Posted on 04/14/2014 8:41:35 AM PDT by MichCapCon
The idea that the proposed new Red Wings arena will revitalize midtown Detroit is the reason given for the $260 million in corporate welfare that will help finance the project. The idea that a new sports arena will spur economic development, however, lacks credibility.
An NHL season only has 41 home games, meaning the arena is closed for the most of the other 324 days of the year with the exception of some concerts or other special events. Not much development can take place around a facility that is closed nearly 90 percent of the year.
Take the Palace of Auburn Hills, where the Detroit Pistons play, as an example. An NBA season also consists of 41 home games. If sports arenas really spurred additional economic development, there would be bars and restaurants surrounding the Palace. Yet, there are not.
Backers claim the new arena will create 440 new jobs in addition to those that already exist at Joe Louis Arena. This means that taxpayers are providing a subsidy of approximately $600,000 per new job created. Given how sports arenas are only open a handful of days of the year, jobs created at them tend to be temporary, low-paying food service jobs.
Sports teams are simply too small a component of the local economy to serve as an engine of economic development.
According to Forbes, the Red Wings earned $96 million in total revenue in 2013. According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, total income in the metro Detroit area was $208 billion in the same time period. This means that the Red Wings comprise 0.05 percent of the metro Detroit economy.
The Red Wings could move to a new state tomorrow and it would not cause a blip on Michigan's economic radar, especially since studies find that consumers would shift their entertainment spending to other local options. Surveying the literature on sports stadia and economic development, economists Dennis Coates and Brad Humphreys find that "the overwhelming preponderance of evidence [is] that no tangible economic benefits are generated by these heavily subsidized professional sports facilities."
Under the guise of economic development, state taxpayers simply trade one set of empty lots for another.
The building of Comerica Park resulted in a vacant lot on the corner of Michigan and Trumbull where Tiger Stadium once stood. The Silverdome sits empty with a destroyed roof in Pontiac now that the Lions play at Ford Field. A combined $335 million in taxpayer dollars was used to finance the two new facilities.
If a new Red Wings arena is built, Joe Louis will be demolished. It is unclear how taxpayers benefit from having vacant lots in one part of Detroit (and Pontiac) over others at a cost of over a half a billion dollars.
Instead of subsidizing the construction of the Red Wings arena, $260 million could finance the repair of all of Detroit's streetlights with money to spare. It would be enough to resurface I-75 from Saginaw to Mackinaw City. It could be used to hire 100 police offers in the city of Detroit for more than 25 years.
Though less flashy, those projects would result in more bang for the taxpayer buck than extending yet more corporate welfare to another billionaire.
The basic infrastructure needs regular types of jobs scattered throughout the entire area. This detriment was caused by Coleman Young who refused whites the ability to open up businesses within the Detroit city limits for 20 years.
So much for diversity.
When the white man left Detroit he took his jobs with him. He moved his business to Troy and Novi and now those areas are economically sound.
Detroit needs to provide incentives to bring the white business man back.
When whitey comes back Detroit will find itself on secure footing.
Really?...I have a few questions
1. What would make whitey come back to Detroit?
2. Why did whitey leave Detroit to begin with?
3. Will the people who caused the conditions which prompted whitey to leave Detriot be open-minded and sensitive to whitey's needs, should whitey return?
4. Should a race-based initiative be instituted to ensure there is no disparate impact on whitey if he or she return?
5. Should whitey get affirmative-action for hiring and contract preferences?
6. Will whitey vote for the politicians who prompted their departure?
7. Will the Detroiters who enabled and supported the politicians that prompted whiteys departure vote for politicians who will secure whiteys civil rights?
8. Should all of the delusional people who believe whitey left Detroit because they were all racists be forced to move to Detroit and stay there?
I’m only 50 yrs. old.
When I was a kid, the Tigers and Lions played at Tiger Stadium.
The Pistons, at Cobo.
The Red Wings at the Olympia.
All great places.
In ‘75, the Lions HAD to have a HUGE new stadium built.
Then the Red Wings HAD to have a new stadium too.
Then the Pistons, then the Tigers. Maybe those are switched...
But I’m AMAZED at how disposable these billion dollar stadiums are! 10-20 years and they start making plans, not to renovate or upkeep the current one, but to abandon it and build a new one.
They maintained the old Tiger stadium for 75 years or something like that. They can’t do the same now with todays’ technology???
No, they wanna spend money. We’re addicted to it. Every polititian wants to build HIS legacy.
Follow the Money.
Or, more appropriately, the Mafia-Union-Construction Industry-Politician connection.
let us see -
take money out of the economy to build something nobody sane would build with their own money and create low paying jobs selling beer and hotdogs for 42 days a year.
This only sounds reasonable to idiots, billionaire team owners, millionaire players and politicians who want idiot votes
A recent study found that most stadiums do not cause growth. Now, the Ballpark in Arlington and JerryWorld, aka ATT Stadium, home of the Cowboys, have seen significant growth. Also, there has been a significant amount of growth around the American Airlines Center in Dallas. But the growth is due more to the overall growth of the cities, not specifically the stadiums. For example, Six Flags is adjacent to the Ballpark in Arlington, and brings in thousands daily, open most of the year.
stadiums did not cause growth - some businesses moving closer is not necessarily growth
I have nine brothers and sisters. When we graduated from high school and/or college we found that their were no jobs anywhere in the city of Flint. So we high-tailed it out of there. Now, I have two brothers who have moved back to Michigan but not to Flint. Our family represents a typical dynamic for people impacted by lack of jobs.
Jobs are the thing that attract and keep people in any one place. Don't need any affirmative action, just good jobs.
Both Detroit and Flint have suffered from democrats as mayors, most of which have been crooks. Some of which have went to prison for their crimes.
If Detroit were to help small businesses to open within the city limits using Jack Kemp-style tax incentives, it would be a true renaissance for the Motor City.
Arena’s are the final nail in a coffin of a failed city. When I was at Fresno State they tried to “revitalize” downtown with a stadium. It was completed a few years after I left and, as almost all stadiums, losing money and downtown Fresno is as desolate as ever.
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