All that fuss over the Super Bowl? All that Cold War era security downtown? It was supposed to make “us” money – right?
Not so much, according to the NYTimes:
Sports economists don’t view the situation quite the same way. They said the economic impact study for the Minneapolis Super Bowl began by saying all the right things about how past estimates had “been criticized as extremely overinflated, inaccurate, even purposely misrepresented.” In the end, though, it did the same thing.
“They always talk really good about that stuff, and then they go off the rails,” said Victor A. Matheson, a sports economist at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass.
Matheson has written extensively about the effect of Super Bowls. He has found that they usually generate anywhere from $30 million to $130 million in economic activity for the host city.
“Not nothing, and not what you would sneeze at,” he said, “but somewhere between a quarter and a tenth of what is being claimed.”
Take hotel rooms, for example. To host the Super Bowl, Minneapolis had to show that there were at least 24,000 of them within 60 minutes of the stadium, capable of accommodating visitors during the entire 10-day Super Bowl celebration. Accordingly, the economic impact report estimates the Super Bowl will generate 230,000 nights of hotel stays.
But if the Super Bowl were not in town, many of those hotel rooms would have been filled anyway, by business travelers, conventiongoers and — yes, even in Minnesota in the dead of winter — tourists. It is the net occupancy gain, not gross occupancy, that matters, said Frank Stephenson, an economist at Berry College in Mount Berry, Ga.
And on, and on.
Helga Braid Nation’s precious stadium – money extorted from taxpayers via the most base emotional manipulation this side of emotional domestic abuse, is a net wash, maybe, as of today – the peak of the stadiium’s public profile as of the first and last Super Bowl it will host.
Of course, I’m sure that they didn’t factor in the losses for damages to the TajmaWi
Damn iPhones!
The TajmaWilf, from the 50 plus seats that were ripped off by miscreant Pennsylvania pin head fans.
“money extorted from taxpayers via the most base emotional manipulation this side of emotional domestic abuse”
We know what the bank got for its money. What did you get, Minnesota tax payer?
first and last Super Bowl it will host.
True. To host another one they will have to build a new stadium. Bigger, better, BOLDER! See the pattern?
The hotel rooms would have likely been booked anyway, but for $135 to $200/night. I wonder what those rooms were going for during Super Bowl week?
Ratcheting up prices does not benefit the economy the way talking heads try to justify things. Just pads hotel management’s P&L statement. The only true injection is additional/incremental business. One could argue there would have been higher occupancy rate if hotel prices stayed lower. Fun with numbers. You can spin them whichever way you please, context is everything.
NW, I talked to someone last night who had to check for prices during, but unrelated to the SB. They found a Best Western in Brooklyn Center that was charging $465/night.
What JPA notes. OK, we should be super cheerful that guys owning multi-million dollar hotels get a windfall from people with more dollars than sense? Guys that will be taking that windfall right out of the city to wherever they live?
It’s time to face facts; stadium subsidies serve only to transfer money from the poor and middle class to a select group of rich people for the entertainment of rich businessmen.