More Economic Bad News For Taxpayer Funded Stadiums

There just isn’t any good news out there.  Economists and those dealing with stadiums are telling us it’s a nightmare.  The Atlantic has a damning piece against the speculation with taxpayer dollars that lead to the layoffs of cops and firemen.  Of course, the city of Wilmington would never be so honest.

“The basic idea is that sports stadiums typically aren’t a good tool for economic development,” said Victor Matheson, an economist at Holy Cross who has studied the economic impact of stadium construction for decades. When cities cite studies (often produced by parties with an interest in building the stadium) touting the impact of such projects, there is a simple rule for determining the actual return on investment, Matheson said: “Take whatever number the sports promoter says, take it and move the decimal one place to the left. Divide it by ten, and that’s a pretty good estimate of the actual economic impact.”