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Why publicly funded sports palaces remain the most durable con in American economics
They promised jobs, tax revenue, and neighborhood revival through construction, concessions, security, and tourism. They wrapped the deal in team loyalty and civic pride, insisting a rising tide would lift everyone.
The promise collapsed under scrutiny.
Thirty years of economic research reach a single conclusion: publicly financed stadiums do not create sustained employment, do not generate net economic growth, and do not repay public investment.
Cities that deny shelters and affordable housing in the name of public order absorb congestion, policing costs, noise, and disorder when the beneficiary is a billionaire sports owner. The public pay, and private ownership collects.
Teachers Buy Supplies While Billionaires Demand Public Cash
Ryan Fromoltz has run 23 online fundraisers over 12 years as an English and media arts teacher in the Clark County School District. He raised about $10,000 for scissors, copy paper, and electric fans after air conditioning failed at Las Vegas High School. After transferring to Harney Middle School and discovering obsolete video equipment, he fundraised again for cameras the state refused to provide. He has also paid out of pocket for basic supplies such as pens, tissues, pencil sharpeners, and air purifiers.
Fromoltz said the cycle reflects a systemic failure that forces Nevada teachers to cover classroom essentials year after year.
A U.S. Department of Education survey found that 94 percent of teachers spend personal money on supplies, averaging $478 annually, rising to about $550 for educators serving low income students.
While Fromoltz raised money to keep classrooms functional, Nevada lawmakers approved $380 million in public financing for a Las Vegas Athletics stadium. The team’s owner controls $2.7 billion in personal wealth.
Across the country, teachers fund classrooms out of pocket while billionaire owners demand hundreds of millions in taxpayer subsidies. Schools decay as luxury suites rise. Nurses are left understaffed while climate controlled concourses and premium sound systems are installed. Transit routes disappear as parking infrastructure expands around venues idle most of the year.
Communities that cannot afford textbooks bankroll palaces for owners who could build privately. Public subsidies weaponize fan loyalty, converting devotion into leverage to extract tax dollars. Revenue flows upward from facilities the public paid to build.
They Had the Money All Along
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John Fisher controls $2.7 billion and demanded $380 million from Nevada taxpayers for the Las Vegas Athletics stadium. Ray Davis controls $2.8 billion as Arlington taxpayers financed $500 million for Globe Life Field. The Brown family holds roughly $2.3 billion while Cincinnati taxpayers assumed more than $450 million in debt for Paul Brown Stadium. Amy Adams Strunk seeks $1.26 billion in public funding for a new Titans stadium despite a fortune exceeding $2 billion. Mark Attanasio controls about $700 million as Milwaukee taxpayers approved $500 million for Brewer’s stadium renovations.
Every owner had the wealth to build privately. Everyone chose to bill the public.
What the Stadium Subsidy Cost You
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These figures reflect estimated per household costs over the full life of public financing, typically 25 to 30 years.
Arlington households paid $3,289. Nashville households face $1,762. Milwaukee households paid $785. Las Vegas households paid $507.
Owners retained liquidity. Taxpayers assumed decades of obligation.
The Hidden Costs Never Counted
Stadium projections erase permanent public harm. Police are pulled from neighborhood patrols to manage traffic, crowd control, and alcohol fueled violence. Emergency crews rush to crashes, overdoses, heat exhaustion, and cardiac arrests. Fire departments add shifts. Hospitals absorb postgame trauma spikes that never appear in economic forecasts.
Sanitation costs surge as municipal crews’ clear tons of refuse. Roads degrade under sustained traffic loads. Water and sewer systems strain at peak demand. Transit agencies expand service at chronic losses, subsidizing events that drain public budgets long after the final whistle.
Taxpayers also inherit disaster risk. In Tampa Bay, Tropicana Field suffered extensive hurricane damage in 2024, triggering emergency repairs paid for by the public rather than private ownership. Roof failure, structural remediation, and displacement costs landed on taxpayers after decades of private profit.
When teams leave, the bill remains. In Kansas City, Missouri, the looming future of Arrowhead Stadium exposes the endgame: a publicly owned structure draining tens of millions each year or facing demolition costs that climb into nine figures, all for a facility built to enrich owners who already cashed out.
