The Economics and Politics of Sports Facilities

Wilbur C. Rich

may 2000 · Greenwood Publishing Group

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Rich and his contributing authors provide a political and economic analysis of sports stadium construction in the United States—the impact it has on the sports industry itself and on the host communities in which stadiums and arenas are built. The book brings together the research of leading academic analysts of sports in American society and gives a candid assessment of the claims and benefits the sports industry makes, in its continuing promotion of new stadium construction. Focusing on Baltimore, Cleveland, Chicago, Boston, Detroit, New Orleans, Toledo and Phoenix, the authors examine the topic from the perspectives of history, politics, and economics—and in doing so they raise several questions about taxpayer and community protection issues. Specifically, what do communities really get out of these facilities?

They point out that even as new and more expensive facilities are being built, Congress has not provided taxpayers and cities any real protection from the risks involved in stadium investment. Rich and his contributors examine how the pro-stadium coalitions mobilize and explain why stadium supporters manage to win most of their construction initiatives. In doing so, the contributors challenge the conventional wisdom that stadiums stimulate economic development and provide good jobs. On the contrary, they have not lived up to the promises owners made to their host communities. Neither have they generated high paying jobs nor have they met their operating costs. The book concludes with ways in which sports franchise owners can be held more accountable to their communities. The result is a powerful, well reasoned, skeptical but fair assessment of a growing phenomenon, and an important resource for professionals and academics in all fields of public policy administration and urban development and management.

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WILBUR C. RICH is Professor of Political Science, Wellesley College and has taught at Columbia University and Wayne State University. Author of several articles and reports on the problems of local government administration, Dr. Rich's books include the The Politics of Urban Personnel Policy, Coleman Young and Detroit Politics, and Black Mayors and School Politics. A fourth book, The Politics of Minority Coalitions, was published by Praeger Publishers, another imprint of the Greenwood Publishing Group, in 1996.