At some point in the next 10 years or so, Dallas taxpayers will be asked to chip in for a baseball venue. The initial proposal will be $500mm. Id love for the rule to be that we dont subsidize the hobby businesses of rich people, but of course we do. The key to not winding up with buyers remorse is to limit how much we pay. Theres a large body of scholarship on the topic of exactly how much public subsidy sports venues can take before the public takes a bath, but signal to noise is very low in that field because of all the paid advocates producing quasi-academic material claiming outlandish economic benefits of the next big stadium. So how to protect ourselves? Know our competitive advantage and remember basic economics. Dallas will be THE most attractive place for a ballpark because of baseballs need to sell go-on-a-whim, weekday afternoon tickets in June. If you can walk to the park from your office, youre a lot more likely to take in a random game. That convenience factor also makes corporate sales much easier. Economics: if theres money to be made, private capital will find it. Atlanta was able to raise a huge amount of its Olympic spend in the private sector and got some decent reusable venues out of it. Weve got to convince ourselves that were the best candidate and that our subsidy offer is more attractive than higher offers from competitors, and we have to appear perfectly willing to walk a deal if its too expensive. In other words, we need leadership. LANGUAGE WARNING: the link is PG-13. Deadspin gets that way.
Posted on: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 22:58:35 +0000
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