The Cost To Keep The Home Team At Home May Not Be Worth It
$498 million — that's how much the state of Minnesota and the city of Minneapolis have agreed to pay as their share of a new nearly $1 billion football stadium for the Minnesota Vikings. Team owner Ziggy Wilf says he believes Minnesotans got a fair deal.
And as it turns out, the deal is pretty standard. But is it fair? Increasingly, privately owned sports teams aren't just asking for newer, fancier digs. They're also asking the public to pay half — or more — of the bill.
Hidden Costs Add Up
Judith Grant Long is a professor of Urban Planning at Harvard who has studied sports facility deals for over a decade. She tells All Things Considered host Audie Cornish that cities often end up paying far more than their fair share because of hidden costs from new roofs, police details, garbage pickup and a loss from property taxes (most sports facilities don't pay them).
She says those things add up and increase the average public share from 50 percent to 75 percent of a facility's total cost. And she's not alone in seeing through the perceived economic benefits from these deals.
Average capital cost of professional sports stadiums in use during 2010.