Petco Park opened in San Diego in 2004 at the cost of $450 million after much negotiation between the franchise, city and members of the community. (Photo by Matt Thomas/San Diego Padres/Getty Images)
Having covered ballpark, stadium and arena construction in the U.S. since the 1990s, I can’t argue with the economists. From a pragmatic viewpoint, there’s little doubt these structures aren’t worth the investment of public dollars.
It’s much more psychological than that. Each community has to decide whether hosting professional sports is a wise investment of their taxes.
“To be clear, the issue is not that public funding should never be used to build stadiums,” long-time economist and college professor Andrew Zimbalist said. “It’s that the public never had a choice in funding the project. Usually, the population in the U.S. is given a choice. Either we put up this billion dollars or the teams leave.”
And make no mistake the teams will leave. There’s always another suitor out there for a new home if a town doesn’t want to pony up the money. It happened to the NFL’s Chargers when voters in San Diego proper resoundingly sided against a referendum to build a new football stadium. They moved to Los Angeles instead.
