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Football Stadiums


FOOTBALL STADIUMS


New York Sports
and Convention Center


King Dome


Georgia Dome and World Congress Center


Edward Jones Dome & America Center

Location:

West Side, Manhattan

 

Seattle, Washington Atlanta, Georgia St. Louis, Missouri
Opening Date: Fall 2009 (projected)
1992 1995
Uses: New York Jets football games, 2012 Olympic Games, large convention gatherings, 2010 Super Bowl, concerts, and other events. Atlanta Falcons football games, 1996 Summer Olympics, NCAA Final Four, Super Bowls, concerts, conventions, religious events. St. Louis Rams football team, conventions, concerts, monster truck rallies, and the 1999 Mass led by Pope John Paul II.
Size: Seats 75,000 people Seats 71,228 people Seats 60,600 people
Cost: $1.7 billion $210 million $280 million
Public Cost: $600 million ($300 million each from the city and the state) The state donated the land. A hotel tax pays the 30 percent of the total cost covered by public funds. $60 million from city and state, plus $6 million in year in city funds for debt payments.
Private Financing: $800 million from New York Jets. An additional $1.9 billion is needed to extend the No. 7 train, which developers plan to pay for with tax revenue from neighboring development.
Construction of the Georgia Dome was financed through tax-exempt industrial revenue bonds issued by the Georgia World Congress Center Authority. It was also subsidized by the sale of luxury boxes, which ranged from $20,000 to $120,000. Financed by private investors, including TWA Airlines, which relinquished its role in 2001. Edward Jones purchased the naming rights in January 2002 for $2.65 million a year.
Voter Referendum?

No

No. No
At Issue: The proposed West Side stadium is the most expensive in the nation and calls for $600 million in public subsidies. The 2012 Olympics is not a guarantee. Some argue that the financing for the stadium circumvents the city’s budget process. Many economists doubt that the convention business will pay off as promised because other costs (like hotel room rates, transportation, etc) make New York less competitive than other locations. Local residents are concerned about traffic, parking, and noise. The MTA is projecting billions of dollars in deficits for years to come and has not made the extension of the No. 7 line a priority. Discussions about a new football stadium began in 1984 when the Atlanta Falcons wanted a new facility that they would not have to share with the Braves baseball team. In 1989, approval came from the state, the Atlanta City Council, and Fulton County Commission to build a dome stadium only if it was connected to the convention center and supported by the hotel tax. The plan gained considerable momentum after Atlanta was awarded the 1996 Olympics. Atlanta built numerous other sports venues for the Olympics and a new baseball stadium for the Atlanta Braves baseball team. A few years before the stadium was built, St. Louis approved new taxes to pay for $150 million expansion of the convention center. In 1999, after the stadium failed to increase convention center business, officials agreed to build a new 1,000-room hotel next to the center to help generate business. The plan was subsidized with $98 million in federal funds, $80 million in city aid, and $21 million in state tax credits. The hotel still only operates at 55 percent occupancy.
Benefits Promised: The New York Sports and Convention Center would serve as the home of the New York Jets football team and the Olympic Stadium if New York wins the 2012 Olympic bid. It features a retractable roof and a changeable floor plan so that the stadium can be converted into a large event space for the Jacob Javits Convention Center. The plan would give New York City the fifth largest convention center in the nation. Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the stadium will create 18,000 construction jobs and 6,900 permanent jobs. He promises the plan to expand the convention center will increase tourism, boost the hotel industry, and provide development for the west side of Manhattan. A main objective was to keep the professional football team in Atlanta. Combined with the World Congress Convention Center, officials promise that the dome would help draw big sporting events and increased convention business. The city said that the expanded stadium/convention center would triple convention center business and generate $12 million a year in new tax revenues. They also predicted an increase in hotel business.
Benefits Delivered: The Georgia Dome has been a popular sports venue hosting two Super Bowls, NCCA Final Four basketball games, and college football games. Atlanta’s convention center drew record attendance through much of the 1990s. However, despite expanding convention space by an additional 1.4 million square feet in 2002, convention attendance is now half of what it was in 1995. According to a study by the Brookings Institution, the plan has not generated the expected tax revenue or convention business. Convention attendance dropped in recent years from 156,000 to 115,300 between 2000 and 2004. Although organizers promised 50 major conventions a year, in 2004, it only had 23.

