While we’re on the subject of bad journalism, let’s check in with the Guardian, which is generally one of my preferred news outlets, even if it has a reputation for occasional sloppiness. I haven’t been following the paper’s sports coverage lately, so what’s it been up to?
https://twitter.com/Travis_Waldron/status/610108993638416384
Oh, wow, yeah, that’s not good.
To recap for those who missed the whole “LeBron is worth $500 million a year” fiasco when it broke last year:
- A staffer for Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald was reported by Bloomberg News to have said that the Cleveland Cavaliers re-signing LeBron James would be worth $500 million a year to the local economy.
- FitzGerald’s office said that Bloomberg got it wrong, and they were only claiming LeBron was worth $53 million a year in local economic activity.
- Lots of people, including me, pointed out that even this lower number was pretty implausible, and the overall impact of LeBron’s presence was at most something on the order of a few million a year, of which maybe a few hundred thousand gets returned to the city or county as actual tax receipts.
So repeating a $500 million impact figure that even the person who conducted the study says isn’t true is not a good start. But then the Guardian doubled down by citing Convention, Sports & Leisure, a consulting group that really should come with a warning label reading “objects in studies may be less lucrative than they appear”:
- CSL overestimated the impact of the San Diego Padres‘ new stadium by including the economic activity at the city’s new convention center that opened at the same time.
- The group took on a contract to study the impact of a new Los Angeles Angels stadium even though its corporate owner was also the Angels’ concessionaire.
- It reported $109 million in economic benefits from a new D.C. United stadium, then later admitted that two-thirds of that amount had nothing to do with the stadium.
Or as I replied to Waldron:
.@Travis_Waldron But if CS&L stopped repeating lies, what would they do for billable hours?
— Field of Schemes (@fieldofschemes) June 15, 2015
As teh syaing goes, follow the money and see where it really ends up.
I have a dyslexic keyboard or fingers, but I think you know what I meant.
Not this again.
The macro studies always exclude jobs figures, which are what really matter. “Per-capita income” is relatively meaningless.
I strongly encourage you to look up the sales tax numbers for Cuyahoga County (since that’s the area whose taxes fund the arena) in May & June of 2014 and compare them to May & June of 2015. If those numbers are flat, then you might have a point.
Ben: Every study of sales tax receipts in similar circumstances has shown zero measurable impact, as the linked Vice article above spells out in detail. But once sales tax data is available for spring 2014 vs. spring 2015 (it takes at least one quarter for it to be reported), I’ll happily report back on if Cuyahoga County shows otherwise.
Okay, two points:
1 ) “But if CS&L stopped repeating lies, what would they do for billable hours?” — ZING!
2) Every city should get a LeBron James, the economic downturn would be kaput.
I forgot point 3.
3) Go Warriors.
Cuyahoga County may not seem to have a lot change in a year but I am guessing it would be impossible to tease out the impact of Lebron in sales tax collection from the impact of increased moving company services, robot purchases, or other changes.