President Eisenhower famously remarked, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.” To the first part of that list, one could certainly add “every NFL stadium built with public funds.”
Yesterday, the Oakland Raiders announced they are moving to Las Vegas. Team owner Mark Davis was enticed by Clark County’s offer to put up public funds to help finance a new stadium. Never mind that there was nothing wrong with the old one or the one before that — stadiums are like (very expensive) smartphones, and every few years we are expected to chuck the old ones into the trash and buy a new one.
The problem is that publicly funded stadiums are always, always, always bad deals for taxpayers. Boosters argue that stadiums generate jobs, yet generally these jobs are not that good. Yes, there is temporary construction labor, but once the stadium opens, pretty much the only jobs consist in contract service labor, like selling hot dogs, taking tickets, that kind of thing—work that is intermittent and low-wage. Likewise, stadiums cost the public millions more over the course of their lives—much of it consisting of police and security costs.
While Oaklanders might feel understandably pissed at the Raider’s faithlessness — or, more accurately, the unfairness inherent in a millionaire’s freedom to unilaterally relocate a civic icon — we should feel victorious in knowing that not a dime of Oakland’s public money will go toward buttressing Davis’s wallet anymore. (Although Alameda County will continue paying off the debt on the existing stadium long after the Raiders are gone). Instead, Nevadans will be footing much of that bill — $750 million in public funds, specifically, reaped from a hotel tax levied in Clark County, the home of Las Vegas.
Living up to the team name, that’s a nice lump of cash raided from taxpayers, isn’t it? To contextualize this sum, I made an infographic to consider what kinds of things that public money could fund instead.
Sports!
Correction (3/28): This article was edited to clarify that the county of Alameda will continue to pay loans on the Raiders’ current stadium in Oakland after the Raiders have departed for Las Vegas.