 

 

Baseball Stadium


 

Untitled Document

BASEBALL STADIUMS


Yankee Stadium


SkyDome (Rogers Centre)


SBC Park


PNC Park

Location:

South Bronx next to current ballpark

 

Toronto, Canada San Francisco, California Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Date: Spring 2009 (projected)  1989  2000  2001
Uses: New York Yankee baseball games  Toronto Blue Jays baseball games, Canadian football games, concerts and other events.  San Francisco Giants baseball games, concerts, other events.  Pittsburgh Pirates baseball games, concerts, job fairs, and other events.
Size: Seats 50,900 people  Seats 50,516  Seats 41,503 people  Seats 38,496 people
Projected Cost: $800 million $600 million (Canadian)  $319 million  $262 million
Public Cost: $300 million from New York City for a new Metro-North station. The city will also have to build parkland along the waterfront and better parking facilities around the stadium.  $262 million (Canadian)  Public land donated. Also $15 million in tax increment financing by the city, which the Giants must pay back to the city with interest.  $219 million ($143 million from city; $75 million from state).
Private Financing: $800 million for stadium paid for by Yankees  30 different corporations paid $5 million each and Canada’s three major breweries also contributed $5 million each.  $70 million for naming rights, advertising partnerships and other sources, another $70 million from the sale of charter seat licenses, and a $155 million loan to the Giants from Chase Securities.  $44 million from the Pittsburgh Pirates. Also $30 million over 20 years from PNC Bank for naming rights.
Voter Referendum? No  No  Yes  Yes. With 70 percent of the vote, citizens rejected a taxpayer-financed stadium.
At Issue: For years, the Yankees have tried in the past to build a new stadium, either on the west side of Manhattan or at the location for the proposed stadium at 161st Street. In the past, the Yankees have demanded large public subsidies, but now say they will pay for the stadium themselves. However, the team is still asking the city and state to pay $300 million for surrounding infrastructure. The Yankees and city officials say they will announce an agreement and more details in early May 2005. By the time the stadium was completed, it costs significantly more than predicted and the Ontario government was left responsible for the debt. The main issue in San Francisco was who should pay for the new stadium. In four referendums, voters rejected public financing for the ballpark. A fifth referendum in 1996 approved the Giants’ use of public land in China Basin to build the stadium with private financing. The Pacific Telesis Group paid $53 million in 1996 to name the ballpark Pacific Bell Park through 2019. SBC Communications bought the company and in 1997 changed the name of to SBC Park. In November 1997, voters in 11 counties rejected a plan to raise taxes to build a new stadium. City and state officials ignored the voters and built it with mostly with public funds. The city of Pittsburgh funded its $143 million share through a sales tax. Three-term Mayor Tom Murphy recently announced that he would not be seeking another term after 11 years of fights on the budget, stadiums, and economic development.
Benefits Promised:

The Yankees promise that the new stadium will also help create parkland, retail shops, and restaurants, and parkland for the South Bronx.

 City planners said they had learned their lesson after building Montreal’s Olympic Stadium, which has been called “Canada’s monument to mismanagement,” and promised to build a ballpark that would turn a profit.  Developers promised to build a privately financed stadium that would be accessible by public transit and help spur housing, retail, and restaurant development in the surrounding area.  One of the main objectives of the new ballpark was to keep the Pirates from fleeing to another city. It is also part of plan to revitalize downtown Pittsburgh; in addition to games, it hosts a variety of events and is surrounded by retail stores and restaurants.
Benefits Delivered:   The stadium has had financial difficulties in recent years. The ownership filed for bankruptcy protection in November 1998 and Sportsco International LP bought the stadium out of bankruptcy for $85 million CDN. In February 2005, Rogers Communications, the owner of the Blue Jays, bought the stadium for $25 million. The Toronto Argonauts, a Canadian football team, is now in negotiations to relocate to an outdoor stadium at York University in 2007. San Francisco’s ballpark is often hailed as the first privately funded ballpark built for Major League Baseball since Dodger Stadium opened in 1962. The stadium is accessible by numerous forms of public transit, including buses, streetcars, light rail, the Bay Area Rapid Transit System and ferry service. City officials boast of 6,000 apartments that have been created as a result. The Pirates stayed in Pittsburgh. The downtown area has seen some revitalization, but the city continues to struggle financially, raising taxes and laying off city workers.

 

 

New York's Proposed Stadiums and Arenas


* The proposed West Side stadium, and existing domed football stadiums

* The proposed Yankee stadium, and existing ballparks

* The proposed Brooklyn Nets arena, and existing arenas

* The mayors of Pittsburgh, Kansas City and San Francisco explain how they built their stadiums.

