section122 Posted February 22, 2012 Posted February 22, 2012 People seem to be going with a "gut feeling" that Bills' games generate significant revenue, i.e. hotels, restaurants, etc. Think about it, though. The Bills play 7 home games in a suburban stadium, away from the metro center. How many fans come from out of town? How many stay overnight in a hotel? How many out-of-towners frequent local establishments? I don't have the numbers to back any conclusion regarding WNY; neither does anyone else here. However, study after study after study after study conclude that sports teams' impact on local economies is negligible at best. No, none of those studies are specific to Buffalo; however, I doubt Buffalo is that special as to stray from the norm. The article in question states the last specific WNY study was done in 1996. What has changed since then? TV and merchandising revenue has presumably skyrocketed; however, neither affects the local economy. Players' salaries have increased dramatically; the article states players don't exactly drop alot of their cash locally. Fan spending? Well, there are fewer people going to games now, due to the decrease in seating and home games. The only real economic benefit to WNY would be if there are more out-of-town fans spending significantly more money in the local economy. That's the real question- is more out-of-town money coming into WNY, and does that off-set or exceed the cost to WNY to keep the team here? I don't have the answer, and no one here does either. I gotta say reading those studies didn't change my thoughts one bit. Again I will state that the impact can't be measured in a vacuum. Different areas are affected differently by the presence of a pro sports team. The first one was about the DC area where there already was the wizards as well as many tourist attractions. The second uses 12 cities as "control" cities which is a ridiculous statement as nothing is controlled about 12 different locations with varying degrees of attractiveness to a tourist/consumer. The third link is about the yankees, mets, and cowboys, I've already covered why their situation is different than the bills but it does include this statement at the end I found interesting and think it does apply to the Bills. These quality-of-life benefits are not always included in the debate on subsidizing sports facilities because it is so difficult to measure these types of benefits. It is hard to argue, though, that one main benefit of a new sports facility comes from the improved quality of life of the surrounding community. I will agree that neither of us truly know the answer to this. Yes Buffalo will survive but it will certainly hurt on a personal/civic level at the least.
CodeMonkey Posted February 22, 2012 Posted February 22, 2012 I gotta say reading those studies didn't change my thoughts one bit. Again I will state that the impact can't be measured in a vacuum. Different areas are affected differently by the presence of a pro sports team. The first one was about the DC area where there already was the wizards as well as many tourist attractions. The second uses 12 cities as "control" cities which is a ridiculous statement as nothing is controlled about 12 different locations with varying degrees of attractiveness to a tourist/consumer. The third link is about the yankees, mets, and cowboys, I've already covered why their situation is different than the bills but it does include this statement at the end I found interesting and think it does apply to the Bills. These quality-of-life benefits are not always included in the debate on subsidizing sports facilities because it is so difficult to measure these types of benefits. It is hard to argue, though, that one main benefit of a new sports facility comes from the improved quality of life of the surrounding community. I will agree that neither of us truly know the answer to this. Yes Buffalo will survive but it will certainly hurt on a personal/civic level at the least. You are right about not knowing the answer for sure. But to me at least it is easy to see that the Bills cannot have a significant economic impact on the area. There simply are too few games. As to the quality of life thing, that is not quite so cut and dried. But I figure there are probably 100,000 - 200,000 hard core Bills fans in the area (probably generous I know), and say another 500,000 casual fans. The rest probably couldn't care less about the Bills particularly now after the dirty dozen playoff drought. For the hard core fans the Bills leaving would really suck for quite some time. But apart from the hard core fans the overall quality of life impact would be mild as well I believe. That being said, I would strongly prefer the Bills stay in Buffalo. But my world won't come to an end if they do not. Ultimately it will come down to a business decision, for better or for worse.
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