By in Rhode Island’s Future
 |
| Nice looking stadium, but let the owners use THEIR OWN money. |
Dr. Victor Matheson, professor of
economics at College of the Holy Cross,
spoke to a capacity crowd at the Blackstone Valley Visitor Center in Pawtucket on the economics of
public money funding sports stadiums, and specifically on public money building
a new stadium in downtown Providence for the Pawtucket Red Sox(PawSox).
Overall, Matheson was not
very amenable to the idea.
Matheson is an engaging
speaker, an economist who specializes in sports. He prepared his remarks and
his PowerPoint presentation for the price of a PawSox game, a hotdog and a
beer, a far cry from the money Speaker Nicholas Mattiello or Governor Gina Raimondo are
spending for their experts.
“Let me just lay it on the
table here,” said Matheson at the start, “I’m going to be a critic of public
subsidies for stadiums.”
Showing the ubiquitous
artist’s rendering of the proposed downtown stadium, Matheson said that it
“would be a fantastic stadium for the owners to spend their own money on.”
Built for $1.5 million,
McCoy was the most expensive stadium ever, in 1942. It’s construction, said
Matheson, was a “massive debacle.” In 1966, when owners talked of moving out of
the region, $100,000 in upgrades were done to McCoy, mostly taxpayer supported.
In 1999, taxpayers ponied up for most of the $14.9 in needed upgrades, once
again because the owners threatened to move.
Matheson is not a fan of
“Economic Impact” studies. If there is one thing to take home from his talk,
said Matheson, it’s that “any economic impact study published by the people who
are trying to justify public subsidies, you should always take with a grain of
salt. And many grains of salt.”
There is, “remarkable
agreement among economists finding that spectator sports result in little or no
measurable economic benefits on host cities,” said Matheson, pointing out that
money spent on such ventures is then not spent on other things a city needs.
(Such as infrastructure, school repair and Medicaid, I will point out.)
Matheson then went on to
explain how modern stadiums, unlike Fenway Park in Boston or Wrigley Field in
Chicago, are not centers of economic activity that benefit surrounding
businesses. Instead, modern sports stadiums are self contained oases surrounded
by parking. The restaurants and amenities are not located throughout the city
but within the stadium itself, generating revenue for the stadium owners, not
the city.
Matheson compared minor
league baseball teams to average 16-screen movie mega-plexes. In general, they
perform about the same economically, yet no one is suggesting that movie
theaters be publicly subsidized in anything like the kind of deal that baseball
stadiums traditionally receive. “Are movie theaters exempt from sales tax,
property tax, market value leases, etc.?” asked Matheson, “We would say that’s
crazy.”
The kind of low paying
jobs a minor league baseball stadium would generate will end up costing the
state around $80,000 per year, per job. Matheson compared this number to the
good paying jobs lured into South Carolina with the new Volvo plant. Good
middle class jobs there cost the state $3,500 per year, per job in subsidies.
Towards the end of his
presentation Matheson explored the possibility of the PawSox moving out of
state in the event that they do not get the deal and the land they want in
Providence. Looking at population statistics and the current locations of Major
League, AA and AAA baseball teams, Matheson doesn’t see many viable options.
Matheson talked about the
threats made by the owners of the Patriots when they talked about moving to
Hartford or Providence. After not getting the deal they wanted from these other
cities, they decided to stay in the Boston area, and built Gillette Stadium, because it was the best
location, just as the Providence region (which includes Pawtucket) is the best
place for the PawSox.
I hope to have the slides
from Matheson’s talk soon and will post a video of his talk with the slides as
soon as possible.
Steve Ahlquist is a writer, artist and current president of the
Humanists of Rhode Island, a non-profit group dedicated to reason, compassion,
optimism, courage and action. The views expressed are his own and not
necessarily those of any organization of which he is a member.
His photos and video are
usable under the Creative Commons license. Free to share with credit. atomicsteve@gmail.com and Twitter:
@SteveAhlquist