 

 

When Mayor Michael Bloomberg argues that the city should build a new stadium for the Jets football team, he often points to other cities like Atlanta or St. Louis. These cities already have domed stadiums like the one Bloomberg wants to build and have played host to the Super Bowl, the 1996 Olympics, monster truck rallies, and even a visit from the Pope.

“New Yorkers will be the big winners if this project becomes reality,” the mayor said.

But Mayor Bloomberg does not mention that these stadiums have not turned out to be as great a deal as officials initially predicted.

In Atlanta, an expanded center was met with a drop in attendance. In St. Louis, surrounding hotels are still empty. And he never mentions the Seattle King Dome - once the largest dome in the world - which suffered an even worse fate. In 2000, the aging structure was blown up even though the county still owed $125 million on it.

Closer to home, officials in New Jersey recently agreed to a new $750 million stadium for the New York Giants football team, even though the state will have to pay $30 million for surrounding roads and will still owe $124 million in debt on the old stadium. In Newark, the housing authority diverted $3.9 million in federal funds meant for low-income residents to a new arena designed to keep the Nets basketball team from moving to Brooklyn.

In the last 25 years, the nation has experienced a stadium and arena boom.

More than 50 stadiums or arenas have been built in the U.S. and Canada since 1990. And 12 baseball stadiums, nine football stadiums, and eight basketball arenas are being promised for the future, according to League of Fans, which was founded by Ralph Nader.

In New York City, six sports teams - the Jets, the Yankees, the Mets, the Knicks, the Rangers, and the (recently purchased) Brooklyn Nets - all want expensive new places to play.

While fans may argue that teams play a significant role in the life of a city, most economists agree that stadiums and arenas are bad public investments.

"By having a sports team or a new stadium or arena, you don't increase the level of per capita income, and you don't increase the level of employment," said Andrew Zimbalist, a professor of sports and economics. "There's no direct economic development of communities."

Some critics, such as those who run Web sites like www.fieldofschemes.com, see all of these sports complexes as boondoggles.

They point toward examples like PNC Park, a $262 million baseball stadium for the Pittsburgh Pirates, which was built mostly with taxpayer money, even after voters rejected it.

“I fundamentally don’t believe that the public ought to be investing in ballparks,” Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy said at a recent forum (read the full transcript). “That said, we have built a new football stadium, a new baseball park and a convention center, and we spent $1 billion. That’s reality; that’s the marketplace.”

But others argue there is a good way to build stadiums.

SBC Park, a baseball stadium in San Francisco, for example, was paid for almost entirely by the Giants. It is hailed as the first privately funded ballpark for Major League Baseball since Dodgers Stadium was built in 1962.

Not all stadiums are equal.

Football stadiums seat 75,000 people and if they have a roof can be used for other large indoor events as well. These facilities cost the most. (Click hereto see how the West Side stadium compares to other similar domes.)

Baseball stadiums are smaller, seating 35,000 to 50,000 people, and in addition to games can only be used for open-air events. (Click hereto see how the proposed Yankee stadium compares to other ballparks.)

Indoor arenas are used for basketball and hockey, seat around 20,000 people, and cost the least. (Click hereto see how the proposed Brooklyn Nets arena compares to other arenas.)

But when comparing New York’s proposed stadiums and arenas to others across the country, some things are clear:

  • New York’s sports venues would be by far the most expensive ever built
  • They depend on large subsidies by the taxpaying public
  • The city may be repeating mistakes that have been made elsewhere in the country.

See how New York’s stadiums and arenas match up (click below to get to the three grids):

* The proposed West Side stadium, and existing domed football stadiums.

* The proposed Yankee stadium, and existing ballparks.

* The proposed Brooklyn Nets arena, and existing arenas.

* The mayors of Pittsburgh, Kansas City and San Francisco explain how they built their stadiums.

Related Articles:
* New York Sports Economy
* Stadium Fever
* The 2012 Olympics and New York
* The West Side Stadium
* Bringing the Jets Home Dreaming of a Jets Stadium in Queens

Related Links:
* NewYorkGames.org
* New York Association of Better Choices
* Hell's Kitchen Online
* No Land Grab - Anti-Nets Arena Web Site
* Develop, Don't Destroy Brooklyn
* Field of Schemes
* League of Fans
* Ball Parks
* Stadiums of NFL

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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