Are All These New Stadiums Worth It?
They are all the rage, in football and baseball. Nearly every team owner wants a new stadium… all the hot stuff… luxury boxes, high-end restaurants, corporate seats, etc.The owners will tell you they have to have a competitive stadium to field a competitive team.That's the rallying cry.
People are tired of it and they're saying so.Fifteen NFL franchises have new, or vastly refurbished, stadiums since 1999. The "Jones-mahal," as writers have dubbed the new Dallas Cowboys stadium in Arlington, Texas, opens this season at a cost of over a billion dollars. That's billion with a B.Will it justify the cost?
Mark Oristano, author of A SPORTSCASTER’S GUIDE TO WATCHING FOOTBALL, isn’t so sure.
"Granted, Texas Stadium, the Cowboys home since 1971, was in disrepair, but part of that is the fault of the team, since they knew they were going to move and they just let it run down.The Cowboys will win financially, with the big luxury boxes and very expensive seats, since they got fiscal help from the city of Arlington.”
But Oristano, and others in the sports biz, think the fans, and the cities, tend to be losers.
"I have a good friend who was a Cowboys season ticket holder for a generation," says Oristano, "and when he saw what it would cost him at the new stadium for personal seat licensces, one of the world's greatest ripoffs, and the ticket charge on top of that, he said the heck with it. He told me he could send his three kids to expensive colleges for what Cowboys tickets would cost, and it just wasn't worth it.”
Will the Cowboys stadium be full on opening day? Of course.Can the fans be counted on to return? Perhaps, since in football you're only talking about a handful of dates each season.And, as Shakespeare would say, therein lies the rub.The city of Arlington put millions into the new stadium, but it's not a project that is going to create jobs, no matter how full the stadium schedule is.And even in good economic times, the question should be asked whether cities should put tax dollars, paid by all citizens, in projects of private business where only a handful of people will be able to take advantage.
In baseball, check out the new Yankees and Mets parks, where the $2500 dugout seats are going unsold.Loyal fans of the middle class are pretty much priced out of the picture these days. And that's the real tragedy of it all.