New Bills stadium deal is bad for taxpayers, according to Yahoo!

[ProcessAccepted]

16 minutes ago, CountDorkula said:

Perfect.

Ill give you my venmo and you can pay for my portion then. 

 

Curious as to what you think it would cost the State if the Bills moved. It surely is more than just taxes on ticket sales etc. 

[RalphWilson'sNewWar]

The Buffalo Bills are definitely bordering on an unhealthy obsession for many.  And when you have that level of addiction.  It doesn’t matter what or how you keep getting your fix.

[CountDorkula]

8 minutes ago, ProcessAccepted said:

 

Curious as to what you think it would cost the State if the Bills moved. It surely is more than just taxes on ticket sales etc. 

About 27 Million a Year. (75% of that coming from income taxes)

 

I can like the bills and also say this is a terrible F*&( deal for NYS.

 

Edited April 15, 2022 by CountDorkula

[dwight in philly]

55 minutes ago, Buffalo_Stampede said:

I was ready to read something new but turns out it’s the same stuff we always read about.

 

Yes, we know. Personally, I care about the Bills. There are many other things my tax dollars pay for that I don’t care about.

Well said.. tired of reading about what outside "Economists" think about taxpayer funded stadiums.. its predictable and tiresome.. 

[Brennan Huff]

48 minutes ago, CountDorkula said:

Perfect.

Ill give you my venmo and you can pay for my portion then. 

Don’t have Venmo. Cash app?

[BillsFan4]

Quote

There were many things to dislike about the Bills stadium project. At $850 million, it is the largest taxpayer handout for a new stadium in U.S. history even before additional subsidies such as annual maintenance costs…

From the headline of the article I thought this guy actually studied the details of the deal but clearly he hasn’t if he doesn’t even know that the state is no longer responsible for maintenance costs. Or game day operating costs (like they were before).

 

It looks like it’s just a lazily written article that just rehashes all the same old generic arguments against taxpayer funded stadiums without actually looking at any of the details of this particular deal.

 

https://www.wkbw.com/news/local-news/poloncarz-erie-county-no-longer-in-the-football-business

Edited April 15, 2022 by BillsFan4

[GolfandBills]

The state is set to make over 800 million dollars in income tax paid by bills players and visiting players when they play in Buffalo over the lifetime of the stadium 

[Bleeding Bills Blue]

20 minutes ago, CountDorkula said:

About 27 Million a Year. (75% of that coming from income taxes)

 

I can like the bills and also say this is a terrible F*&( deal for NYS.

 

 

Yeah - they were bent over a barrel.  County execs may as well resign if they fail though.  Same with any of the local state legislature that tried to draw a line in the sand.  Find a politician willing to lose their job for the good of their district.  

 

Income tax and other revenue will definitely help.  I have no idea how much concessions and merchandise affect that number.  I feel like legal sports gambling and marijuana will bring in a lot of extra tax revenue to offset it.   

[ddaryl]

In some ways they are right... Billionaires getting sweetheart deals to make them richer.

However all this posturing is about politics. Its all about grabbing the attention of those persons who have no affiliation with pro sports or the Bills to vote for another candidate by stoking anger that money was spent on a football team who's owner is a billionaire. 

Everyone here knows there are plenty of non sports fans who are outraged by the money spent. 

 

If no money was spent on a stadium and the Bill's announced they were leaving Buffalo, we would get an equal amount of opinion pieces, maybe even more, about how NYS/Erie County/Buffalo lost the Bills do to the inability of  politicians to make a deal. There would be lots of finger pointing hit pieces just the same.

[RyanC883]

Tax payers where?   Not the ones who run businesses near the stadium and depend in large part on those home games and out of town revenue.  yahoo news in general is just negative. Try finding a positive story. 

[BADOLBILZ]

1 hour ago, JPL7 said:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/ive-studied-stadium-financing-over-121246769.html

“As a sports economist who has studied stadium deals for over two decades, I am not exaggerating when I write that the New York Legislature has managed to craft one of the worst stadium deals in recent memory – a remarkable feat considering the high bar set by other misguided state and local governments across the country.”

 

 

Excellent...........the good luck run of franchise stability continues.

 

It started when Ted Rogers passed away before Ralph..........continued when the franchise availability coincided with Terry Pegula being at a then all time relative net worth high in a market where his property was liquid enough to make a quick buy..........and then Mahomes and Allen both somehow being available to the Bills and them getting one..........and now THIS. 

 

Took a good deal of things to align for this to work out in favor of Bills fans the way it has.

[Shaw66]

I haven't run the numbers, and wouldn't even know how to, but I think this guy is relying on all the studies that show that investing in stadiums don't show a positive return to the state doing the investing.   

 

I think in this case, however, a study would show it's not such a bad deal.  It now seems clear that if the state didn't put up the money, the Bills would leave Buffalo.  That's because the Pegulas were clear that it made no economic sense for them to build a stadium, and the NFL is insisting, consistent with its stadium policies that apply to all teams, that the Bills get a new stadium.  Put those two thoughts together, and if the state doesn't contribute to a stadium, the Bills will leave the state.  

