As previously reported, the Tennessee Titans are seeking $600 million in upgrades to their 23-year-old stadium, and want taxpayers to foot the bill for half that amount. Titans president Burke Nihil called this “a win-win for just about every stakeholder” this week, which is to be expected because it’s what team owners and developers seeking public money always say. More curious, though, is how Nashville Mayor John Cooper — previously noted in these part for negotiating a deal that limited Nashville S.C.‘s owners to getting only $75 million in public subsidies for their new soccer stadium instead of the $75 million they’d initially agreed to — has defended the deal:
“It’s going to be important to present to the community a stadium solve which is fantastic which allows us to not only keep the team and to have a Super Bowl, but that has no burden on the general taxpayer,” Cooper said…
[Cooper previously] said he would bring an end to tax-increment financing, or TIF, which is essentially a 25-year property tax discount for developers to help with new public facilities such as parking lots and parks…
The state chipped in for Nashville’s stadium redevelopment by redirecting its share of the sales tax collected in the new sports-entertainment district toward repaying construction costs….
“Getting a substantial contribution from the football side – up to half – is under active discussion,” Cooper said. “But that would be paid for, ultimately, on the sales tax redirect.”
So, yes, TIFs are a mess, and Cooper is right to decry them as straight-up tax kickbacks that cost taxpayers the same as if the government just wrote developers a check. But sales-tax kickbacks aren’t really any different in that regard — in fact they’re arguably worse when you consider that it’s state taxes being kicked back, and an upgraded Titans stadium is likely to mostly cannibalize spending elsewhere in Tennessee — so it seems like when Cooper means “no burden on the general taxpayer” he only means Nashville taxpayers, not Tennessee taxpayers, even though the former are by definition also the latter.
The proposed deal still isn’t finalized, though The Tennessean reports that team officials are “hammering out final details of the complex agreement” with city government. The paper also reports that “not only must Metro and Titans officials agree on sharing stadium upgrade costs, but they also have to plan for higher annual payments for Metro Sports Authority to keep the arena [sic] in top shape,” which sounds like the public sports authority will be asked to throw more money at this deal down the road, which could cause the taxpayer cost to balloon well beyond $300 million; stay tuned for more news and “win-win” claims once all the details are hammered out.
“Just about every stakeholder” is accurate; it just excludes the big lump of stakeholders called “taxpayers.”
You got that right Dave!