I've long been opposed to the use of public monies to finance Major League ballparks. For one thing, these teams are owned by billionaires, almost all of the revenues a park brings goes right back to the team, not the city, and I don't think local government should be in the business of giving such handouts to billionaires. For another thing, I don't know too many cities who have been so flush with cash in the past several decades that they couldn't have used the hundreds of millions they're spending on the ballpark for something more important. Finally, even if you're all for a city giving millions it doesn't have to billionaires, the details of these ballpark deals are always shady, and the true cost to the taxpayers only becomes evident years after all of the initial hoopla and rosy projections.
In light of all of that, this news regarding Nationals Park in Washington doesn't surprise me in the least:
Mayor Adrian M. Fenty is planning to divert millions of dollars from the ballpark tax to reduce the city's deficit. The Ballpark Revenue Fund is intended to pay down the debt on Nationals Park. But Fenty's revised 2010 budget shifts $50 million from it to the general fund over the next four years.
And it's not as if the ballpark debt is going to go away. It's now simply going to cost a strapped city even more to service, thereby raising the ultimate price of the Lerner family's new toy box/cash machine even higher than was projected when the place was built.
I love baseball. For the most part I love the new ballparks. There is no escaping the fact, however, that these ballparks represent horrible, horrible deals for tax payers.
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DC was absolutely raped when the Nationals moved there by baseball. It was a crying shame. Whats worse is the fans wanted a team so badly they offered MLB KY Jelly to ease the process. Doesn't anyone ever wonder why the most powerful city in the world has only half a million residents. Its reasons like this, how bad city funds are used that everyone lives in the suburbs. I was so glad to have a baseball team, but when you outline how bad they are (4 wins in a row is nice, but there still the worst team in baseball), how poorly they are run, how inexperienced the owners are, how awful they were managed and how the city is being raped on their deal to even have the team, its no wonder people argue this is the worst franchise in sports, even over the Detroit Lions...
You left out one other downside to publicly funded stadiums -- increased ticket prices so that the average taxpayer is often unable to take the family to see a game in the ballpark s/he helped build.
I don't see how public financing is the reason for increased ticket prices. Pac Bell (or whatever they're calling the Giants stadium these days) presumably has ticket prices roughly on par with those of other teams.
Rising ticket prices are a function of demand coupled with limited supply. Teams charge what the traffic will bear.
Yes, demand usually increases when new ballparks are open, and that leads to higher ticket prices. In SF, where the stadium was privately financed, the Giants should be allowed to charge whatever they want and whatever the market will bear.
Where new ballparks are funded with taxpayer money, the charge-what-the-market-will-bear argument is less convincing. Why should free market principles apply to projects that were funded partially or entirely by the government? The people who paid to build the ballpark shouldn't be denied the opportunity to witness what they have helped pay to create.
I think that for a number of years after a stadium has been funded with taxpayer money (5 years maybe?), the ticket prices should be fixed so that there isn't a huge increase in price. If the government is giving team owners what is essentially a $300+ million gift, the owners should at least be willing to sacrifice some ticket revenue in return.
Dan Snyder has NOT raised my Season tix in 3 years. GO FIGURE!?!?
Next year he'll hammer us.
Nats win the Pennant next year!!!
Go Skins beat dallas!
So because the city is financially mismanaged and doesn't know how to pay its bills, it's the ballpark's fault? These were new taxes that were initiated by the business community and not a source that the city otherwise would've had the political capital to muster.
Also -- and I really want to see an economic analysis of this -- I'd bet that the majority of the revenue the city takes in from the stadium is revenue they would otherwise NOT capture because of the three different jurisdictions in play. In other words, the subsitution effect isn't in play here to the extent that it is in other areas. Basically, if I'm not spending the money on the park, I'm spending that money in Virginia, not DC. I know plenty of other people who are the same way.
I won't pretend that this was a good deal or a fair deal. But there are circumstances here that even the most anti-stadium person rarely acknowledges.
There is of course the extra revenue for the city that the stadium generates in to the local area. When the Verizen center was built in Chinatown in city limits in DC, the area went booming and tons of extra taxes and business helped the city a lot. The Nationals stadium has done the same but the original deal with MLB really hampers their ability to take in large profits from such extra revenue. This is why the city council had the original deal revised before the Nats came. This is why we almost lost the team before we even had them. And as always, a weak DC government eventually caved in and they are still paying it.
Matthew - The 'Skins don't raise ticket prices except following years when they make the playoffs. Unfortunately, every time they DO make the playoffs, they jack the prices even higher into the stratosphere.
Craig - You are a dope. Chris Needham's post explains why.
It relays back onto demand. The Redskins are the most profitable team in Football and the most lucrative before the new Cowboys stadium. If people will pay such prices to see the Skins, and they do, they will keep raising prices. Simple supply demand scenario. Dont forget the Redskins have the largest wait list for season tickets in all of sports by far at 120,000 people. Factors into this situation big time.