The Devil is in the Details: Neutralizing Critical Studies of Publicly Subsidized Stadiums

Abstract

This article analyzes the role of economic and sociological studies in the debate over using public subsidies to build new professional sports stadiums. We show how academic studies have been neutralized by supporters of stadium subsidies, thereby making them less effective in policy debates. We illustrate how pro-stadium elites have ignored the studies, criticized them without competing evidence, commissioned contradictory studies, or shifted the debate to non-measurable endpoints. We speculate on some of the reasons why pro-stadiums advocates — in particular politicians and corporate elites — have chosen to support subsidies despite academic findings that suggest little economic payoff from subsidies. This article is drawn from primary research in nine American cities involved in new sports stadium construction.