Should Cities Pay for Sports Facilities? Essay Sample

Some individuals believe that sports activities can play a vital role in improving public health. Therefore, constructing various sports facilities suggests that there will be an environment of courage, tolerance, and sportsmanship. Nonetheless, they also assert that the minds of raw youth can also be engaged towards healthy activities through sports promotion (Fuss, n.d.). On the other hand, some claims setting up various sports activities in the city will slightly have negative impacts on the city's economy, and there are other facilities such as hospitals that are more important. Therefore cities should not be recompensing for the building of sports facilities since they tend to use large sums of taxpayers' money which is not accounted for after the completion of these projects and besides, these funds can be used on other beneficial projects in the city.

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Purpose of the Study

This work will seek to broaden our knowledge on the aspects of funding sports facilities by the city. It is indeed very accurate that cities are financing most if not the total expenses of building a stadium with the hopes that such projects will in return benefit their communities both culturally and economically (Gratton, Shibli, & Coleman, 2005). However, there have been a lot of issues raised on the sponsorship of sports amenities. Therefore, this work will seek to answer the question on whether it is positively advantageous for cities to sponsor sports facilities, or it would be better for the municipalities to redirect funds to other community-building projects?

Problems Associated With Cities Paying For Sports Facilities.

According to Roger G Noll's article on the advantages of sports facilities in the New York Times, he notes that a modern baseball stadium in New York City or any other city will be too expensive to design (Noll & Zimbalist, 1997). Mr. Noll is an economist, in that he understands the financial aspects of constructing new stadiums. He states that these projects never pay for themselves. Nonetheless, there is an increase in overall community returns, although not sufficient to offset expenses.

Moreover, in situations where city funds the sports facilities, they end up paying large amounts of money, and only a few workers get employed and are paid less money since a majority of the funds generated is paid to the players. A majority of development and economists specialists have discovered that the level of benefits a metropolitan area or a city enjoys for its investment is significantly below that of alternative projects (Murray, 2009). Subsequently, findings indicate that cities that have invested so much in sports facilities have on regular cases experienced slower income rates growth as opposed to other metro areas that have invested in other projects.

Importance of Cities Not Funding Sports Arenas

Majority of individuals notes that building sports stadium has significant economic gains since it increases the aggregate demand by providing employment opportunities and opening new business opportunities. Nonetheless, it is indeed true that such projects in the city will have numerous social benefits in that it will enhance the morale of the city if the home team emerges the winner in the competitions (Rappaport & Wilkerson, 2001). However, this issue appears to be incomplete when it is viewed from a different angle. The importance of acquiring the land and building authorization as well as generating enough funds should not be focused on building sports amenities; alternatively, these resources can be used in other less expensive projects that will benefit the community at large.

Assuming all the resources being sensibly set aside for the stadium being alternatively used to provide social benefit to bring relief to homeless families instead of focusing on the comparative gains. Notably, the funds used for the construction are passed through various agents from the engineers, their workers, their investment and back to the monetary institutions (Fuss, n.d.). It will also raise the standards of living in the city due to the later demand to use the facility hence inflating the costs of living in the city. The funds collected will be redistributed to various outlets such as the owners and players who in most instances do not even live in the city where the arena is built hence tax payer's money will be used in other towns and the economy will significantly suffer.

The Significances of the Study

This work has clearly pointed out the economic impacts of cities that fund sports activities. There are fewer tax revenues that the town enjoys after taking part in the multimillion project of the sports stadium. In that, it is evident that these projects do not bring new or additional revenues into the community, rather, the returns generated can be substituted with the ones made by other activities (Johnson, 2011). Therefore, public funds used in the construction of the cities should be refocused on other businesses that will benefit the city as a whole and not specific individuals as witnessed in the case of building sports activities.

To sum up, it is evident that cities go to large extents to build sports facilities so that they can lure other teams to town as well as maintaining the home team to their modern facility. However, this study has depicted the weight of the economic evidence. It has illustrated how millions of taxpayers' money is spent on the sports facilities by city leaders and ultimately there are fewer returns from the investment. Nonetheless, the little that is gotten back after the completion of the project seems to be varying with other activities that did not require these large sums of money to start. Thus, the taxpayers and the city should not support such projects but, instead, they should focus on more productive projects as discussed in this essay.

References

Fuss, F. K. (n.d.). Design of Sports Facilities. Routledge Handbook of Sports Technology and Engineering. doi:10.4324/9780203851036.ch31

Gratton, C., Shibli, S., & Coleman, R. (2005). Sport and economic regeneration in cities. Urban Studies (Routledge), 42(5/6), 985-999. Doi: 10.1080/00420980500107045

Johnson, G. (2011). The Economic Impact of New Stadiums and Arenas on Cities. University Of Denver Sports & Entertainment Law Journal, 3-40.

Murray, D. (2009). Reflections on Public Funding for Professional Sports Facilities. Journal of the Philosophy of Sport, 36(1), 22-39.

Noll, R. G., & Zimbalist, A. (1997). Sports, jobs, & taxes. Brookings Review, 15(3), 35.

Rappaport, J., & Wilkerson, C. (2001). What Are the Benefits of Hosting a Major League Sports Franchise? Economic Review (01612387), 86(1), 55.