Since 2008 ten states have allocated $6 billion of public funds to fund new professional sports stadiums for privately owned teams. At the same time six of those states–Florida, Georgia, Michigan, New York, Texas and Wisconsin–have cut their education budgets. Three of those states–Georgia, Texas and Wisconsin–rank in the top 12 among states that have cut education budgets since 2008.
Yet, virtually every analysis of the long term economic effects of stadiums find no evidence that cities receive anywhere near an attractive return on their investment. Cities, in fact, lose money on these investments. Most recently, a study done by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis found that 86 percent of economists agreed that ‘local and state governments in the U.S. should eliminate subsidies to professional sports franchises.’
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