Public money is status quo for pro teams
Public money is status quo for pro teams

If you fund it, they will come.

That's the tune cities have heard for years from professional sports franchises looking for a new place to be the hometown team.

The City Council is expected to set a March election asking Oklahoma City voters to approve an extension of an existing one-cent sales tax that would last 15 months and raise $121 million for Ford Center improvements intended to help lure the Seattle SuperSonics.

And while governments nationwide are getting increasingly creative with the lucrative incentive packages offered as bait to lure the pro teams, Oklahoma City's upcoming NBA tax proposal is relatively straightforward, said Darren Rovell, a longtime sports business reporter now working for CNBC.

Rovell said it's not always a guarantee for voters to decide whether governments should spend public money on pro sports stadiums.

"That's really a step the public and the people should be happy about. The power is in their hands,” Rovell said. "In a lot of places, they would be able to railroad it through without having some sort referendum where the public actually would get to vote.”

Avoiding a public vote often happens in cities where opposition is expected, he said.

"The way these things have worked in the past with some cities has been beyond sketchy,” Rovell said.

Other financing methods used for arena construction or improvements include corporate sponsorships and the sale of personal seat licenses. Still, local governments often front the initial bill, which means the cities often own the buildings.

Oklahoma City owns the Ford Center, which is operated by SMG.

"As a city, we want an arena that is comparable to arenas in Charlotte and Memphis and Kansas City and Tulsa,” Mayor Mick Cornett said. "This arena will be on par or better than all these arenas that are opening across the country.”

Supporters of public dollars being spent to support pro sports teams tout both tangible and intangible benefits of the philosophy.

Measurable impacts include things that help cities' tax bases grow, such as economic gains and the creation of jobs.

Although it's not measurable with a concrete dollar figure, those who favor giving tax dollars to teams argue the boost pro sports can give to a city's image will benefit all citizens, even those who have no interest in supporting the teams.

"But the critics say that the buzz about how much more of a city it makes your city is garbage, and the only reason why the proponents put out these intangible statements like this is because they have to find some way to fill up the gap where the math doesn't make sense,” Rovell said.

The arguments are often as heated as on-the-field rivalries.

Here's a look at two recent instances of public funding of professional sports stadiums as reported in local and national news publications.

When Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones started hunting for a spot to build a new Cowboys stadium, cities from across the Dallas metroplex began offering the team incentives to lure the stadium within their city limits. The Cowboys now play at Texas Stadium in Irving.

Not surprisingly, the team's top demand was public money — and plenty of it. A number of different stadium sites and funding plans were discussed with area cities, but only one met the team's demands and put the issue before voters.

It was officials in the 367,000-person suburb of Arlington who agreed in 2004 to ask voters to approve raising multiple taxes to pay for part of the stadium's construction. Voters approved the proposal, and half of the stadium's $650 million construction cost is being paid by Arlington tax dollars.

Like the Oklahoma City voters who face a fast-approaching March election for the Ford Center upgrades, Arlington voters also watched their stadium proposal unfold quickly. City officials began negotiating with the Cowboys in the summer of 2004 and the tax hike proposal was put on a November ballot.

The state-of-the-art stadium is now under construction near the Texas Rangers' baseball stadium and opens in 2009.

The Arlington vote occurred after negotiations broke down with the city the team is named after: bigger, wealthier and more prestigious Dallas.

Former Dallas Mayor Laura Miller and the team both wanted the new stadium in Dallas' Fair Park, home of the Cotton Bowl. But the Cowboys wanted more money than Miller was willing to commit, so the football team started negotiations with Arlington.

Some in Dallas call Miller the mayor who lost the Dallas Cowboys to Arlington, but others praise her for dodging a deal that was perceived as unfair to taxpayers. The Cowboys had sought more than $400 million from Dallas voters, opposed to the $325 million Arlington officials were able to negotiate.

Despite losing the bid to have the stadium in Dallas, Miller and other Dallas officials helped Arlington leaders and team ownership successfully pitch the new Cowboys stadium as the site of 2011 Super Bowl.

The owner of the Grizzlies opted to move the team out of Vancouver in 2000 and about half a dozen cities were in the running to land the team. Most had a pro-level arena ready or in the works.

Memphis didn't.

What it had was the downtown Pyramid Arena, built in 1991. Officials concluded the Pyramid would've required a complete overhaul to meet NBA standards and decided to propose a new, publicly funded arena to improve Memphis' chances of wooing the Grizzlies.

Although the circumstances surrounding the Grizzlies' move and the arena's construction were a bit different, the question as to whether a publicly funded arena should be used as bait to lure the team was similar to the discussion Oklahoma City faces.

There was one big difference: Memphis voters were never asked to decide whether the spending was appropriate.

Tennessee's tax and bond laws didn't require a vote because officials decided to use revenue bonds instead of property or sales tax money to pay for the arena's construction.

A grassroots petition drive to force an election on the issue failed, and the $250 million FedEx Forum opened in 2004. The revenue bonds are being repaid through a fee on each ticket to events at the arena.

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