3. “ Attracting teams and building bigger or newer facilities was not associated with economic growth, or changes in the levels of any of these economic indicators. Professional sports are not, and have never been, engines of economic growth in North American cities. They are effective at moving consumer’s entertainment from one part of the city to another, and raising employment and wages in one specific sector of the local economy, the Recreation and Amusements sector, which contains professional sports teams.” -Professor Brad Humphreys
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8. “ Pr oponents of using public funds to finance stadium construction argue that the benefits from increased economic activity and increased tax revenue collection exceed the public outlays. But independent economic studies universally find such benefits to be much smaller than claimed. So does it makes sense for metro areas to use public funds to attract and retain major league sports franchises? The answer is definitely not if benefits are limited to increases in economic activity and tax revenue collection. A strong case can be made, however, that the quality-of-life benefits from hosting a major league team can sometimes justify the large public outlays associated with doing so. ” -Rappaport-Wilkerson Report
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12. “ I am somewhat leery of simply looking at the best-case-scenarios from other cities and concluding: “i t happened there, it will happen here. ” 29 new arenas and stadiums have opened in North America since 2000. Columbus and San Diego are probably the most wildly successful. The others are less successful, some much less successful, in terms of revitalizing the surrounding area. For example, the new football and baseball stadiums in Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, four facilities, have had very little impact on the surrounding areas. It is possible to have a profound effect on the surrounding community, but it is far from certain that this will happen. -Professor Brad Humphreys
