Sports Stadiums In Urban Areas

9 Pages 2285 Words

Many of our local political and community leaders and the owners of professional sports teams claim that professional sports stadiums and franchises are important parts of their cities economic growth in urban areas. These stadiums and teams supposedly give millions of dollars of new spending every year and make hundreds of new jobs, and this allegedly should justify for the hundreds of millions of dollars of public funding. Despite these claims there is no real evidence of helpful financial impact of professional sports teams and stadiums on our urban economies.
This is really important for us to understand because some of our communities are suffering, and we are just voting without even thinking about the impact it has on our urban economy. We just think alright we’re getting a great looking stadium or even a brand new pro team and voting for it without even knowing the rewards we might get or might not get. Even though there are some rewards for having a team or new stadium, which is good for pride in a community, I think we are not getting the money we should out of these stadiums and franchises and put back into our communities. This should be important to us because we are putting an awful lot of money, fan devotion, and heart into these facilities and teams and not getting our share back.

Sports stadiums and franchises appear to be good candidates for economic development plans aimed at stimulating urban neighborhoods. Sporting events are wildly popular throughout the world and widely understood and appreciated by residents of cities. In the United States, new sports facilities are always said to be important components of urban redevelopment plans and sources of considerable economic growth in terms of job creation and income production. Cities provide the owners of professional sports franchises with hundreds of millions of dollars of financial support for the construction of new stadiums and arenas and expect t...