Planet Debate 2014 Subsidized Sports Stadiums Update
Undermines Education/Public Goods
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- A2: Public Support
- Public sentiment against building the new stadiums
- A2: Reduced Crime
- Public spending on sports stadiums does not improve wealth or reduce crime
Undermines Education/Public GoodsPrivate funding for stadiums diverts funds from public goods such as educationBrett Smith is a 2001 graduate of the Georgetown Public Policy Institute, The Georgetown Public Policy Review, Fall, 2001, 7 Geo. Public Pol'y Rev. 45, If You Build It, Will They Come? The Relationship Between Public Financing of Sports Facilities and Quality of Life in America's Cities p. 46-7
Conversely, many critics of publicly financed stadiums argue that cities and states often make choices regarding the devotion of public funds to sports facilities at the expense of education, health care and other causes, raising massive opportunity costs. A2: Public SupportExisting support doesn’t prove anything—opponents are outmatched in resourcesBrett Smith is a 2001 graduate of the Georgetown Public Policy Institute, The Georgetown Public Policy Review, Fall, 2001, 7 Geo. Public Pol'y Rev. 45, If You Build It, Will They Come? The Relationship Between Public Financing of Sports Facilities and Quality of Life in America's Cities, p. 48 Conditions of local policy further complicate the situation for public officials. Since these facilities involve such large amounts of potential public funding, many of the projects are subject to approval referenda by the citizens of the city, metropolitan area, or state. What results are massive public opinion campaigns waged by both proponents and opponents of the facilities. Supporters of the stadium are usually business interests from the community and the team ownership (both seeking financial gain) and certain politicians (seeking to avoid a decline in civic image) (Quirk 1999). Conversely, small grassroots organizations of concerned citizens often attempt to fight the proposed stadium projects. They are often alarmed with the prospect of devoting millions of dollars in public financing to projects that may not improve the quality of life in their cities. Although the warring factions may appear to be evenly matched, they are not, with pro-stadium forces drastically outspending grassroots groups (Noll and Zimbalist 1997). As a result, despite a recent poll showing that 64 percent of the public is opposed to tax funding for sports facilities, most referenda pass overwhelmingly (Bast 1998). This uneven public battle over funding for new sports facilities presents a further complication for the decisionmakers in state and local government on this issue. Public sentiment against building the new stadiumsBrent Bordson, JD, 1998, Hamline Law Review, 21 Hamline L. Rev. 505, CASENOTE AND COMMENT: PUBLIC SPORTS STADIUM FUNDING: COMMUNITIES BEING HELD HOSTAGE BY PROFESSIONAL SPORTS TEAM OWNERS, p. 507-8 Even when cities decide to use public funds to build new stadiums, it is not clear whether these decisions are favored by the cities' taxpayers. The sentiment against using public money to fund sports stadiums seems to be just as strong in areas that are still considering building new stadiums. Even having a successful team does not always translate into public sentiment to build a new stadium. Some taxpayers attribute their opposition to new stadiums to their disagreement with the contractual agreements of professional athletes. The high salaries agreed upon in professional athletes' contracts cause many members of the public to be adamantly opposed to giving any public funds to provide athletes with a stadium in which to play. A2: Reduced CrimePublic funding for stadiums doesn’t reduce crimeBrett Smith is a 2001 graduate of the Georgetown Public Policy Institute, The Georgetown Public Policy Review, Fall, 2001, 7 Geo. Public Pol'y Rev. 45, If You Build It, Will They Come? The Relationship Between Public Financing of Sports Facilities and Quality of Life in America's Cities, p. 55-6 The hypothesis for the regression concerning crime rates was that the number of serious crimes per 1,000 in a population decreased with more public funding of the facilities. After performing the analysis, however, this correlation did not emerge. In fact, the inverse materialized. Although the estimate is modest and the t value is low, this regression demonstrates that financing a large portion of a new sports facility with public funds does not seem to decrease the overall crime rate in the area. Public spending on sports stadiums does not improve wealth or reduce crimeBrett Smith is a 2001 graduate of the Georgetown Public Policy Institute, The Georgetown Public Policy Review, Fall, 2001, 7 Geo. Public Pol'y Rev. 45, If You Build It, Will They Come? The Relationship Between Public Financing of Sports Facilities and Quality of Life in America's Cities The second stage of this analysis tests the hypothesis that the higher levels of public funding for new sports facilities undertaken by cities with lower quality of life variables created the intended improvements in living conditions. Increasing the percentage of public funding in each of these four simple regressions, according to popularly held theories and practices, is thought to increase per capita income and the number of business establishments as well as decrease crime and unemployment rates in the metropolitan areas. Contrary to Stage One, the hypotheses of Stage Two were inaccurate. The positive correlations for income and establishments with public funding did not materialize. In addition, the intended negative correlations for the crime and unemployment rates with the public percentages of funding were incorrectly predicted. In a few of the cases, in fact, opposing correlations materialized from the regression results. In the regression for per capita income, the original model yielded an adjusted R-squared value of 0.93. The regression result suggested convergence in the model and indicated that the facilities do not have the intended effects on per capita income. Thus, I altered the dependent variable in the regression to be the change in per capita income for the metropolitan area from the periods before and after the facility was built. The new adjusted R-squared value became 0.38, but the coefficient estimates remained largely unchanged. In the regression, a high percentage of public funding was intended to increase the average income for the metropolitan area after the stadium was constructed. The results of this analysis prove otherwise. The coefficient indicates that increases in the level of public funding, as a fraction of the total cost, is associated with decreases in the per capita income of the area. While a small effect, and not quite statistically significant at the 90 percent level, it is nonetheless inconsistent with the hypothesis. Instead of producing a positive correlation, this regression presents a slightly negative one, demonstrating that spending public funds on new sports facilities does not appear to improve the area's level of wealth. Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad Download 254.23 Kb. Share with your friends:
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