Ballpark construction, public culture, and public resources

In the current Sports Illustrated, S.L. Price, an SI writer and resident of DC, offers some thoughts on the soon-to-open Nationals Park. The park cost almost $675 million, 97 % of which (an absurdly high percentage compared with other ballpark deals) is public money. And the deal hands almost total control over the park, and all proceeds from tickets, parkings, concessions, and advertising signs, to the team. Everyone in DC government recognizes this was a terrible deal, particularly in the face of the district's underfunded and crumbling schools and libraries. Ironically, Price reports that the city has increased funding for both libraries and schools out of an apparent guilt over the stadium deal. Price calls the park a "deal so bad it might do some good."

As a baseball fan (indeed, one of those fans with a fetish for old-style ballparks) I always have been of two minds with respect to public funding of stadiums. And I speak as my hometown of Miami prepares to pay more than half of a $ 515 million price tag for a new park for the Florida (soon-to-be Miami) Marlins.

On one hand, the economic reality is that if my city does not build this park, some other city will and the team will be leave town, a psychic loss for the community as a "major city." And we want and need public support for the arts, science, and culture--so why not also for sports, which are, in a real sense, an important part of our public culture?

On the other hand, the competing economic reality is that the city's goals in building the park--revitalize the neighborhood and bring money, people, commerce, and services to the neighborhood--are not going to come to pass, at least not fully, because, all economists agree, the numbers do not add up. And one reason to publicly fund culture is that the arts, often operated through not-for-profit enterprises, cannot exist without that public support. That is a far cry from a deal to make an already profitable private individual and entity even more profitable. And when we factor in everything else that necessarily falls by the wayside--schools, libraries, parks, and social services (stuff that ordinary people actually need)--the deal looks even worse, and even more unsupportable, as a public investment.

One of things driving my arguments on fan speech in publicly funded/privately operated ballparks is kind of a quid-pro-quo notion: If the private teams are going to demand large amounts of public financial support for their toys (which the team easily could pay for itself), teams must deal with unpopular or distasteful expression by the fans who are given access to the ballpark--who, after all, help pay for that ballpark. If a team is to receive this unique benefit of exclusive control over publicly owned and (largely) publicly financed property built expressly for that team, it ought to be subject to the limitations of the First Amendment in ways that private entities ordinarily are not bound.

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