In Prince William County, Virginia, just south of Washington, the board of supervisors is about to decide whether to issue $35 million in bonds to build a new baseball stadium for the Potomac Nationals, a Class A affiliate of the Washington Nationals. The board just rejected a proposal to let the taxpayers vote on the issue.
Art Silber, the retired banker who put up $300,000 to buy the team in 1990, estimates that it’s now worth $15 to $25 million. But-
"“Right now, we have the worst ballpark in the league and one that probably ranks in the bottom 10 of organized baseball’s 160,” he said. “At the new ballpark, the visibility will be extraordinary. Naming rights alone will pay for a lot of the stadium.”
He can only imagine what the team will be worth."
Seems like an excellent profit opportunity for a business worth tens of millions of dollars. But he has a better plan: If the county doesn’t pony up, he will sell the team, and new owners will move it.
The county found a consulting firm to produce, as it has done for many governments, an optimistic economic analysis: It suggests that a new stadium would generate 288 jobs, $175 million in economic impact, and $4.9 million in tax revenue over a 30-year lease. Similar studies have proven wildly optimistic in the past. In 2008 the Washington Post reported that Washington Nationals attendance had fallen far short of what a 2005 study predicted. As Dennis Coates and Brad Humphreys wrote in a 2004 Cato study criticizing the proposed Nationals stadium subsidy, “The wonder is that anyone finds such figures credible.”
Read more at https://www.cato.org/blog/stadium-boondoggles-spread-minor-leagues
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