Financial Priorities: Spending on Stadiums vs. Schools

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

Every city and town in the nation has schools... some are funded better than others with or without a stadium or football team.  There are only 32 cities with teams...

32 Teams, not cities as NY and LA have 2 teams. While I agree with your basic premise and the editorial is poorly written in so much as it really fails to establish a link between school funding and stadium construction, the bigger issue is the use of Tax Payer money where the tax payer does not have a voice in it's use to go to stadium construction/improvements which benefits the few where a solid and comprehensive local public education system benefits the many.

I agree.  Show me an actual link between stadium spending and school spending.

I've mentioned this on past threads before and it still rings just as true as ever, but 2 of the states that I bid jobs in:  Texas and South Carolina are building and renovating schools at a mad pace.  I'm currently working on/just shipped 5 different schools in the Katy TX ISD right now each with an overall projected valuation between $30-50M. 

And after a quick search, there are 40 projects bidding right now across the USA within those parameters - none of them are in Florida.

[finehoe]

The market dictates that if Jacksonville taxpayers do not subsidize the Jaguars, the Jaguars will no longer exist in Jacksonville.

And shouldn't a conservative, Republican dominated city like Jacksonville heed what the market says? 

[Tacachale]

BUH BUH...MY FOOTBAW! TEH JAGZ R SO IMPORTANT! DON'T U KNO HOW MANY FORTUNE 1 MILLION BUSINESSES COME HERE JUST CUZ WE GOT TEH JAGZ?!!? STICK 2 SPORTS

YEAH TEH GATAS ARE THE ONLY FOOTBAW WORTHY OF SHOUTED CAPS AND SWITCHING NUMBERS 4 WORDS BEC4USE NO SCAMS IN COLLE6E FOOTBAW AND ONLY SOPHISTICATED SMART F4NS. TEBOOOOOOOOOOW

Pretttttty sure my tax dollars aren't making the billionaire owners of the Gators (or the Dawgs, or the Noles) more rich. 

The NFL is kleptocracy.  Pure and simple. Tax dollars enriching billionaires at the expense of the poor. And then they gauge you on tickets, food, drink etc.  It's why I dont really give a shit about the Jags and laugh when they lose.  They're a drain on us.  All academic studies prove this.  But, as I have said ad nauseum on this website, no one fucking cares because football.

Ad nauseum, you got that right.

Just because you don't care for professional football does not make the NFL a kleptocracy. The market dictates that if Jacksonville taxpayers do not subsidize the Jaguars, the Jaguars will no longer exist in Jacksonville. If the people of Jacksonville want the Jaguars, they aren't stupid for supporting public financing of stadium improvements. They are allocating their tax dollars toward something they value. So cut the HURR DURR FOOTBAW shit.

And it's gouge. They GOUGE you on concessions because you are a captive audience inside the stadium, but they GAUGE demand and set ticket prices based on that. Of course, they also allow you to bring in outside food, so they aren't even very good at gouging you. HURR DURR.

Ummmm, pretty sure actual Jaguars fans make up a minority of the population and, given an actual choice, they would vote for things that benefit them, not a billionaire. But, they aren't given that choice-- probably because power brokers know they'd lose.

And, man, way to sock it to me over-- in a rush-- riting gauge instead of gouge.  Really nailed me their.

If you think spending on the Jaguars would fail if put up to the voters, you're naive. The fact that you complain about football despite being a class-1 Gators fanboy shows just how deeply the game runs in this town. Not that any of the expenses we've handled so far are the kind of things that need to go to a referendum.

Further, just because some fans wants the Jags doesnt mean my tax dollars should go to corporate welfare for a billionaire whose yacht is nicer than 90% of the homes in the quad-county area.  If those fans want to subsidize the stadium, then so be it.  Don't short change my roads, schools, etc* for a building to be used 10 times a year to showcase shitty football.

* insert meaningless argument about "but but but, the hotel tax pays for it!" nonsense.

I've said it before, but this exact same argument is made about literally any form of quality of life spending. In fact, I've heard parents with kids in private school bitch about their tax dollars going to public schools - "why don't the people who use the service pay for it? Don't short change my [whatever it is those people spend their money on] for a building I'll never use".

