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.
