Today I read Bloomberg BusinessWeek. One article jumped out at me. It was "The Braves Play Taxpayers Better Than They Play Baseball."
This is a fascinating article. Note the enthusiasm of the local leadership to secure a stadium. But more disturbing is the lack of transparency highlighted in several examples. The continued fiscal impact to a locality of negotiating a bad deal is apparent. Finally, a team can move the stadium if it wants, needs, is offered a better deal. In short, a potentially big win for a sports team and the locality is held captive.
The financing is complicated and according to the author (backed up by research) stadiums can seldom make bond payments on revenue streams based solely on general operations. Cities and counties wind up dipping into general revenue to make up short falls.
For economic developers, you will see several lessons:
- Hiring expertise to determine financing is a wise move.
- Residents may not accept fees and other charges
- Seldom do stadiums live up to the hype
- All that is gold does not necessarily glitter.
The article was written by Ira Boudway and Kate Smith. Link:
http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-atlanta-braves-stadium/
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