[finehoe]

I've heard parents with kids in private school bitch about their tax dollars going to public schools - "why don't the people who use the service pay for it?

Betsy DeVos plans to fix that.

[Tacachale]

BUH BUH...MY FOOTBAW! TEH JAGZ R SO IMPORTANT! DON'T U KNO HOW MANY FORTUNE 1 MILLION BUSINESSES COME HERE JUST CUZ WE GOT TEH JAGZ?!!? STICK 2 SPORTS

YEAH TEH GATAS ARE THE ONLY FOOTBAW WORTHY OF SHOUTED CAPS AND SWITCHING NUMBERS 4 WORDS BEC4USE NO SCAMS IN COLLE6E FOOTBAW AND ONLY SOPHISTICATED SMART F4NS. TEBOOOOOOOOOOW

Pretttttty sure my tax dollars aren't making the billionaire owners of the Gators (or the Dawgs, or the Noles) more rich. 

The NFL is kleptocracy.  Pure and simple. Tax dollars enriching billionaires at the expense of the poor. And then they gauge you on tickets, food, drink etc.  It's why I dont really give a shit about the Jags and laugh when they lose.  They're a drain on us.  All academic studies prove this.  But, as I have said ad nauseum on this website, no one fucking cares because football.

Ad nauseum, you got that right.

Just because you don't care for professional football does not make the NFL a kleptocracy. The market dictates that if Jacksonville taxpayers do not subsidize the Jaguars, the Jaguars will no longer exist in Jacksonville. If the people of Jacksonville want the Jaguars, they aren't stupid for supporting public financing of stadium improvements. They are allocating their tax dollars toward something they value. So cut the HURR DURR FOOTBAW shit.

And it's gouge. They GOUGE you on concessions because you are a captive audience inside the stadium, but they GAUGE demand and set ticket prices based on that. Of course, they also allow you to bring in outside food, so they aren't even very good at gouging you. HURR DURR.

I like professional football, but I agree with MMR that it is a kleptocracy (well, I agree with what he meant by saying that - I think the NFL is more like a cartel or a cabal - or any other number of words starting with "c").

What the NFL really is is a monopoly. They control the market on their product and ensure that the supply (the number of teams) is artificially lower than the demand (the number of cities that want/could support a team). That means that cities that want teams have to do a lot more to get and keep them. But we may be seeing the crest of the wave as to how much cities will put up with. Now several cities (including LA, the second biggest) have pushed back against what the NFL (and other sports leagues) are trying to make them do.

[Tacachale]

yeah seems like a great idea to let the people who elected trump vote on every major line item in the budget

very productive

I don't know how "Jags vote" would go but imo the people who actually pay taxes see benefits in having a NFL team here based on the costs.  otherwise we wouldn't

I hear some people like parks more than others.  Maybe we should vote on that too

MMR et al are correct that NFL stadiums don't generate a real net benefit above the costs, economically speaking. Most studies show this. But it's also a quality of life expense. People - a lot of people - get a lot of personal benefit from having a team that they can root for here. It's hard to think of another quality of life expense that would affect as many people locally as the Jaguars do.

[TimmyB]

I've said it before, but this exact same argument is made about literally any form of quality of life spending. In fact, I've heard parents with kids in private school bitch about their tax dollars going to public schools - "why don't the people who use the service pay for it? Don't short change my [whatever it is those people spend their money on] for a building I'll never use".

And, yet, railroads are told that they must "make a profit and stand on their own", but billions of tax dollars go to build the airports and run the FAA to keep the fliers safe!  I also don't have any of my family in jail, but I'm expected to pay for all those prisoners.  If people can't figure out how society works, and how we make financial decisions on how to spend that money, that's really sad.

[I-10east]

Newark, NJ has the highest per student cost average and yet still has some of the worst schools in the country. I'm not saying money spent on schools is a bad thing, but incompetent leadership is. There is so much more to having good schools than large spending, and making a red herring with this football stadium 'taking up all of the money' fallacy.   

[Adam White]

Newark, NJ has the highest per student cost average and yet still has some of the worst schools in the country. I'm not saying money spent on schools is a bad thing, but incompetent leadership is. There is so much more to having good schools than large spending, and making a red herring with this football stadium 'taking up all of the money' fallacy.

