Houston to bid for Super Bowl LI (UPDATE: Houston lands 2017 Super Bowl!)

Most of the time the city that hosts the Super Bowl ends up losing money overall. That said, I don't care if it costs the city money, it was cool having it here last time and I'd like to have it here again.

 

By what metric? I've seen data that says they don't make "as much" as expected, but still make something.

And certainly the city themselves aren't receiving a "check", but businesses, restaurants, hotels, bars, merchants, cabbies, prostitutes all may post much better weeks that have a downstream effect of improving the economy.

Thus why they'll continue to bid on it time and time again.

 

The alternative is the problem - if no one financed public stadiums, then teams couldn't extort cities. It's no different than states competing to give tax credits to companies to move to their state. In the end, the companies just bid states against each other, but the country as a whole doesn't benefit. The same number of jobs exist, but the company gets to pay less taxes.

It's basically a prisoner's dilemma issue. The best situation for the taxpayers is for no city to cave. But there's incentive for each city individually to cave because having a sports team brings prestige. But it's still a city subsidizing the sport team. The easiest way to see that if the fact that owners don't buy their own stadiums. If it was truly a profitable endeavor, they could get loans and do it themselves and keep all the profits - but everyone knows its a scam.

I believe there's talk about a federal bill to ban public financing of stadiums. That would be the best thing that could happen.

 

By no means am I attempting to be an authority on the full economic impact of Super Bowls. Certainly if you break it down by costs of building the stadium, costs for required improvement, costs for required increases in security, costs for required infra-structure improvement, and costs suffered by the people who live here year-round that weekend that could affect future spending... its certainly not the end-all/be-all of economic windfalls.

However, pro sports teams (in general) inherently cost cities and its constituents more money than it makes for them... nobody is going to the Astros and asking them for their return on the public investment of the stadium. Nobody wonders if pro sports are "good" for a city from a financial standpoint.

In the case of "big events", there will always be the ability to break it down to analyze whether or not its "worth it" financially... like bobby said above, I'd still rather live in a city with the ability to host those big events than not.

 

That's the theory, but more and more, it seems cities and countries - and their citizens - are getting wiser about this. The Winter Olympics, for example, is having trouble finding interested countries because people are realizing the economics of it sucks. I think we'll find this true about more and more events going forward.

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/why-no-one-wants-to-host-the-2022-olympics-225450509.html


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The effect is the bidding for the 2022 Winter Games, which is now down to just two cities. The final vote comes next summer.

There's Beijing, China, which doesn't actually sit within 120 miles of a usable ski mountain, and there's Almaty, Kazakhstan, which in its bid touted itself as "the world's largest landlocked nation."

It's down to these two cities not because the IOC narrowed the field, but because every other city in the entire world said no.

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Certainly not Oslo, Norway, not even at the bargain rate of an estimated $5.4 billion in a nation of just five million people. It once wanted desperately to host the 2022 Winter Olympics and its bid was so perfect that it was considered the favorite to win. Then the country held a vote earlier this year and 55.9 percent of Norwegians opposed.

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They aren't alone. Previous finalist Krakow, Poland, saw 70 percent voter opposition and pulled its application. A majority felt the same way in Germany and Switzerland, killing bids in Munich and St. Moritz respectively. In Sweden the majority party rejected funding the proposed games in Stockholm.

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Essentially the only places interested in hosting the 2022 games are countries where actual citizens aren't allowed a real say in things

 

Yep... and that would put a death-knell on any hopes that a team would move to San Antonio, St. Louis (presuming they're going to lose the Rams), Oakland (presuming they'll lose the Raiders)... and then owners in existing "small" cities like Nashville, Jackonville... even New Orleans, will have to consider building a new stadium in a more "profitable" city/situation if they're going to have to foot the bill all themselves.

 

I feel you could break down any "hobby" part of a city that is partly publicly financed in this fashion... pro sports teams, theater/arts, fancier/bigger airports.

In the end, none of them really give much back to the city other than "prestige" and "image"... but most cities will still believe they're better off with those things than without them.

 

I get that the taxes are coming from out of towners anyway (rental cars, hotel taxes), so are these taxes then earmarked to be used specifically for something like the stadium upgrades? My point here is that I feel like it doesn't matter how limited the use of these taxes are or might be (enlighten me on this because I don't know how specifically these dollars can or cannot be used) there has to be a much wiser and more appropriate use than what they are demanding.

 

Keep in mind that when cities bid on it, the people deciding are not spending their own money. They are playing with taxpayer money. Superbowls are a great opportunity for mayors and city council members and sports authority members to mingle with rich NFL owners and be the center of the country's attention for a few weeks. The people deciding on these things get a lot of personal benefits out of it while taxpayers foot the bill. If you've ever been involved in local government, you know that decisions are not always made in the best financial interests of the city.

