If Allen Sanderson, who died recently at the age of 81, will be remembered most for one thing, it will likely be a single remark: “If you want to inject money into the local economy, it would be better to drop it from a helicopter than invest it in a new ballpark.” That statement, which Sanderson used variations on multiple times (I first saw it in reference to a proposed Minnesota Twins stadium in 1997), ended up inspiring a movie title (as well as a Field of Schemes coffee mug) and generally encapsulated the attitude of pretty much every economist toward sports subsidies: Spending money on anything will result in some economic impact, but it’d be hard to find one with less bang for your buck than a pro sports stadium.
Sanderson should be remembered for much more than that, though: As a longtime professor at the University of Chicago — according to his faculty page, he’s taught more students there than anyone in school history — he co-wrote a ton of important studies of sports stadium economics, including three chapters in the great 1997 tome Sports, Jobs, and Taxes and more recently a study making the case for paying college athletes. And he was always happy to provide journalists and the public with plain-English explanations of economic concepts, whether about why income inequality drives higher ticket prices or the lack of an Olympics bump for cities that host the Games; his other frequent aphorisms included “There are two things you should never put on a valuable piece of property: a cemetery and a football stadium” and, with regard to claims of stadiums’ economic impact, “Take whatever number the supporters are giving you, move the decimal point one to the left, and you’re pretty close.” (Here’s a nice video of one of his talks if you want to see him in action.)
Allen was also a big sports fan, particularly of the Chicago White Sox, something he would invariably admit with chagrin. He once told me about a memorable conversation he had with a sports marketing expert to whom he was complaining about all the unnecessary noise and ad boards and attempts to sell you things that have become part of the modern live sports experience. The marketer, as Allen told it (I’m paraphrasing from memory here), replied, “We have different categories that we separate fans into, and you’re what we call a ‘traditional fan’: You go see sports just to watch the game. Let me tell you something, Allen: There aren’t that many of you.”
There definitely aren’t that many Allen Sandersons, and now we have one fewer. RIP, and thanks for all the insight and good humor that you brought to the world.
If I recall correctly the Twins offered to give the state 49% of the team in exchange for the stadium funding. That would have been a hell of a deal.
You do not recall correctly. Where did you get that from?
I think it’s mentioned in Jay Weiner’s Stadium Games. Not sure if it ever was a serious proposal. I think it was when they were trying to get funding in the late 90s.
Ah, right, that shell game. The missing piece was that the state would have had to repay Carl Pohlad’s share of the stadium cost, plus buy out his 51%, if he wanted to sell:
https://books.google.com/books?id=J_n-tQUGWEkC&printsec=copyright#v=onepage&q=49%25&f=false
Anyway, this was purely a PR move by Pohlad, as there’s no way MLB would have let this go through. By 1997 the league had already rejected the Pirates owner giving a small chunk of his team (10%, I want to say) to the city as part of lease renegotiations.
Sigh.
This is sad.
Frank Rashid, the Tiger Stadium Fan Club founder, had another analytical tool. When t hey tell you how many million dollars a facility or an event will have, Frank said they’d throw a dart at a dart board and whatever number it hits, they’d add “million dollars.”
I remember, for example, the Super Bowl was going to bring in $200 million…or $400 million…or $100 million dollars in economic impact, the local media repeating these numbers. I’m unaware of anyone who subsequently studied the issued and showed the impact a weekend of the event actually had.
As to the Twins claim, Neil, I’d love to see some documentation for that. I followed and I recall nothing like that, and it seems entirely out of character for the team ownership to offer it.
I miss Allen already! Professor Sanderson was so much fun, and spoke of complicated ideas in very simple terms. One of the most idiosyncratic but also secretly lovable teachers at the university.
What a nice remembrance of someone who did so much against the people putting up so little for new stadiums.
May you rest in peace sir.
I am one of those persons who go to the venue to watch the game, and miss Eddie Layton or Joan Jarvis on the organ between innings; replaced by loud music/scoreboards.
JANE Jarvis. Joan Payson was the Mets owner at the time, easy to conflate those two names.
I still fondly remember a 95-degree August Sunday game at Shea Stadium in the late ’70s where Jarvis played nine innings of Christmas songs. Almost made up for being at a late-’70s Mets game.
that sounds delightful.