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Fiscal fumble?

A study says we taxpayers spend too much to attract and appease sports teams.

By JAMES THORNER
Published July 15, 2006

	[Getty Images]
	Tropicana Field Opened: 1990 Cost: $138-million to build, $85-million to renovate Yearly public debt paid: $10-million Property tax exempt?: Yes
	[Times photo, 2003]
	Raymond James Stadium Opened: 1998 Cost: $168.5-million Yearly public debt paid: $14.4-million Property tax exempt?: Yes
	St. Pete Times Forum Opened: 1996 Cost: $144-million Yearly public debt paid: $3.2-million Property tax exempt?: Yes

Tampa Bay area taxpayers spend at least $27-million a year keeping their professional sports teams housed in state-of-the-art stadiums and arenas.

They should have held on to their dough, according to a new study by two economists at the University of South Florida.

Absent hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies - think publicly financed Tropicana Field and Raymond James Stadium - the same sports teams would still find it profitable to locate in the same cities.

That means if taxpayer handouts vanished as a sports financing tool, the Tampa Bay area would still host three major league teams: Devil Rays baseball, Buccaneers football and the Lightning pro hockey. So says the study.

"The teams would be right where they are now and we'd be richer and richer," said USF's Philip Porter, co-author of "The Role of Public Subsidies in the Location and Pricing of Sports" with colleague Chris Thomas. "We'd have the same games but the players and owners would be less rich."

Porter's ideal world is a far cry from the current intercity wheel of fortune: sports team owners circling the country to see which city delivers the biggest prize.

To satisfy the Bucs, Hillsborough County is paying $310-million of Raymond James Stadium's principal and interest with a special half-cent sales tax over 30 years. Critics of the deal cringed at the subsequent enrichment of Bucs owner Malcolm Glazer. Thanks to the stadium deal, the team's value rose from about $192-million to $500-million. Glazer's profits initially quadrupled.

In downtown Tampa, the St. Pete Times Forum, then called the Ice Palace, opened in 1996 to host professional hockey. The 20,000-seat arena cost $144-million, split among the Lightning, Hillsborough and Tampa.

In St. Petersburg, Tropicana Field, the former Florida Suncoast Dome, opened in 1990 on the city's dime. Taxpayers picked up most of the $138-million cost, excluding interest. Before the Devil Rays arrived in 1998, taxpayers kicked in $85-million more to bring the dome up to major league par.

Barbara Casey, spokeswoman for Raymond James Stadium, said the subsidies prove that pro teams enrich a community. If teams weren't a plus, why do cities fight so hard to attract and retain them?

She challenged a central part of Porter's thesis by pointing out that Los Angeles has no pro football teams. The city's National Football League mainstay, the Rams, decamped to the far smaller St. Louis.

"Why aren't the teams in Los Angeles? That's the No. 1 or 2 media market. Why aren't they there?" said Casey, who works for the Tampa Sports Authority.

In their 25-page research paper, which will undergo peer review before publication, Porter and Thomas analyzed sports incentives packages. They discovered that across the country, the cities that pay the most in subsidies are those that are already likely to lure a sports team measured in ticket sales and game attendance.

In other words, the Bucs play in Tampa instead of Orlando because Tampa is a better sports market.

In Porter's view, it's unconscionable for cities and counties to divert taxes to millionaire team owners, particularly when studies consistently show no economic gain. Haggling among cities creates a "perverse market" in which one community beggars another.

"The bottom line is the professional sports leagues have set us up to fight among ourselves and get no return for it," Porter said. "The money buys us nothing."

Rick Nafe, vice president of operations for the Devil Rays, knocked the study for trafficking in a world of "make believe" in which subsidies go away. They won't, Nafe said.

"Life doesn't work out like that," he said. "I would hate to be a city that took the gamble and lost a team."

For Mike Merrill, Hillsborough's debt management director, it's too late to argue about whether Porter is right or wrong.

"It's an academic argument at this point, no pun intended," Merrill said. "The facilities are built and we have to deal with them. Our job is to make sure they're first class."

But equipping the stadiums with the best and latest is a strain in itself. Witness this year's request for $70.5-million to renovate Raymond James, the hockey arena and Legends Field, the New York Yankees' spring training home. (The Forum wants $35-million; Raymond James, $28-million; and Legends, $7.5-million.)

From a taxpayer perspective, all three major sports arenas are hugely unprofitable. Porter says the money is better spent on roads, schools and infrastructure. He also challenges the argument that stadiums are economic engines whose presence aids the recruitment of corporations to the region.

Rarely do sports teams rank much higher than 10th on surveys of reasons for corporate relocations, Porter said. Work force, taxes and infrastructure come in first, second and third. All three arguably suffer when money goes to sports.

Most recently, Washington, D.C., with its perennially low-rated schools, agreed to finance a $611-million stadium for the Nationals baseball team. The giveaway provoked the libertarian Cato Institute to write an article titled Foul Ballpark.

"There's not a lick of evidence that the presence of a team has any appreciable economic impact," Porter said.

Sports boosters like Casey point to little heralded spinoffs from pro teams: the homeowners near Raymond James who put their kids through college by letting fans park in their yards. The waitress in a stadium-side restaurant whose tips finance a home renovation.

"If there is no value for the community, why do communities fight so hard to get them back when they've lost a team?" Casey said, citing such cities as Baltimore and St. Louis.

Porter suggests Congress treat professional sports as a cartel unworthy of public subsidies. He knows Washington won't be eager to enforce antitrust laws against team owners, though. Sports fans themselves, many politicians put pro athletics in the hands-off column.

The proper way to finance stadiums is for the owners to tap their own vast resources, then to pass some of the cost onto fans through higher ticket prices, Porter said.

"Someone has to stop it from above and say this is insane," he said.

[Last modified July 15, 2006, 05:50:36]