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Taxpayers Are About to Subsidize a Lot More Sports Stadiums

You would think that three decades’ worth of evidence would put an end to giving taxpayer money to wealthy sports owners. Unfortunately, you would be wrong.

Economic research is unequivocal: These subsidies are a boondoggle for taxpayers, who have spent nearly $30 billion on stadiums over the past 34 years, not counting property-tax exemptions or federal revenues lost to tax-exempt municipal bonds. Finally, a few years later, Maryland approved hundreds of millions of dollars in public funding—along with a historically lopsided lease agreement—for a new stadium for the Orioles, who were now Baltimore’s only remaining team. Camden Yards turned out to be beautiful—a downtown shrine of hand-laid brick and cast-iron gates that evoked the odd-angled “Golden Age” of American ballpark design.

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