I’m a fan of the research and work that comes out of the Brookings Institute, a generally center-left think-tank in Washington DC that I believe does a good job at looking at politics and policy holistically, and is able to get beyond the partisan rhetoric that dominates most of our political landscape. An area of interest for many of the writers and policy experts at Brookings is the area of economic development in metropolitan areas, particularly as related to sports and business retention. Two Brookings experts, Bruce Katz and Jeremy Nowak look at how Indianapolis used sports to help jump-start the city’s economy, but present the information in a way that shows that reliance on sports alone is not sufficient to develop a thriving middle class and robust regional economy.
“A sports-based development strategy,” they write, “can take a city only so far. Sports attract tourism and visitors. Game time enhances demand for lodging and restaurants. Name teams may have an intangible effect on the attraction and retention of innovative firms and talented workers. But in the end, the sports industry thrives on low-wage jobs and does not represent a model of economic growth for a city or metropolis. Beer and hot dogs are not the stuff of a sustainable middle class.”
In their book The New Localism, the authors talk about the efforts that Indianapolis took to attract and retain an NFL football franchise and also to attract the NCAA headquarters. They go on to further explain how Indianapolis was not content to simply rest on being a sports headquarters and reinvested the energy and revenue from sports to drive and build new sectors. Sports teams can help be a support for a local economy, but they will never be a major driver, and on their own don’t appear to be worth the enormous tax breaks and stadium construction assistance that many cities and states seem eager to provide.
As Katz and Nowak stated, sports can have intangible benefits for communities like city pride and can serve as a hub for local events. But cities need to provide other attractions and benefits for their citizens. The people need additional higher paying jobs than can be found in a stadium and need real innovation to keep pace in our globalized world. If cities and states over-invest on the sports side, they may miss out on developing and investing in the factors that can make cities dynamic and competitive in the long run. Ultimately, sports teams can be a good attraction and can serve as a spark for energy and investment in making a city a good place to live and do business.
Novel Learning 