 

That's fine. You'll get stability with franchises in all the cities where sports franchises are self-sustainable, and then as the leagues expand over time, they'll go to the next tier of cities. I think this is all a very good thing.

 

Yes, voters passed a bill in the late 90's that specifically would earmark these tax increases to be used towards the construction of two (eventually three) new stadiums... however, like max said above, a lot of the expected revenue has come short... and the organization created to oversee these projects (HCHSA) is in serious debt and is defaulting on the loans.

But, theoretically yes, the tax revenue should have accounted for upkeep and planned improvements... I believe that is how they put in the new video-boards at Reliant/NRG last year.

If you want to apply those tax funds elsewhere, it would require another referendum/vote. Keep in mind that this tax pales in comparison to the property tax hike that was instituted to pay for improvements to the Astrodome in 1987... a tax that is still being paid despite the building being condemned.

 

I actually think you'll see the bigger cities become more saturated with teams whenever the smaller city would need a new stadium... you'll notice that every small city that has a pro team on average has to make a larger public contribution. Chicago has long been rumored as an ideal destination for a second NBA team... but sweetheart stadium deals in New Orleans and Sacramento keep those teams there.

Minneapolis just bent over for the new Vikings stadium (in part because of a promised Super Bowl!)... and this is after the public debacle in Miami for the Marlins.

 

This seems self-evident to me.

I should shut the hell up and let yall solve these problems.

Major/MadMax 2020.

 

We have 2 years to get our crap together.

Will the light rail be heavily advertised then shut down because everyone is walking on the rails again?

 

While I don't have direct information or my own personal numbers on it, I'm saying that there are a crap load of economists who would absolutely tell you that it's not worth hosting...and is not a real boost to a local economy.

 

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=superbowl+economic+impact

experts seem divided

 

Certainly the economic impact is over-stated... but again, its very much city and market specific. They'd probably all say its not "worth it" to have pro sports teams altogether as well, if the stadiums require public money or upkeep or infrastructure/road improvements around the area.

As I said earlier, most "tourist-destination" cities that host the big game aren't really seeing an excess amount of people or money being spent... simply because people coming in that are replacing the people that would have possibly been there visiting anyways (holds true in Miami, San Diego, New Orleans, Vegas). Still doesn't prevent those cities from bidding on events and big games year after year.

Houston likely sees a different net economic impact than the other "destination" cities given there's not much going on here in early February (I don't recall seeing "we lost money!" articles in 2004, in the midst of this city also hosting the MLB all-star game and some NCAA tourney games).

Certainly, if you break down any sporting event... pro sports team's games... theater/arts... you'll discover that its not really as big a boost to a local economy when you consider the costs that go into the initial product/upkeep/maintenance/upgrades, yet cities still would rather have those events and teams than not.

 

But we're not talking about whether we keep a pro team in town...those decisions were made years ago in a completely different climate for this issue...we're talking about spending millions in public dollars on wifi so that we get to host a game.

 

Sure... and just two years ago, they spent millions of public dollars to upgrade less than 10 year old video-boards at a stadium in order to "improve" the facility (and enhance their ability to get the game).

(on a personal note, the wifi and cell reception at Reliant/NRG has always sucked hard... and has always been in need of improving. Whether the Texans or rodeo, or both, or none pays for it, it needs to be fixed).

If you really break down the cost of any of these ventures, it looks "bad". But I feel people are now under-valuing any/all potential benefits of being a city that has the ability to host big events simply because the economic impact is not as "big" as it was.

Personally, I feel the main tenants should be responsible for all "upgrades" (like the Astros do at MMP, and the Rockets do at TC), but the problem with NRG is that neither tenant will declare themselves the "main" one (and I have zero faith that the rodeo will ever do anything to upgrade the stadium... like I said earlier, they'd probably have been fine with an upgraded astrodome)

 

On a slightly similar note, check out Peter King's MMQB from today. http://mmqb.si.com/2015/03/02/st-louis-stadium-rams-raiders-chargers-los-angeles-nfl/

Talks all about the St. Louis/Los Angeles/Oakland/San Diego stadium issues... apparently St. Louis is ready to pony up more public dollars for another "state of the art" football stadium (less than 20 years after they paid public money for the last "state of the art" one that will now go unused). Article also goes on to talk about possible public funding scenarios in San Diego and Oakland being discussed. Ironically, the only city not contributing tons of public money is Los Angeles (which goes back to my other point that smaller cities end up subsidizing the stadiums at a bigger % than bigger cities, simply because that's the only way they can keep/get these teams... that don't necessarily help the local economy).

In comparisons sake (for the St. Louis issue), it would be like Houston being coerced to build a new football stadium in just 6 years from now.