It’s time for our weekly Buffalo News article on Bills owners Kim and Terry Pegula’s stadium demands, and this one focuses on the potential economic impact of a new NFL venue. News reporter Tim O’Shei talks to sports economists Roger Noll and Andy Zimbalist, who say the usual things about stadiums being lousy economic catalysts because they’re dark so many days a year (an NFL stadium, Noll says, “doesn’t draw enough traffic to attract other businesses for the vast majority of days of the year”) and spending on sports teams leaking out of the local economy because so many owners and players don’t spend all their money locally (diners at “a nice restaurant in Buffalo” likely have more impact than Bills fans, says Zimbalist, because “that money would go to the waiters and cooks and the proprietor of the restaurant” and it’s “much more likely it would stay in Buffalo and get recirculated and re-spent in Buffalo).
But before that, the News ran down the findings of that CAA Icon/Populous study that the Bills won’t release publicly, but have shown around to select elected officials and reporters in hopes of making their case for subsidies:
- A new stadium “would generate an estimated average of $793 million annually for Erie County and Buffalo economy over the next 30 years.”
- The Bills “have an estimated impact of $361 million annually in Buffalo and Erie County, and $380 million in New York.”
- In 2019, the Bills’ $259 million payroll generated “almost $20 million” in state income tax.
Is any of that true? Wildly inflated? We have no idea, because the News agreed not to share the full report — and, indeed, hasn’t even seen the full report, only a “summary” and some “supporting materials.” Yet the paper still reported on the selected information team execs allowed them to see, even though the experts they consulted then declined to comment on a report they couldn’t read.
That, frankly, is some next-level media manipulation, and it’s kind of sad that the Buffalo News let itself be played like that. Most journalistic organizations have some kind of ethical code about transparency in source material — one of the central tenets of the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics is “Provide access to source material when it is relevant and appropriate” — but they also have a predisposition to seeking out scoops, and “Hey, we’ll let you peek at a few selected parts of this report we commissioned if you promise not to ask for the rest of it” is often too tempting to resist.
Anyway, we can certainly say that the figures reported from the summary are questionable: For starters, how could a new stadium have a $793 million impact when there’s only $361 million in Bills-related spending, and the Bills are pretty much all that would be happening at a stadium? For that matter, are we assuming that without a new stadium the Bills would leave, despite the Pegulas claiming they’re not actually threatening that? Are we to assume that Bills fans would also leave, or bury their money under their mattresses, or go across the bridge to Canada and load up on Smarties, if they didn’t have football?
These are all things I, for one, would love to read that study to find out — well, “love” may be overstating it, it’s 160 pages, but I would take one for the team and read it to find out. Shame the governor harder, Committee on Open Government!
In other news, Exclusive look at Arizona Coyotes’ proposal for Tempe arena and entertainment district
“The Arizona Coyotes are proposing a $1.7 billion development in Tempe with a hockey arena, hotels, apartments and shops that the team says would be financed by private investors, although it wants to use a portion of city sales tax revenues generated on the site to help pay for $200 million in additional costs.”
(Paywall) https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/tempe/2021/09/20/arizona-coyotes-reveal-proposal-for-new-arena-entertainment-district-tempe/8376362002/
In part:
“The team is proposing to use two different types of Government Property Excise Lease Tax, or GPLETs, as they are known. The more traditional type of GPLET would allow non-arena components of the project to have up to an eight-year property tax exemption while the arena, practice facility and theater would remain off the tax rolls for longer through an exemption built into the law to encourage private development of airports, convention centers and entertainment facilities.
How long those buildings would remain tax exempt would be negotiated with the city as part of the development agreement, Coyotes President and CEO Xavier Gutierrez said.
Many of the properties along Rio Salado and around the lake have received similar property tax breaks. City officials have said such tax breaks were previously needed to incentivize development when the lake first opened. The use of GPLETs has come under greater scrutiny in recent years by fiscal conservatives and some residents who say such deals favor developers and are no longer needed.”
Goodness, the entire lefty media complex is built on avoiding direct references to source material.
“Lefty media complex”
Wow just wow!!!