Publicly Financed, $1 Billion Buildings . . . in Use 4 Hours a Week, Less Than Half the Year
Building football stadiums with public dollars is in fact a mug’s game. With eight regular-season games, pro football rarely if ever pays for itself, no matter how many fictional economic impact reports the league’s captive economists and chamber-of-commerce sorts churn out.
“I’ve studied the economic impact, and it doesn’t warrant a public investment because it doesn’t pay off,” Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said of football.
–“The N.F.L. and the Business of Ripping Out the Heart of Oakland“; The New York Times (3/27/2017).
Clever furniture designers figured out a long time ago how to repurpose scarce real estate for multiple uses: a Murphy bed, which allows the same room to do double-duty as both a Bedroom and a Den or Office.
Too bad there’s no equivalent for NFL stadiums, which take up acres of valuable land — typically public — then mostly sit idle . . .
P.S.: Unlike some notoriously bad name transplants (“Utah Jazz,” “Los Angeles Lakers”), “Las Vegas Raiders” works just fine.
Runner-up name: “Las Vegas Gamblers.”
See also, “Under Construction in Downtown Minneapolis: New Vikings Stadium“; “How Far Will Naming Rights Go?”; and “TCF Stadium.”
