February 06, 2012
Super Bowl spawns stadium stories
The weekend of the Super Bowl — I understand that some team won by a guy accidentally falling on his butt for a touchdown, which is truly the greatest sports moment ever — brought with it a plethora of stadium stories at least tenuously connected to the big game. My personal favorite is the one about how nice the weather would be at the Super Bowl in New Jersey if only it were now instead of two years from now, but other highlights include:
- A Bloomberg News editorial noting that data show that public stadium financing almost never generates worthwhile economic benefits (complete with lots of links to actual studies), and arguing that "teams should shoulder the heaviest financial burden in any deal" and the public should be fully informed of the costs and benefits before voting on stadium subsidies.
- This followed on a Bloomberg article looking at how the Super Bowl probably won't do much for Indianapolis, despite the city trying to use the occasion to declare itself the "Epicenter of Awesome."
- An International Business Times article running down a bunch of random facts about random sports stadiums (most of them not even football stadiums), and illustrated with a photo of the old Yankee Stadium that it calls the new Yankee Stadium.
- Many, many articles about how Indianpolis is now the epicenter of awesome.
On balance, it was a pretty good run of pieces — at least it's better than regurgitating unsubstantiated claims about how much big sporting events bring to the local economy — even if we likely only got it because of Super Bowl-related search-engine-grubbing. Not that I'd know anything about that.
January 27, 2012
Indianapolis to lose money on Super Bowl
Every so often, I get a call from a journalist asking what I think the economic benefits are to a city of hosting a Super Bowl. To which I can now answer with a link to this Indianapolis Business Journal story:
Scores of businesses in and around Indianapolis are licking their chops in hopes of scoring a windfall from the city's hosting of the Super Bowl on Feb. 5.
But the city entity that manages Lucas Oil Stadium, where the game will be played, expects to lose money.
The Capital Improvement Board of Marion County is budgeting for total Super Bowl expenses of $8 million and revenue of nearly $7.2 million, leaving a loss of $810,000.
The main added costs are for extra police time and hiring of additional temporary workers. That's partly made up for new tax revenues from the estimated $200 million in spending that will go on in the city during Super Bowl week,
But that tax money is limited, in part because, notes the IBJ:
- The NFL is using its tax-exempt status (yes, the NFL is tax-exempt, and yes, lots of other people also think this is ridiculous) to get its wmployees out of paying hotel and restaurant taxes.
- Food and beverage taxes collected inside Lucas Oil Stadium also won't be going to the CIB, but will be diverted to the NFL.
However, Indianapolitans will at least get the thrill of watching the Super Bowl on TV and knowing that they could be there, if only they had tickets. Plus the free publicity that comes from the world learning what it's like in Indianapolis in January. With benefits like these, who needs tax revenues?
January 30, 2011
Businesses on Super Bowl week: Nobody goes there, it's too crowded
The other day i mentioned a St. Louis restaurateur located near the Rams stadium who says he closes on Sundays rather than have his customers fight their way through game-day traffic. Today's Fort Worth Star-Telegram gives a more detailed look at the mixed feelings local businesses have over the flood of humanity that accompanies football games, then disappears the rest of the year. Key paragraphs:
Just south of Cowboys Stadium, Bill Testa, managing partner of the 54-year-old Candlelite Inn restaurant along Division Street, has pre-sold his lot to a parking vendor. It is already sold out, according to Parkwhiz.com.
Testa has catered some Cowboys games and believes that his restaurant could actually see an uptick in customers because of the lane closures. Yet there's a small "For Sale by Owner" sign outside the restaurant entrance, an indication that Testa would like to move the Arlington institution to a new location.
"It's hard for my longtime customers to get here when a game is going on," Testa said. "And many of my customers that used to live around here have moved away. They live in Southlake or south Arlington or Mansfield.
"If I could sell the place tomorrow, I would. But I would move somewhere else in Arlington. I've had tire-kickers, but nobody can get financing in this economy."
Which is pretty much what Phil Porter found, only at the macro level.