Sports can be quite a polarizing topic.  Some do not care for them, some are obsessed.  Some see sports as something only filled with scandals and could not care less for the entertainment value, while for others it is almost a religion.  I see it as something that separates us from a lot of other countries in this world.  It can be argued that our football fans are equally, if not more passionate than international soccer fans.  But on top of that we have basketball, baseball, and a plethora of other sports not only at the professional level, but collegiate, high school and middle school as well.  We are quite a sport-crazy country.  Noelle Nikpour of the Sun Sentinel says that "Sports bring competition; teach morality, integrity and ambition; are exciting, amusing and challenging. But most of all, they bring us hope. Sports give us faith to live another day. We see our favorite athletes, and we are amazed by them, and it gives us a sense of hope that no matter what challenges or hurdles we have in our daily lives, we can conquer them all" (Nikpour).  (Edit: removal of block quote)  No doubt that sports bring something special to society.  But at a certain level, its entertainment value seems to eclipse logical thinking.  More and more money is funneled into the sports industry at every level, be it professional, collegiate, or high school, while at the same time this country budget issues with things like education.  It seems like we have let sports become this larger thing that goes way beyond its benefits, and it is starting to cause problems.  Look at the massive, brand new stadiums you see being built every year.  That money has to come from somewhere, and sadly it is usually from our taxes.  The major issue I would like to address is the taxpayer-funded subsidies given to professional sports teams to build their new stadiums.  Too much irresponsibility goes into signing stadium deals that are unfavorable to the constituents that end up paying for them.

So how did this issue arise?  "Tax abatements, low-interest loans, job training, and facility and infrastructure development have been some of the incentives offered to influence the locational decisions of firms" (Kantor, 1995). With professional sports teams now a coveted asset, the size and scope of public subsidies are escalating (Rosentraub, 1997a). The owners of sports franchises can demand public assistance because the number of regions that want teams has dramatically outstripped the supply of franchises. The increase in the nation's population and wealth has led many economists and students of professional sports to conclude that as many as 25 additional franchises could be created by the leagues given the financial performance of existing teams (Ahmad-Taylor, 1995). However, because the four principal leagues are able to constrain the supply of teams, a virtual bidding war between cities for these scarce assets has broken out" (Kantor, Rosentraub, Ahmad-Taylor).  Over the course of the past 30 or so years, the level at which this has been going on has continually increased, not only in cost but frequency.  Somewhere along the line, teams gained all of the bargaining power to ask for pretty much whatever they want and threaten to leave to go to another city if their demands are not met.  This has shown to hurt multiple cities very much, as in some cases, demands are met and the team leaves anyway after a few years.  Take the St. Louis Rams for example.  The team relocated to St. Louis in 1995, and as the town was eager to have an NFL team, signed a very raw deal, assuming that they would stay in town for 30 years.  The Rams relocated to Los Angeles after the 2015 season, after only 21 years, and the city is left to pay the rest of the bill for the stadium built despite not having a team to play in it.  " ... at the start of 2015 Missouri still owed $129 million for the stadium and pays $12 million towards that loan annually, split evenly between the City of St. Louis and St. Louis County. The Rams, for their role, payed $500,000 annually to play in the stadium, which of course they won't be doing anymore" (Kerr-Dineen).  A team that generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue only had to pay half a million per year for their stadium.  Obviously something is wrong.  Financially and logically this does not make sense, so something else must be causing similar instances to occur again and again.

Politicians have approved using public funding to subsidize buildings sports stadiums in the hopes that hosting a team brings in more economic value than the stadium cost.  However, the amount of money used for this is staggering.  According to the Huffington Post, "taxpayers have spent nearly $3 billion on the 16 stadiums that will host NFL games during the season's opening weekend ...  29 of the NFL's 31 stadiums have received public funds for construction or renovation. In the last two decades ...  taxpayers across the country have spent nearly $7 billion on stadiums for a league that surpassed $10 billion in revenue last season" (Waldron).   The main argument against these subsidies is that organizations that generate billions in revenue per year are very undeserving of public money.  Another argument is that the economic boosts from hosting a professional team do not substantiate using millions in taxpayer money to build them a stadium.  And let us assume that it is financially viable; is it fair for people who have no interest in sports to pay taxes that go towards the benefit of such a high profit organization rather than infrastructure, education, etc?  Overall, the government should not have such a heavy hand in what is essentially private investment of public money.  These are not public works projects, they do not bring significant amounts of jobs, and they certainly do not benefit the people economically. 

So let us start out with debunking the idea that hosting a pro sports team gives enough economic boost to a city to compensate for the hundreds of millions of taxpayer money used to subsidize a new stadium.  "Though communities across North America continue to invest substantial amounts of tax dollars in the facilities used by professional sports franchises, there is little disagreement among policy analysts on the economic benefits from the presence of a sports facility and a team. Across three decades, a small group of scholars has concluded that neither teams nor the facilities they use are a source of substantial or even meaningful economic development (Okner, 1974; Noll, 1974; Rosentraub, 1988; Quirk and Fort, 1992; Johnson, 1993, Baade, 1996a; Rosentraub, 1997a; Nunn and Rosentraub, 1997)" (Swindell, Rosentraub).  More evidence of this comes from Stanford Professor of Economics, Robert Noll: "NFL stadiums do not generate significant local economic growth, and the incremental tax revenue is not sufficient to cover any significant financial contribution by the city" (Noll, Parker).  It is seemingly a consensus that the economic benefits are not great enough to justify these massive subsidies.  So now that we can conclude that the economic benefit claim has no real substance, we can move on to the deeper reasons as to why this is happening.  There is definitely a perception in the public eye that economically, this system is viable.  This perception is quite a driving factor in the issue, as politicians that sign these stadium deals can fall back on it rather than the actual facts.  They use this guise of a sports team making a local economy thrive to get these deals signed.