 

So, the financial comparison is between investing in the stadium and not investing and losing the Bills.  An $800 million investment at a 3% return brings in $24 million per year.    States generally don't do that kind of analysis in looking at projects - for example, they don't refuse to build a highway for $800 million if they can't get $24 million a year back somehow.  Instead, they assume that there are a variety of benefits that make having the highway a good thing for the state.  Still, if you look at the economics of it, the state loses a lot of money if the Bills leave.   First, there's income tax on the player salaries.   On a $120 million cap at, say, 8%, that's $10 million a year.   And as the salary cap goes up, that tax revenue.   In ten years, if the cap is at $200 million, since more of the salaries will be taxed at higher rates, the state's looking at maybe $20 million a year.   All that revenue is gone if the Bills leave.  

 

So, just looking at player income tax, the state can expect a decent return on the investment.  Front office and coaches' salary probably total another $20 million, which is another couple of million in tax.  (Pegulas apparently don't pay NYS income tax.)

 

Then there's sales tax on tickets.  Four percent on 60,000 tickets at, say, $100 apiece.   That's $240,000 in sales tax per game, times eight games (to be conservative), there's another $2 million.  Again, over a 30-year deal, the ticket prices will go up, so the return will increase.   But just in year one, hard numbers, there's a $14 million return on the investment. 

 

None of that counts the indirect benefits of having games there - the additional income tax paid by game-day personnel, restaurant and hotel income and sales taxes, sales tax on Bills stuff.   There's a whole collection of indirect tax revenue that disappears when the Bills disappear.   

 

Not to mention the tolls I pay driving through the entire damn state eight games a year!  That adds up. 

 

Whether this deal will allow the state to recover every nickel it spends, I don't know, but I think it's pretty clear that having a new stadium and keeping the Bills is closer to a break-even deal than this guy is saying, when compared to having no stadium and no football team in Buffalo. 

 

 

 

 

[Low Positive]

Victor Matheson has made an entire academic career on the argument that sports are bad for local economies. All sports. The Olympics are a bad deal for host nations. World Cups are bad for the host. Superbowls are a bad for the local economy. All sports stadiums are a bad deal. It's not like he just came up with this argument for this case; he's the first call for any journalist when a new stadium deal is announced. For an economist at Holy Cross, he gets on TV a lot. My counterargument is that there are a lot of things that have a poor ROI (like public education) from a dollars and cents standpoint but are essential for the quality of life in a community. FWIW, here is his Google Scholar list of published works:

 

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C36&q=Victor+Matheson&btnG=

[Shake_My_Head]

Just because he's an economist, it doesn't mean he knows jack $$$$.   

 

Most of the new stadium deals since 2009 were in large, affluent cities with enough ticket demand to pay the high prices needed to self-fund the stadium.   The only  remote comparable to Buffalo would be U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis which received $498 million in state funding (about 50% of the pricetag).    

 

Plus, using the Senaca casino money to fund the majority of the NYS commitment reduces the future taxpayer burden to virtually nil, when offset by annual income tax revenue from player salaries.

 

This guy needs to remove the U, M and E from assume and put a sock in it.

 

[GreggTX]

All stadium deals are bad for the taxpayers. Billionaires avoid taxes then make the taxpayers foot the bill. That's money better spent for greater needs. Nothing new about this.

[Chicharito]

We are actually seeing a return on our tax money unlike welfare! Build two stadiums if buffalo I don’t care.

[chris heff]

There is not another professional sports franchise that is as important to a community than the Buffalo Bills. This guy tries to make the point that threatening to move the Bills is an insult to the great fans that have braved the elements to support the team. The fact that the fans are as loyal as they are is exactly why the Bills must stay. Others have made the economic argument, I’m making an emotional one. Every purchase is an emotional decision justified by logic. Go Bills!

[Mark80]

Can't put a price on happiness.  Can't put a price on the mood the entire city gets when we are rolling.  Can't put a price on a community.

[ProcessAccepted]

1 hour ago, CountDorkula said:

About 27 Million a Year. (75% of that coming from income taxes)

 

I can like the bills and also say this is a terrible F*&( deal for NYS.

 

Of course you can. My point was that there is direct revenue and indirect revenue that comes from having a major sports franchise in a city. I'm not saying that Buffalo would become a wasteland but the national perception of the city would suffer. It's easier to attract and keep people jobs etc in a city if the general perception is positive. It's why cities like Baltimore, Cleveland, Houston all fought so hard to regain a team once theirs left. It's tough after they are gone - just ask STL.

[Augie]

1 hour ago, ProcessAccepted said:

Yahoo is my go to place when I'm looking for fresh takes on complex matters

 

Yahoo is a bit like Sports Illustrated. When I hear something from them I think…..”huh, who knew they were still around?”