Take Me Out To The Cleaners...

Let's play a game.

Imagine you're rich. Super rich. Now, imagine you want to build yourself a clubhouse. Fun game so far, huh?

This clubhouse will be built in the middle of town, only you don't want to have to pay for it. So, you convince your neighbors to pony up their money to pay for your shiny new clubhouse. Well, not so much convince as blackmail. See, if they don't give you money to pay for the clubhouse, you will leave and take the town's prized tourist attraction because, well, you own that, too.

So, they agree to build your clubhouse. Once built, you charge your neighbors an exorbitant fee to enter the clubhouse.

Sounds like a rotten deal, huh?

Interestingly enough, that's exactly how most city stadiums are built. Sport teams are no doubt a huge part of a city's culture (indeed, the Cincinnati Reds, DotLoop's own hometown team, won their division last night and clinched the playoffs, causing all sorts of excitement in the city), but often, the city never really owns the team. Or the stadium that is built by public tax dollars.

But don't stadiums bring in revenue for the city? Yes and no. Yes, they bring in some new tax dollars, but no, not enough to offset the cost of building the stadium.

The bottom line: sports teams are great for a city or region's culture and helps them brand themselves, but when private teams reap most of the benefits, shouldn't they be the ones paying for the facilities?

Of course, the resale is where the real money is at. Just ask Detroit, who sold their Pontiac Silverdome last year for a whopping $583,000. That's a lot of money, until you realize it cost the city $55.7 million to build it in 1975.

You can buy an awful lot of Cracker Jacks with that kind of money.