Tampa Bay Times reporters Colleen Wright and Jack Evans have kindly shared the February 2023 consulting report they obtained on the economic impact of a new Rays stadium in St. Petersburg, and SBNation’s Elizabeth Strom has kindly broken it down to the highlights:
- Consultants Victus Advisors’ report is entirely based on proprietary numbers provided by the Rays owners, so “it’s hard to look under the hood of their math.” Among the things that aren’t clear: Where they came up with projections for $417 million in wages for 4,500 construction-related jobs, whether that’s per-year or over the course of construction, and how much of the projected $465 million in annual “direct, indirect, and induced spending” would be cannibalized from existing spending, whether at the current Rays’ stadium or elsewhere.
- Like other similar consulting reports, this one ignores the opportunity cost of what else could be done with the proposed stadium site, and what economic or other benefits that might have: “The question these studies will not answer is, ‘What if that land, and those dollars, were used for something else? And what economic impact would that something else have, and how does that compare to the benefits of the stadium?’”
A look at Victus’s Powerpoint presentation itself reveals a textbook case of clear-plastic-binderism: lots of maps and bullet points and charts with only a single source footnote, which is to the Rays and their development partners. It does indicate that the report used the IMPLAN economic model, which is an algorithm that you can plug numbers for projected economic activity into and come out with overall economic impacts — the phrase “garbage in, garbage out” comes up a lot when discussing IMPLAN. This appears to be only Victus’s second time issuing a report on a major-league stadium, after a study of the L.A. Galaxy‘s stadium that is listed on but not actually available from Victus’s website; as noted on Friday, its two founders own a football and a basketball, but zero economics degrees (they both have MBAs in sports business and a background in marketing).
The weird thing here is that Victus delivered the report to the city of St. Petersburg and Pinellas County back in February, but it looks like no one bothered to release it in the five months since. Were city and county officials biding their time until they had an agreement with Rays ownership that they would need to sell constituents on? Were they just too embarrassed to release this, knowing how hard they would get dragged by J.C. Bradbury on Twitter? It’s going to be funny to see stadium subsidy advocates try to use the numbers from this study down the road after it’s been pre-ripped to shreds thanks to the leak — though given that the Tampa Bay Times’ own story on this was headlined “New Rays ballpark could create 17,000+ jobs in Pinellas, analysis says,” maybe there really is no such thing as bad publicity.
I looked at this in great detail. I think the numbers are too conservative given the project in question.
For instance, on jobs: by moving the decimal place just one digit over, I project that this development will create 170,000 jobs for Pinellas county.
Furthermore, to balance out moving the jobs decimal to the right, I am also moving the economic impact decimal three places to the right (multiplier effect – see footnotes/ok/nevermind).
This produces a net “Direct, Indirect and/or Induced spending” of just under $500Bn for the project.
With numbers like these, frankly, I don’t see how the region CAN’T make this happen. Money will be flowing in like a torrent – just as my numbers show.
I’m not sure if it’s better or worse to use a group which has no experience in producing one of these reports for a major league sport. On one hand, it might mean they have no idea what they’re doing and will just say whatever sells the stadium the best. On the other, that’s exactly what firms with major league experience do anyway.
Here we go again no parking. Hard enough as it is for the disabled.
If the stadiumstays in st Pete it will never be as good compared to the other side of the bay. All this promises and projections of great change were promised last time. Seriously look it up. They failed to meet any of those fantasy projections. You would think people learn but mostly they have to learn the hard way. Not the smart way.
The city is small market and I’m afraid these grandiose visions will not be realized. Since 1982, I have vacationed in the area almost every year and have attended many Rays games. I think I’m pretty familiar with the landscape. St. Petersburg isn’t the optimal home for the stadium. This will wind up a disappointing boondoggle.
As I recall, a transportation study found the Rays stadium had the fewest people living within a half-hour drive of any MLB stadium.
And yet, Tampa Bay is the 17th largest metro in the US. St Petersburg is not easy for most of those people to get to.
That’s ok for the NFL, but MLB needs to get people on weeknights.
Tampa-St. Pete is 13th in media market size, which matters a ton in baseball, where local TV revenue is a big deal. (For the moment, anyway.)
I can’t recall the details, but I think I read that the Rays regional TV ratings have been pretty good, at least in this era where the team is successful.
Here is the local economic impact results from the MLB All Star Game on nearby restaurants. Also, I note that the transit systems are cutting service but increased it dramatically for the game days, I think at entirely public expense.
https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/chinatown-businesses-money-lost-all-star-week/281-ab421728-89bc-473f-b242-7f73def904ec?fbclid=IwAR2TzvC6hDUQ9i6Yoss23PJlrgQaRmqFY3ijXwtXkd3rMZs2KLjS4uTaYnw