I don't disagree with you about that. I think this is more an issue of priorities than it is anything else. That said, the one link between football and education seemed to be that some communities fund education via property taxes and NFL teams don't pay those.

[JBTripper]

BUH BUH...MY FOOTBAW! TEH JAGZ R SO IMPORTANT! DON'T U KNO HOW MANY FORTUNE 1 MILLION BUSINESSES COME HERE JUST CUZ WE GOT TEH JAGZ?!!? STICK 2 SPORTS

YEAH TEH GATAS ARE THE ONLY FOOTBAW WORTHY OF SHOUTED CAPS AND SWITCHING NUMBERS 4 WORDS BEC4USE NO SCAMS IN COLLE6E FOOTBAW AND ONLY SOPHISTICATED SMART F4NS. TEBOOOOOOOOOOW

Pretttttty sure my tax dollars aren't making the billionaire owners of the Gators (or the Dawgs, or the Noles) more rich. 

The NFL is kleptocracy.  Pure and simple. Tax dollars enriching billionaires at the expense of the poor. And then they gauge you on tickets, food, drink etc.  It's why I dont really give a shit about the Jags and laugh when they lose.  They're a drain on us.  All academic studies prove this.  But, as I have said ad nauseum on this website, no one fucking cares because football.

Ad nauseum, you got that right.

Just because you don't care for professional football does not make the NFL a kleptocracy. The market dictates that if Jacksonville taxpayers do not subsidize the Jaguars, the Jaguars will no longer exist in Jacksonville. If the people of Jacksonville want the Jaguars, they aren't stupid for supporting public financing of stadium improvements. They are allocating their tax dollars toward something they value. So cut the HURR DURR FOOTBAW shit.

And it's gouge. They GOUGE you on concessions because you are a captive audience inside the stadium, but they GAUGE demand and set ticket prices based on that. Of course, they also allow you to bring in outside food, so they aren't even very good at gouging you. HURR DURR.

Ummmm, pretty sure actual Jaguars fans make up a minority of the population and, given an actual choice, they would vote for things that benefit them, not a billionaire. But, they aren't given that choice-- probably because power brokers know they'd lose.

And, man, way to sock it to me over-- in a rush-- riting gauge instead of gouge.  Really nailed me their.

I'll assume you were in a rush in 'riting' this as well, and move right past that. I was trying point out that ticket prices aren't gouged, they're set based on what people are willing to pay. Food prices can't actually be gouged, because fans are permitted to bring in outside food. Beer prices are gouged, granted, but it's still far cheaper to drink at a Jags game than at a Gator game, where you have to give $12,000/year for the privilege.

It would be interesting to see the Jaguars continued existence in Jacksonville put to a vote. Your argument of corporate welfare and spending money to benefit a billionaire would no doubt be the rally of Jagsxit campaign. I think the Remain campaign would likely center on civic pride, private investment in things like an amphitheater, a waterfront Four Seasons hotel, athletic trainers in Duval County Schools, the Barnett Building redevelopment, not to mention the very real economic impact of the singular entity in this city that is identifiable beyond Clay County. I think the people of Jacksonville will make the right choice.

Further, just because some fans wants the Jags doesnt mean my tax dollars should go to corporate welfare for a billionaire whose yacht is nicer than 90% of the homes in the quad-county area.  If those fans want to subsidize the stadium, then so be it.  Don't short change my roads, schools, etc* for a building to be used 10 times a year to showcase shitty football.

* insert meaningless argument about "but but but, the hotel tax pays for it!" nonsense.

This is fine. You can vote for candidates who oppose public spending on stadium improvements, and feel really good about yourself when that big yacht docks someplace else and its owner can spend his money there instead of here. That's totally up to you.

In the meantime, I'm not going to lose any sleep over spending on the stadium somehow coming at a cost for bridge and road maintenance in this town. Do you even drive around here? Let's recap current projects, recently completed projects, or projects soon to begin: Overland Bridge, Fuller-Warren/shared-use path, 9-B, 295 express lanes, State/Union street resurfacing, San Marco streetscape, JTB/I-95 interchange, whatever they're doing out by Regency Square... the list goes on and on and on. There does not appear to be any shortage of funds for any of these.

