Should the Federal Government Help Pay for Sports Stadiums

Should the Federal government pay for Stadiums

By: Jack Miller 12/22/2021

Should The Federal Government Help Pay For Sports Stadiums?

A debate that has been happening in many cities across the country has been should our federal government pay or help pay for these sports arenas to be built with tax money or not.

Many people have been upset because a lot of the time the federal government has decided to help and put a lot of tax dollars towards stadiums. They just believe the money they are paying for in taxes should go to better use.

Example of this is something that happened here locally. In 2015 the Bucks were building a new arena and the government paid $250 million from the taxpayers money. Many taxpayers were very upset with that in Wisconsin. I get why they would be upset about paying for a luxury stadium for a basketball team, “why should the average person pay for a huge basketball stadium?” a lot of people asked.

Personally I get why people would get really frustrated with this but I believe most people are missing out on the big perspective of this.

Let's look at this from a different angle. Why would the Milwaukee Bucks build a huge stadium when they could go to a different city and build it for cheaper?. Many people wouldn’t care and think they should move but what they don’t realize is that these teams are making a lot of money for their cities, probably more money that they are bringing in for themselves.

The Milwaukee Bucks championship run brought in $60 million in direct and indirect spending to the city. That was over a month's span by itself. The city is making so much money off taxes from people paying for plane tickets, going out to bars, buying bucks products, and anything that is bought relating to the game and events that were hosted. If the Bucks were to move cities they would be missing out on all of that profit. A lot of money and bars,restaurants, and the city as a whole would struggle way more. They also make money off of the players wages that they tax. From the 3 highest paid Bucks players Khris Middleton, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Jrue Holiday the federal government will be making $43.2 million at the very least in the next 4 years by taxing their salaries.

At the end of the day I can see why many people get upset that these stadiums are getting built using a lot of tax money, but I just think they don’t realize how much these sports teams mean to our cities as a whole.