The proposal to create a new Virginia state authority to build a stadium for the Washington Commanders — HB 1353, not to be confused with a prior HB 1353, though maybe the identical names are ironically appropriate — passed the Virginia House Appropriations Committee by a 14-7 vote yesterday, taking the first step toward becoming law. Which, you know, whatever: The legislation still has a long road to travel before it’s approved by both houses of the state legislature, and the creation of a stadium authority doesn’t guarantee an agreement on a stadium deal, so there are still lots of ways this can go.
What the vote does do, though, is allow us to take a look at the arguments that NFL stadium proponents are making for pouring public money into luring the Commies across state lines just 25 years after [edit: corrected, thanks, commenter Michael!] the predecessors of team owner Daniel Snyder got Maryland to build them a new stadium. Let’s see what the bill’s sponsor is saying:
[Del. Barry] Knight said the stadium would be surrounded by restaurants, retail, lodging and parking garages. No specific locations were discussed in Monday’s meeting.
“Essentially we’re going to have a large campus out there,” he said. “It’s not going to be just a stadium.”
“Not just a stadium” is a common talking point for sports-subsidy advocates, often used to deflect criticisms that stadiums are terrible economic investments or that subsidizing wildly profitable sports franchises is a bad use of public funds. Seldom does anyone raise the question of, if there’s truly a market for new restaurants, retail, etc., that won’t just cannibalize existing local business, why the state can’t just find a developer who wants to build that stuff without throwing money at a stadium as an enticement. (One could argue that a stadium that’s in use ten days a year creates enough foot traffic to encourage the opening of new restaurants, retail, etc.; one would be wrong, though.)
“I don’t mind if we break even on this and we get a little bit of unquantifiable economic impacts from this thing and we get a football team in Virginia,” Knight said. “At the end of the day, we’re not going to have it where this is a drain on the dollars and services to the people of Virginia.”
That’s a lot of verbiage that adds up to … it’s not clear what. How can you tell if the state is “breaking even” if you’re weighing very real public stadium costs against “unquantifiable economic impacts”? How do you know it won’t be a drain on the state treasury when there isn’t even a proposed site, let alone a proposed budget for this thing? It honestly feels more like Knight had a bunch of images he wanted to insert into the public’s mind — “break even,” “economic impacts,” “no drain on services” — and then just threw them into a word slurry without worrying about whether it made any damn sense.
The bill passed the committee with the support of all 14 Republicans plus two Democrats (Luke Torian of Prince William and Cliff Hayes of Chesapeake), while the other seven Democrats voted no. (While I would love to believe that this reflects more skepticism toward public subsidies among Democrats, it probably has more to do with the state’s Republican governor being a backer of the legislation.) It will next go to the full state house, and then a parallel bill will be considered in the state senate. If it passes both houses, then it’ll be time for the new state authority to begin negotiating with Snyder on what he wants and how to pay for it, which surely will take place in the full light of healthy public debate about the proper use of tax dollars, to do otherwise would be crazily undemocratic, right?
The current stadium was built before Snyder took over ownership of the team.
Oh, good point — the ’90s are all starting to blur together to me. I’ll correct.
As a Virginia resident and taxpayer, I really hope that our state Senate shoots this down.
Shouldn’t Washingtons nickname be the Commas? Not as sexy, I will admit…..