measure the prevalence and magnitude of subsidies. State and local governments have spent $7 billion constructing and renovating 134 minor league ballparks for Major League Baseball (MLB) affiliates, raising important policy implications for moderately sized municipalities. Using MLB's reorganization of its minor leagues as a natural experiment, the analysis finds no income differences between cities that lost or retained teams, undermining the economic rationale for taxpayer subsidization.

Date: 2026
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