State & Local Government Policy, Business and Technology

For Economic Development Gold, Listen to the Music

Governing: Economists and public policy experts have been telling us for decades that sports stadiums are a terrible investment for governments to make with taxpayers’ money. These expensive buildings almost never bring in the windfall of jobs and local business development that team owners promise; within a few years they are white elephants and the sponsoring localities are struggling to pay off many millions of dollars in debt.

So the argument goes. Research from a wide variety of places over a long period of time seems to bear it out. The mammoth sports palaces built in the 1970s and 1980s have failed to meet the grandiose expectations that surrounded them. Many are already being replaced.

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