Atlanta Braves' New Stadium Is a Disaster for Taxpayers and Fans

[bluedigger]

The Atlanta Braves christened Major League Baseball's newest stadium on Friday night with a 5-2 victory over the San Diego Padres in front of some 41,000 fans, most of whom seemed to actually make it into the stadium despite the nightmarish traffic jams and lack of parking at Sun Trust Field.

More on that in a moment.

First, let's keep in mind that none of this would be possible without Cobb County, Georgia, taxpayers kicking in more than $400 million. More accurately, none of this would have been possible without one of Cobb County's former top government officials negotiating a secret deal with the Atlanta Braves to have taxpayers pay that amount for a new stadium, and without the rest of the Cobb County commission voting to approve the stadium deal at a supposedly public hearing where members of the public were prevented from voicing their opposition to the secretly crafted deal.

And that's really only the beginning of the story of one of the worst stadium deals in American history.

When the Braves announced plans in 2013 to relocate from downtown Atlanta to the northern suburbs of Cobb County, Georgia (closer to Marietta, Georgia, than to downtown Atlanta), some observers were surprised. After all, baseball teams had been flocking to retro-style downtown ballparks ever since the opening of Camden Yards in Baltimore in 1992. Those downtown stadiums were supposed to be revitalizing portions of inner cities in return for massive public spending on the stadiums themselves.

http://reason.com/blog/2017/04/15/atlanta-braves-new-stadium-is-a-disaster

[Cattledog]

1. The opening game on TV was just a commercial for the stadium.

More time was spent discussing how great the new facility was than the game.

[Docreed2003]

2. Excellent piece...

These stadium deals which are "publicly funded" are a parasite on communities. The only beneficiary in this system are the owners of the team. Sure the community gets to keep their home team and a shiny new stadium, but the long term financial benefits for the community has never been shown, at least to my knowledge.

[JonLP24]

3. I took economics and you are correct

The businesses that depend on them are mainly sports bars which are inelastic demand. Plus there are opportunity costs involved meaning that cities could invest the funds elsewhere including jobs or something that benefits the public. Corporate welfare is generally a bad idea.

[Docreed2003]

4. Many times they sell the idea of the stadium on the additional events it will bring in...

Baseball stadiums will only, realistically, have the ability to host events from April to early Oct, with half of those dates being used by the baseball team. That leaves about five/five and a half months where the facility will
Be empty. Same is true for most football stadiums, unless they are domed. Basketball and Hockey facilities are a bit different but I think the point remains, the benefits of a new facility rarely translates to big profits to the community.

[JonLP24]

6. At the end of the day it is a huge transfer of taxpayer funds into the pockets of private interests

I think it will take cities like Miami & Washington DC 30 years to make the money back if they're lucky for their baseball stadiums and a lot of these cities hve already built multiple sports stadiums & arenas. The owners themselves could pay for renovations from their own pocket they likely wouldn't do the idiotic idea of tearing down a whole place and building a brand new place. There a huge differences in league structures in North American pro leagues to soccer leagues with promotion/relegation. They all are playing in the same buildings with the owners paying for renovations with the exception of a huge collapse in the stands where the government stepped in with funds for renovations.

[ProfessorGAC]

7. Economically, It's Even Simpler Jon

If stadiums turned a profit, owners would build them with their own money
But they don't so they need a 30 to 60% layoff then they make a decent return on the 3 or 4 bucks per ten they lay down
Citizens are played for suckers

[JonLP24]

8. They don't build them by themselves because they don't have to

They can find a city to do it for them. They do it because they can rather than they must and if it was out of there own pocket they would make renovations instead of building a whole new stadium.

[ProfessorGAC]

9. Yes But

If they can't sucker or blackmail a city, they'd just build their own. Even in the case where the city/county/state ponies up the cash, the team now shares stadium revenues. If they could take 100%, and that was really big money, they'd build their own playgrounds

[msongs]

5. billionaire owners and millionaire players - its entertainment, not sport nt

[Jamaal510]

10. Too bad

Perhaps the biggest surprise, at least at first, was that the Braves were abandoning a relatively young ballpark. A ballpark that is younger, in fact, than Miley Cyrus, as Victor Metheson, a professor of sports economics at the College of the Holy Cross, points out.

the Braves couldn't have shipped their "old" stadium here so the A's would have a decent ballpark now.

[JonLP24]

11. I remember the creater of fieldofschemes.com

About the Georgia Dome "Older than Miley Cyrus for chrisakes."

If you need evidence, look no further than Atlanta, where the Falcons are continuing their drive to replace the 18-year-old Georgia Dome on the grounds that, well, it's 18 years old, and other newer stadiums are newer. Just listen to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell explaining on Thursday that he'd be happy to let Atlanta host a Super Bowl, just as soon as it does something about that embarrassing stadium that's older than Miley Cyrus, fer chrissakes:

"I think this is a great community," the NFL commissioner said. "But as I mentioned to the people earlier today, the competition for the Super Bowl is really at an all-time high, in a large part because of the new stadiums.
"The provisions that they have for a new stadium in this great community, I think that's a pretty powerful force. We have a history of going back to communities when they have those new stadiums."

http://www.fieldofschemes.com/news/archives/2010/11/4333_goodell_to_atla.html

[Jamaal510]

12. I can't believe

it hasn't even been 20 years since the Georgia Dome first opened. I know the NFL can be relentless in their stadium quests, but it is getting to the point where they won't at least wait for the novelty of relatively new stadiums to wear off anymore.

[ProfessorGAC]

13. And Here In Chicago. . .

. . .we have Wrigley and Soldier Fields. One built in 1914 and just now being renovated, and the other built in 1924 and remodeled in the 20 years ago. Look at NY. The Mets were in Shea many decades and the Yanks spent what, 70's in their old joint. Red Sox have been in Fenway for a century or more..

I think part of this is overexpansion. Here in Chicago, the 3rd biggest market, the fanbase doesn't need to be fascinatedby the surroundings to come to the games. Yeah, jumbotrons and other amenities are welcome additions, but that's not the reason for being at the game.

In Atlanta, which is still heavily college sports driven (Chicago is clearly not), the affiliation to the teams is more tangential despite how long they've been there, so they need a shiny new bauble more often. We insist on putting franchises in every city of consequence and then are surprised when the fan base doesn't show up unless the team is stellar or the stadium is brand spanking new.