Chester stadium

Schools, stadiums and state budget priorities

From Jeff Gammage’s excellent article on whether the Chester stadium deal is yet another snake oil sale for a town that's suffered way too many broken promises:

The prospective team owners, leading a St. Louis group in the contest to secure MLS's 16th team, predict a huge financial impact:

More than 2,600 temporary construction jobs and 800 permanent full-time jobs. About $19 million in annual tax revenue. An estimated $670 million in personal earnings and $335 million in taxes over time.

Those are giant numbers to a city where half the households get by on less than $25,000 a year.

And they leave sports economists shaking their heads. Whether it's Kansas City or Charlotte, Chicago or Chester, they say, the argument is always the same, and so is the result.

"Plopping down a stadium," said Temple University assistant dean Michael Leeds, coauthor of The Economics of Sports, "does nothing for a city."

It’s hard to put my finger on what rankles me most about the Chester stadium deal.

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