The Data on the value of public subsidies of sports venues.
There will be much argument about the great benefit of a professional team to the community,
justifying putting public dollars in private hands. It is usually a bad deal.
Billionaires, in general, do not need public money, they simply want it and appear to gain a visceral pleasure in gettting what they want. Here is where you can find data, freely available to all!
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4022547
82 Pages Posted: 3 Feb 2022
Date Written: January 31, 2022
Abstract
Local governments routinely subsidize sports stadiums and arenas using the justification that hosting professional franchises produces economic development and social benefits to the community. The prevalence of venue subsidies has generated an extensive and vibrant economics literature on the subject, which spans over 30 years and includes more than 120 studies. We chronicle the research from early studies of tangible economic impacts in metropolitan areas, using basic empirical methods, through recent analyses that focus on sub-local and non-pecuniary effects and employ more sophisticated estimation strategies. Though findings have become more nuanced, recent analyses continue to confirm the decades-old consensus that the economic effects of professional sports teams and stadiums are limited. Even with added non-pecuniary social benefits from quality-of-life externalities and civic pride, welfare improvements from hosting teams tend to fall well short of covering public outlays. Thus, the large subsidies commonly devoted to constructing professional sports venues are not justified as worthwhile public investments. We also investigate the paradox of local governments continuing to subsidize sports facilities despite overwhelming evidence of their economic impotence. We intend to inform academic researchers and policymakers to motivate future studies and promote sound policy decisions that are guided by relevant research findings.