Drunk driving fatalities rise near stadiums, a pattern documented across multiple studies. On November 2, 2021, former Las Vegas Raiders receiver Henry Ruggs III spent hours drinking at TopGolf, a publicly promoted sports venue near Allegiant Stadium. He then drove his Corvette at 156 miles per hour with a blood alcohol level twice the legal limit and slammed into the Toyota RAV4 of 23-year-old Tina Tintor.
The impact ruptured the gas tank. Tintor and her dog Max burned to death trapped inside the vehicle as bystanders tried to save them. She lived blocks from where she died. Ruggs is now serving three to ten years in prison.
Tintor’s death appears nowhere in stadium economic impact projections. Taxpayers paid for the crash response, investigation, prosecution, incarceration, and the permanent devastation borne by her family.
Nearby residents endure noise, gridlock, public urination, property damage, and harassment from intoxicated fans. Property values often stagnate or decline despite glossy promises.
Consultants count fan spending as economic gain while taxpayers absorb the danger, damage, and human cost.
What Your City Chose
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Public money-built luxury suites, premium sound systems, and parking deserts that sit idle most days while owners lock in guaranteed revenue for decades.
Communities paid with teachers charging supplies to credit cards, schools running broken HVAC systems, nurses forced into double shifts, transit routes erased, and textbooks left to rot in classrooms long past their usefulness.
Construction Jobs End. Event Based Wages Remain
Stadium construction creates temporary jobs that vanish at completion and never anchor local labor markets. Every dollar diverted to stadium debt strips funding from teachers, nurses, transit workers, and infrastructure crews who provide stable, year-round employment.
What remains are event-based jobs in concessions, security, cleaning, and parking. These positions pay wages so low that workers often rely on public assistance, offer minimal benefits, and provide no path forward by design, while owners extract revenue from facilities the public paid to build.
How the Numbers Get Manipulated
Job projections are built on distortion. Workers are double counted, displaced jobs are ignored, and relocated spending is falsely treated as new economic activity even though total spending does not increase. Independent reviews consistently find net job creation near zero.
Opportunity Cost in Real Cities
Cincinnati financed Paul Brown Stadium and Great American Ball Park with more than $1 billion in public debt as school funding froze and infrastructure projects stalled. The Brown family controls $2.3 billion in personal wealth.
This extractive pattern repeats across cities and leagues.
Thirty Years of Research Reach One Conclusion
Decades of peer reviewed research show no sustained income growth, no long-term employment gains, insufficient tax revenue to offset subsidies, and chronic cost overruns. Studies by Dennis Coates and Brad Humphreys found no statistically significant link between stadium subsidies and employment growth, a conclusion echoed by the Brookings Institution and the National Conference of State Legislatures. Bureau of Labor Statistics data confirms spectator sports work remains concentrated in low wage, event-based jobs.
The academic consensus is unanimous.
Nevada Teachers Understood the Math
The Las Vegas Athletics proposal followed the familiar script of jobs and prosperity. The outcome mirrored every stadium that came before it.
Nevada’s teachers’ union opposed the subsidy because money diverted to stadiums drains classrooms. Education spending delivers the highest documented employment multipliers. Stadium spending does not.
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Photo credit: John Fisher, image via public reporting
John Fisher demanded $380 million from taxpayers while educators like Ryan Fromoltz continued fundraising for basic classroom equipment. A DonorsChoose search lists more than 1,200 active projects in Las Vegas area schools, hundreds requesting essentials as basic as pencils.
What Actually Produces Jobs
Education, healthcare, infrastructure, transit, and housing investment generate durable jobs, stable wages, and compounding economic returns. Stadium subsidies rank among the least effective development tools yet persist because relocation threats work and officials surrender.
Designed to Extract
Taxpayer funded stadiums function as extraction systems, channeling public wealth to private owners while temporary jobs and permanent low wage labor simulate development. Civic identity is exploited, urgency is manufactured, and communities impoverish themselves for symbolic victories.
The Bottom Line
A subsidy that collapses under employment analysis is not economic development. It is a taxpayer funded entitlement racket for billionaires. Teachers are forced to finance classrooms while owners collect public welfare. Nurses are left understaffed while luxury suites receive climate control. Schools decay while owners who could build privately are insulated from risk with public money.
Thirty years of evidence leave no ambiguity. This system devastates communities to pad private fortunes, and its beneficiaries treat human damage as collateral beneath their wealth.
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