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Tax-Subsidized Sports Stadiums

While citizens complain of the extraordinary incomes of owners of professional sports teams and the salaries of sports players, most cities and states throughout the nation continue to negotiate costly deals to keep professional sports teams. Usually these deals involve taxpayer financed stadiums, but they also involve other benefits for the teams--nearly all of which are financed directly or indirectly by the taxpayers.

This research examines whether such tax-subsidized sports stadiums and team benefits are worth the investment. It is argued that in most situations such investments amount to nothing more than "welfare for the rich" and that the public rarely gets much return on its investment and, in fact, loses out in the deal.

A welfare system exists in this country that transfers hundreds of millions of dollars from taxpayers to wealthy investors and their extraordinarily well-paid employees. Who are these individuals profiting from this life on the dole? They are the owners of North America's professional sports teams and the athletes who play in each of the four major sports leagues (baseball, basketball, football, and hockey). This welfare system exists--indeed it thrives and continues to grow--because state and local government leaders, dazzled by promises of economic growth from sports, mesmerized by visions of enhanced images for their communities, and captivated by a mythology of the importance of professional sports, have failed to do their homework (Rosentraub, 1997, pp. 3-4).

They do not understand--or they choose to ignore--how small sports are as a part of any area's economy and how minuscule their impact is on a region, a city, or even a segment of a city. City and state leaders have also ignored or failed to realize just how few jobs professional sports teams produce and that businesses do not select an office or plant site because of the presence of a sports team. Few taxpayers and elected officials have in...

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Tax-Subsidized Sports Stadiums. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 01:35, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1706752.html