dman66 wrote:pressure=9Pa wrote:There was a Baseball Prosepctus article on this about 4-5 years ago you might look up, and it concludes that the economic benefit isn't really that great. It looks at cities during the 1994? baseball strike, and what was different in 1993 and 1995. Obviously bars and restraunts next to the stadiums were hurt, but many movie theatres, water parks, museums, etc. throughout town had record years. It basicly said that cities overpay for sports teams to make themselves feel like big league cities, and because the positive effects of franchices are more measurable than the other "investments".
I do not believe it factored in tax revenues from the players. It's important to note that visiting team players get taxed as well in most cities. Laws are written to tax "income earned" in a city to make squeeze every dollar they can.
That was always the argument a professor of mine would always make when I was taking sports management classes at RMU. A season ticket holder may take their chunk of money to another place, but a fan that only goes 3-5 times, or however many, a year will likely just redistribute the money back into the region. Most people won't just flat out save the money.
Well, the problems with those studies though is they do not take into account everything. For example there are the staples:
1. player salary taxes
2. employee salary taxes
3. Ticket tax
4. Parking tax
5. Standard businesses (around facilities)
6. And so on.....
But they miss a lot too. For example - a real study would have to show the economic hit of ALL surrounding area and not limited. Every bar is packed on Steelers and a lot of Pens
AWAY games. Beer distributors, merchandise,
those who travel to the city, hotel rooms and so forth.
No events means no out of towners (including in Pgh with 3 sports 135 + playoffs nights of visiting teams taking up rooms/spending money) visiting fans and so on). There is no replaement for hotel rooms, fans, visitors coming to your city or fans dropping hundreds of dollars.
They compare the mean to fans that spend a bit. But my investment in the Pens is huge and trust me, I am not replacing that money in totality if the Pens left. My tickets, parking, food you name -
added with how much money I spend at bars, beer distributors, grocery stores for away games and parties - even just the playoffs alone for AWAY games AND home games I dont have tickets too. They also leave out general economic growth just from having a building. For example - the Penguins are the only reason we have a nice facility which has already gotten us a draft, NCAA, Winter Classic (to a point more the team and not CEC), we have a frozen four on the way and I imagine more down the road.
We also get TONS of decent concerts we wouldnt get without a team to support a nice facility. So you have to add the economic growth of say the Pens or Steelers allowing for venues to draw big national acts. Without them it doesnt exist.
Too many variables are missed in these studies that I have seen.
And then onto sposors. Not sure how much Consol drops but lets say its $5 million. If the Pens left would they and all the other sponsors turn and drop that money, plus money on food, parking, tickets, suites or whatever else into our city/state overall budgets or would it be towards more of a global advertising appeal that doesnt help growth?