We do not often get a look into what goes on in political meetings.  We can assume that our elected officials have the people's best interests at heart, and while that is the case some of the time, there are times when that is not what happens.  Sadly, it just takes time for elected politicians to cycle out and for one to take office with motives not in the best interest of the people that elected them, and make a 30 year deal that far outlasts their tenure.  A good example recently took place with Wisconsin governor Scott Walker.  "Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker on Wednesday signed a bill approving $250 million in public funding for a new arena serving the Milwaukee Bucks, which seems to fly in the face of both Walker's presidential campaigning as a fiscal conservative and his insistence that there isn't enough money for things like public education or living wages. In July, when Walker signed the state's new budget, he cut funding to the University of Wisconsin by $250 million" (Davidson).  It is not acceptable for decisions like this to be made.  Budget cuts on education are being made all over the country, most notably at Louisiana State University.  To cut a university's budget by $250 million, then turn around and waste that money on a basketball stadium is reckless.  On the other side of the coin, the former governor of Minnesota, Jesse Ventura, who has quite an opinion on this topic, had to deal with a stadium meeting personally while he was in office.  Red McCombs, the owner of the Minnesota Vikings, came to Ventura asking for funding to build a new stadium for his football team.  "Ventura says he told McCombs that if he wanted a new stadium, he could raise ticket prices to help pay for it. "You know what his [McCombs] response back to me on raising the ticket prices was? He said, 'Well, I can't put this on the backs of our most loyal fans,'" says Ventura. "I got angry then. And I looked at him and said, 'Well, Red, let me tell you something. My wife, the first lady of Minnesota, she doesn't give a rat's ass about Viking football. And there's a lot of other people that [couldn't] care less about it. You're telling me you can't charge your fans but you can go to these people and reach in their wallet and make them pay so you get a new stadium?' I said, 'Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.'" (Hellman)  While Mr. Ventura is exactly what most people want in their government, it was only a matter of time before he was cycled out, and a governor or two later, Red McCombs got his stadium deal.  The Vikings now have a stadium worth nearly $1 billion, with approximately half of that being paid for by the public.  This shows a problem that extends deep into how our politics work.  Often times, these organizations more than outlast elected officials' tenures of two, maybe four years, and end up getting their way eventually because someone will come along and approve it.  This is a systematic issue we need to address in our political process.  That is what is at the core of these deals; bad politicians not representing the people.

Let's take a step back for a second though.  Should representation of the public matter if the public's opinion on an issue is skewed?  Many people are led to believe the local economy that hosts a sports team more than offsets the cost of the hosting.  The politicians are advised on the cost-benefit of massive deals, and are more than likely well aware that it does not work economically.  This means that politicians either knowingly sign bad deals, or are not being properly advised.  In either case, a change needs to be made.  People need to make sure that they vote for someone that will make well-advised decisions to benefit the people, even when the public goes against them due to misinformation.

Not only is public funding of sports stadiums morally wrong, it is not a viable option financially.  Due to the sad state of our politics, organizations like the NFL have taken advantage of the people and the government for the sole purpose of padding their own pockets.  The systematic way these professional teams have gotten their stadiums means we, as a people, must make sure who we vote into office has us in mind.  However, 

"With public skepticism abounding, Noll said the current wave of stadium proposals may signal the end of an era in which pro teams periodically receive a subsidy to build a large "modern" stadium  --  as defined by a large number of luxury boxes, concession areas that resemble shopping centers, and a technologically advanced scoreboard. 

"The remaining question is what the next era of stadium construction will bring" he said.

One possibility, according to Noll, is that as professional sports generate greater revenues from Internet distribution, real-world stadium attendance will shrink, leading to smaller but more luxurious facilities.

"Another possibility is that all future facilities will be embedded in larger commercial and residential projects, with the sports team being like an anchor tenant at a shopping center," he said." (Noll, Parker)

While this is a good thing, and we are moving in the right direction, it is only due to public outcry about the issue.  And while there is pressure now, people's attention will likely be drawn to something else and this issue will be forgotten before any systematic changes occur.  As of right now, a governor who is only in office for four years has the ability to make 30 year deals with private companies that financially jeopardize their entire jurisdiction. That is what I think the main takeaway from my whole argument should be.  Governors like Jesse Ventura are who we must make sure we elect, because he was looking out for the people.  When we do not pay attention, we elect politicians that make bad decisions and decisions that do not represent the demographic.  This extends beyond just public funding of sports stadiums, it can be applied to politicians cutting education funding, or imposing more taxes with no tangible benefit.  As a people, we must start paying attention.

