Talk of a new Washington Football Team stadium in northern Virginia, though sadly (?) without a surfing moat, has been heating up of late now that freshly installed Gov. Glenn Youngkin has declared support for the idea and for corporate subsidies of all kinds. Bills are being prepared in the Virginia state house and senate to create a football stadium authority to take charge of a stadium plan, though who would pay for one would still be left up in the air. One supporter of the idea, though, State Sen. Jeremy McPike, told a local sports talk show that he thinks tax dollars should be provided for an NFL stadium — just, you know, not tax dollars that he considers tax dollars:
“The discussions are serious and I think if we look at a model potentially that you have what’s called tax increment finance, in other words Virginia wouldn’t be paying for it,” Sen. McPike said. “Only the project itself with the taxes collected in that area for the stadium and the surrounding area, the taxes collected could help support infrastructure. And so that’s sort of the idea. I’m not interested in paying for a stadium out of my tax dollars.”
To step back for a sec, in case you’re new to this site or to the world of tax kickback lingo in general: “Tax increment financing” is a device whereby some or all of the taxes paid by a development project, and often any increase in taxes paid by its immediate neighbors as well, are collected by the government and then sent right back to the developer, as an incentive to build the project in the first place. One can argue about whether providing a get-out-of-taxes-free card is worth it for local governments or not — there’s a whole lot of evidence that TIFs often end up just cannibalizing tax revenues that the city or state would have gotten anyway — but even if you think it is worth it, it’s hard to deny that kicking back tax collections represents a use of tax dollars, unless you’re Felix Unger.
McPike wasn’t entirely clear on whether TIF funding was at the forefront of state talks with WFT owner Daniel Snyder or just his own harebrained scheme, but it seems likely to be on the table, especially if there are state legislators eager to cough up tax revenue so long as it’s tax revenue paid originally by the team. (McPike is a Democrat and Youngkin a Republican, if it matters.) The senator said he’s hoping just to get a football authority created sometime in 2022, which would leave all the financing details for 2023 or later — by which point the team’s formerly state-of-the-art stadium in Maryland will be 26 years old, somebody better hurry, its railings are already falling down when hordes of fans lean on them.
That’s a great Felix Unger bit!
I wonder if Snyder makes Roger Goodell call him Mr. Snyder…..
i could be wrong but how come every nook and cranny team in the english football league can finance their own stadium? they are right sized for the fan base, and they still fill the stands, support surrounding pubs and shops, without a begging hand to the taxpayer?
European teams are way more likely to do phased construction, where they redo a stand at a time over decades instead of one big new construction.
But also, the finances of European soccer are way different, such that the marginal revenue value of a new stadium is far greater. If you’re in the EPL, adding 20,000 seats could be a reasonable gamble on getting into the Champions League and bringing in a ton more money, vs. relegation and losing a ton. In US sports, most teams bring in roughly similar revenues regardless, so it’s way harder to justify a half-billion-dollar expense — unless somebody else is footing the bill, in which case it’s pure profit.