A review of financing plans for the NFL’s 10 most recently constructed stadiums found taxpayers in the five larger markets paid about 45 percent of the bill. But taxpayers in the five smaller markets – including Denver – paid more than 80 percent of the cost of new stadiums.
“Everything in negotiations is about leverage,” said Indianapolis lawyer Fred Glass, who led the city’s recent negotiations with the Indianapolis Colts. “We had no leverage.”
Smaller markets offer less of the revenue – from local TV and radio deals, suite sales and sponsorship agreements, for instance – that helps teams stand out in a league that shares billions of dollars in national television earnings. That, along with the desire of cities such as Indianapolis to have big-city attractions, gives teams muscle to ask for more.
“It’s not an accident,” Glass said, “that the smaller markets tend to have the less-positive lease arrangements.”
Some critics of financing plans wonder whether teams are paying a fair share. Others say such deals are an example of how the NFL takes advantage of cities eager to build their reputations and economic engines.
Cities attempting to negotiate with teams over financing of new stadiums often begin to hear a rumor that the team could move to NFL-free Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest city, if the negotiations don’t go the team’s way.
“The league presumably has more leverage in a smaller community because the threat to leave is more credible there,” said Allen Sanderson, a sports economist who studies stadium issues at the University of Chicago.
Phil Heimlich has heard all the arguments about the financial challenges many teams face. But that doesn’t make the Hamilton County, Ohio, commissioner feel better about the stadium deal his county reached with the Cincinnati Bengals in the early 1990s.
Taxpayers paid about 94 percent of the cost of the $453 million Paul Brown Stadium, and the county could end up paying tens of millions of dollars for costs incurred on game days. To add insult to injury, the Bengals played miserably the first few years in the new stadium.
Frustrated with their lease, the Hamilton County Commission voted last year to join a lawsuit against the Bengals and the NFL, accusing them of intimidating the county into a sweetheart deal. A similar lawsuit in Pittsburgh was tossed out of court.
“One argument the Bengals have made is that our deal is no worse than anyone else’s,” Heim lich said. “That’s not much consolation. A lot of cities got held up.”
In recent years, during a nationwide stadium boom, many negotiations have included a common argument: Politicians and other stadium supporters warn that the loss of a team would mean losing valuable “major-league” status.
“We’re still a city trying to establish our reputation as a great American city,” said Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson. “And we can’t afford the setback of losing the Colts.”
Kevin J. Delaney, a Temple University professor who co-wrote the book “Public Dollars, Private Stadiums,” argues that both large and small cities pay too much for stadiums. But he said the pain is particularly sharp in smaller markets – where government budgets have fewer dollars to spare.
The use of the term “big-league city” is an attempt to prey on the fears of taxpayers in smaller markets, Delaney said. Though fans in Philadelphia and Dallas love their teams, he said, they aren’t worried about being seen as a backwater if abandoned by a sports franchise.
“But in a city like Indianapolis, it has some resonance,” Delaney said.
Still, taxpayers in many top markets have chipped in generously for stadiums. While the New England Patriots and Washington Redskins built their own stadiums, taxpayers in Texas paid about three-quarters of the cost of a stadium for the Houston Texans.
Public spending on new stadium projects is appropriate, NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue said, because the venues and teams provide significant returns.
“The team is a significant economic asset to the community and the state,” he said of the Colts. “So I think investment on all sides is warranted.”
But in the end, stadium backers say, the benefit is worth the cost.
“We don’t have to do it,” Peterson said. “No one is forcing us to do this. It’s our choice: Do we want to be an NFL city or not?”
Who pays
Comparing the public financing burdens for 10 recently built National Football League stadiums:
Large markets
Reliant Stadium (Houston) 73%
Qwest Field (Seattle) 73%
Lincoln Financial
Field (Philadelphia) 39%
Ford Field (Detroit) 30%
Gillette Stadium
(Foxboro, Mass.) 0%
Small markets
Tennessee Coliseum
(Nashville, Tenn.) 100%
Paul Brown Stadium
(Cincinnati) 94%
Cleveland Browns Stadium 81%
Invesco Field (Denver) 75%
Heinz Field (Pittsburgh) 56%
Also: In most cases, costs listed are only for construction; some Tennessee Coliseum funding is generated from personal seat licenses
INDIANAPOLIS STAR
