Throwing Money Away

Here's what I wrote before:

Will the Royals and Chiefs get their old stadiums renovated? At a mere BILLION dollars, it'll be the most expensive renovation ever… anywhere… for anything. We could build new, better, and more attractive stadiums for that kind of money. I'd like to see them build a downtown baseball stadium, implode Kaufman, and build a new and improved Arrowhead stadium with a retractable roof at Truman Sports Complex. Will the teams leave? No, that's an empty threat. Would you lose the chance to host a SuperBowl? No, not if the new stadium is ready by 2015. And if we do lose it, that's ok. Kansas City in February is not the kind of city that would make money on a Super Bowl anyway. And what happens if the voters pass this corporate welfare? We don't get new stadiums in our lifetime, we go to ballgames amidst a construction zone for several years, and we end up with a big, ugly, quonset hut-ish, bi-state eyesore – which we'll see in all it's televised glory as we watch the Super Bowl at home just like every other year. Look at it here at the website for those who actually want this thing. It's a big hideous hangar!

The main argument for funding renovations seems to be emotional – civic pride, fear of the Chiefs and Royals leaving town, etc. – and emotional arguments should always be suspect. Kansas City can do a lot better than this plan. In fact, this is about as bad a plan as you could come up with and it takes advantage of the fact that the average voter doesn't understand basic economics.

There's a lot of information out there if the voters really wanted to look for it. Here's one from Reader's Digest six months ago about sports owners taking advantage of fans. Here's a recent article out of Philadelphia where they paid $394 million for new stadiums a few years ago and it's still not making money. The conclusion here is that taking a financial loss is worth it to keep your ball teams. You may feel that way, but KC is talking about spending twice as much money on the old stadiums. As I stated above, I'd rather see them spend less money on something newer (with the owners kicking in a little more too).