David Nicklaus on why building a new stadium for the Rams is a bad investment:
Study after study has found that stadiums and teams provide no measurable boost to a city’s economy. “The biggest fear is a loss of visibility for your city” if a team moves away, says Patrick Rishe, a professor of economics at Webster University. “In terms of economic loss, most people who go to the games are local, so there isn’t any.”
“There’s not a change in net spending of a magnitude to really matter to a large, diverse urban economy,” adds Robert Baade, an economist at Lake Forest College in suburban Chicago.
Sure, football fans buy tickets, parking and beer, but their bank accounts didn’t magically expand to make room for that expense. They shifted money from elsewhere in their budgets.
“It’s not as if people in non-NFL cities don’t spend money on entertainment,” says Victor Matheson, professor of economics at Holy Cross College in Massachusetts.
Read Nicklaus' full piece here.