From the Miami Herald:
South Florida’s Super Bowl Host Committee expects to spend about $21 million in private and public funds putting on the kind of Super Bowl outlined in the thick binder presented to NFL executives in New York. The confidential proposal includes creating a Super Bowl theme park in downtown Miami, including closing down Biscayne Boulevard, constructing a “Hail Mary Zip Line” along the waterfront and possibly mooring barges to accommodate some of the action, according to interviews and leaked details about the plans.The success of the bid likely hinges on voters' approval of a publicly-financed renovation of the Dolphins' Sun Life Stadium. The Dolphins are lobbying for the public to chip half of the renovation's $400 million price tag. Public money would be generated through sales tax and a hotel bed tax.
The problems with public financing for the private profit of sports entities are well documented. First, taxpayers tend to pay much more for new and renovated pro sports stadiums than is initially forecast. Second, sports entities and promoters consistently overestimate the positive economic impact of stadium renovations and big-ticket events, including the Super Bowl. Dolphins lobbyist Ron Book projected a $500 million economic impact for the State of Florida from Super Bowl L -- a projection that PolitiFact Florida and The Miami Herald rated as "False." As Baade and Matheson's (2011) meta-analysis "Financing Professional Sports Facilities" explains:
Researchers who have gone back and looked at economic data for localities that have hosted mega-events, attracted new franchises, or built new sports facilities have almost invariably found little or no economic benefits from spectator sports. Typically, ex post studies of the economic impact of sports have focused on employment, ... personal income, ... personal income per capita, ... taxable sales, ... or tourist arrivals. These studies and a multitude of others generally find that the actual economic impact of sports teams or events is a fraction of that claimed by the boosters, and in some cases actually show a reduction in economic activity due to sports.Public financing of professional sports stadiums is an exemplar of American crony capitalism; we're capitalist at the bottom, and socialist at the top. And if history is any indicator, we'll see South Florida taxpayers disproportionately holding the debt for the private profit of the NFL, Dolphins majority owner Stephen Ross (net worth $4.4 billion), and other interested parties of the sports/media complex.
But, hey, maybe zip lines will provide the economic impact that taxpayers have been looking for all these years.
For more on these topics, check out:
The Miami Herald -- Fantasy football: PolitiFact looks at Super Bowl economic impact
The Atlantic -- If You Build It, They Might Not Come: The Risky Economics of Sports StadiumsJudith Grant Long -- Public-Private Partnerships for Major League Sports Facilities
Dave Zirin -- Bad Sports: How Owners Are Ruining the Games We Love
Bob Trumpbour -- The New Cathedrals: Politics And Media in the History of Stadium Construction
Kevin Delaney & Rick Eckstein -- Public Dollars, Private Stadiums
Roger Noll -- Sports, jobs, and taxes: the economic impact of sports teams and stadiums