As for education expenditures, Duval County spends about $9k/student, or roughly $2k more per student than the state's top district and Duval's immediate neighbor to the south: St. Johns County. So whatever problems plague DCPS can't be attributed to funds that got spent on scoreboards instead of whiteboards, I don't think.

So, again, if you don't want your tax dollars to subsidize the NFL then you can vote for representatives in city government who share that point of view. If those people don't get elected, and it's still really bothering you, then the list of cities where this sort of thing doesn't happen is more than 19,000 lines long.

[TimmyB]

As for education expenditures, Duval County spends about $9k/student, or roughly $2k more per student than the state's top district and Duval's immediate neighbor to the south: St. Johns County. So whatever problems plague DCPS can't be attributed to funds that got spent on scoreboards instead of whiteboards, I don't think.

JB, I'm not coming down on one side or the other in this discussion, but as an educator, I feel the need to point out something.  When "per pupil funding" is talked about, those are almost always the costs involved of running the system, not building the facilities.  A huge percentage of that number is labor, often more than 80%.  When they want new buildings, those funds don't come out of operating dollars.  I've never seen a state that allowed that.

[jaxjags]

To further comment on JB's comment, remember the stadium is owned by the city. All money spent by Kahn, becomes a city asset. We benefit in getting a amphitheater and indoor facility for $45 million, not ninety million. This is no different than building the new Courthouse, removing the old courthouse parking lot or fire stations. Capital improvements for the improvement of quality of life. I don't plan to use the courthouse, jails, and money road improvements, but my tax dollars are still used for this. My children no longer attend schools, but I pay school taxes. Also, I always revert to my thought that JAX is one of the lowest taxed cities of it's population. I would pay more if it is used efficiently and productively.

[BridgeTroll]

I will be interested in attendance figures for the monster truck events this weekend... You going MMR? 

[Tacachale]

The economic impact of stadiums (and teams) is overstated, but the negatives suggested by the critics are also overstated. Stadiums cost a lot of money to build, but they do return quite a bit of money to the local economy. Much of the money to build them comes from things like hotel taxes, and the teams contribute to hotel tax revenues (especially in a smaller market like Jacksonville). Also, the trend to make them multi-use, or include secondary features that are multi-use like the amphitheater, enable them to be used more than the few times a year that there are NFL games. So even just looking at the economics, they are not (necessarily) a "drain on us all".

The most consistent thing I've read is that when looking at the economics is that stadiums have huge opportunity costs - ie, they take money that could be spent on something else that might have a greater economic impact. But if you're looking at that, you also have to look at the quality of life gains. That's always going to be subjective, but it's clear that in our city at least, huge numbers of people enjoy football and see the benefit in having a home team to root for. They also can see the benefit of stadiums helping spur development downtown, even if they don't have a huge overall impact on the wider metro area, and the benefit of a greater sense of regional identity.

This comes from one of the various studies that speaks to something the critics (like those in this thread) almost always miss:

"Sport facilities and teams create a variety of benefits that are completely unrelated to their ability to generate jobs or income. The cultural importance and psychological benefits associated with professional sport teams likely outweigh their economic impacts, providing residents a common ground, a topic of conversation, and sometimes a source of pride. An entire region can benefit from an enhanced central city image, and many believe that professional sports teams simply improve quality of life. Residents never need purchase a ticket to derive utility from a sports team. These benefits exist regardless of any contribution of the team or facility to the local economy."

By Charles A. Santo, "Cities, Stadiums, and Subsidies: Why Cities Spend So Much on Sports", p. 87. In Sport and Public Policy: Social, Political, and Economic Perspectives, 2010.

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

The most consistent thing I've read is that when looking at the economics is that stadiums have huge opportunity costs - ie, they take money that could be spent on something else that might have a greater economic impact.

If you laser focus in on this single concept, I'd ask anti-stadium crowd, "What should the money have been spent on?"

If you had $100M to spend over the past decade, where would you have spent it and in what way would the impact be better for Jacksonville overall?

My personal easy answer would be into a fixed transit system for downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods to have better access to downtown, the stadium district, and Riverside/San Marco/Springfield as a whole, but for the sake of argument let's assume that without the $100M going to the stadium, we also no longer have the Jags in town.