Stadium Finance
“Many others get their funding through tax-exempt municipal bonds, which yes, sounds like the last words that an accountant says before his blind date falls asleep on the dinner table.”
Introduction to Stadium Finance
John Oliver “Stadiums” Last Week Tonight - HBO
Introduction to some of the policy issues around stadium finance. What does it take to be competitive? What are the trade-offs? Does it pay? What are taxpayers up against? (Referenced without permission.)
“He doesn’t have to ask. We have to beg.”
Intermediate Stadium Finance
Leslie Dwyer, Independent Municipal Financial Advisor
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In Milwaukee’s original financing for the Milwaukee Brewers Miller Park, voters recalled a state legislator, Rep. Petak, after he voted in favor of the law creating the special tax to build the ballpark. Taxpayers stood their ground. North Carolina does not have recall elections.
Economic development and stadium finance assume that if the City wins, we all win. Harvard/UC-Berkeley data used as the basis of the City’s task force and budgets proved the opposite is true. The models anticipated it.
Graduate Stadium Finance
Leslie Dwyer, Independent Municipal Financial Advisor
Charlotte’s Mayor and City Council chose to “find” $110 Million in cash to invest in professional sports. It’s popular. They also convinced taxpayers to approve $50 Million in debt in 2018 to invest in our Housing crisis. They’ll likely do the same in 2020. It’s easy when they aren’t up for reelection. Charlotte taxpayers need to scrutinize how they spend money instead of delegating those decisions about trade-offs. Transparency requires scrutiny.
Teamwork.
We all win or we all lose.
“Teams were important in America’s history - wagon trains conquered the West, men working together on the assembly line in American industry conquered the world, a successful national strategy and a lot of teamwork put an American on the moon first. But American mythology extols only the individual... In America, halls of fame exist for almost every conceivable activity, but nowhere do Americans raise monuments in praise of teamwork.”
It takes teamwork to compete.