Remember that time you broke up with your boyfriend to date another guy (funnier and better looking!), found out the other guy wasn't that great, and then got back with your old boyfriend? The second relationship with your original boyfriend wasn't so great, was it?*
The St. Louis Rams' decision to relocate to Los Angeles brought a double dose of bad news for the city's residents on Tuesday: Not only are they losing the football team they've hosted for the last 21 years, they also still have to pay for the stadium they built to lure the Rams to their hometown in the first place.
At the beginning of 2015, city and state taxpayers still owed more than $100 million in debt on the bonds used to finance the Edward Jones Dome, the stadium St. Louis put $280 million in public funds behind in 1995.
It isn't scheduled to pay off that debt until at least 2021, and that could be more difficult without the Rams and the $500,000 rent payment the team made each year. The city itself owes $5 million per year over that period, and the loss of the Rams could increase costs in the short-term. …
… the manner in which the team left St. Louis underscored the way backstopping stadiums with taxpayer funds often benefits already wealthy owners instead of the public.
It was, after all, a curious provision in the lease deal that helped attract the Rams to St. Louis — and ultimately allowed them to leave taxpayers footing a larger portion of the bill, without a football team to boot.
As part of the rental agreement the city and state signed with the Rams in 1995, the team could vacate the lease with a year's notice if the Edward Jones Dome lost its status as a "first-tier" NFL venue …
Research has shown that pro sports franchises have some happiness and quality-of-life benefits for local residents, but it has also overwhelmingly found that spending public money on the stadiums they play in has little economic benefit and rarely creates the jobs or prosperity the backers promise, just as they did when the Edward Jones Dome was built.
"As economists, we certainly understand the quality-of-life issue, and it’s a sad day to be a Rams fan in St. Louis," said Victor Matheson, a College of the Holy Cross sports economist and leading stadium researcher. "That said, it’s a pretty good day to be a taxpayer in St. Louis."
Economists in other cities aren't the only ones heralding the chance St. Louis and Missouri now have to spend the money more wisely. …
I'm having a hard time feeling sorry for Rams fans.
Funny story: I got a call from a St. Louis law firm back before November. They were, apparently, representing whoever wants to keep the Rams in St. Louis. They wanted a study estimating the value of keeping the Rams with a new stadium using existing data with a due date of yesterday. I explained that most studies find the costs of new stadiums exceed the benefits and that they needed to conduct an original state-of-the-art CVM study with a hypothetical referendum. I quickly edited a Jaguars survey for the St. Louis context and obtained a quote from Survey Sampling International for their review (new technology has made these surveys are very inexpensive). All to no end. After a few additional phone calls (no email trail!) I didn't hear anything else.
*Note: It also works by substituting "girl" for "boy" if the male happens to be the one with the wandering eye).
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