Taxpayers lose the game

It should be no surprise that major league sports franchise owners love having new stadium facilities for their teams . . . but very few of them actually pay more than a small percentage of the actual costs: the local taxpayers usually pay the lion's share. Do they actually benefit from this?

My favourite NFL team, the Minnesota Vikings, are actively trying to persuade the voters of Minneapolis (and the state government) to pony up several hundred million dollars for a new stadium to replace the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome. The team may move if they don't get a new facility, but that would probably be a better deal for the taxpayers — if not the football fans — and the team owner would have to try bargaining with some other city government for lavish subsidies.