Virginia may soon make a big mistake, giving a massive handout to someone who doesn’t need it.
Virginia lawmakers want to provide a $1 billion incentive for the Washington Commanders to build a new stadium in Virginia. The team currently plays its home games in Landover, Maryland. State lawmakers want to allow the team to forgo $1 billion in future tax payments to Virginia to lower the cost of building the stadium. It’s an unnecessary tax break for billionaires and millionaires — and one the state should reject.
National Football League teams don’t need public financing to build stadiums. Dan Snyder, the primary owner of the Commanders, has a $4 billion net worth.
Snyder and his Commanders are the ones who want a football stadium. If they want a stadium, they should buy land and build a stadium. They should take the financial risk and reap the financial reward if there is one. It’s not the government’s job to subsidize professional sports stadiums.
NFL teams have many options to fund their stadiums. They can sell the naming rights, sell personal seat licenses, find tenants to use the stadium when it’s vacant, or take out a loan from the NFL itself: The league will give teams hundreds of millions of dollars to invest in a new stadium that they can eventually pay back.
Studies and research show that stadium subsidies don’t spur economic growth, regardless of what lobbyists and team owners might say. We’ve seen this experiment play out in cities across the country over the past several decades, and the results are not good. Why would things be any different this time?
The Commanders aren’t even some powerhouse franchise. The last time they had a winning record was in 2016, when they went 8-7-1. They last won a playoff game in 2005.
That record doesn’t suggest a government-subsidized stadium would benefit taxpayers, does it?
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a political reporter for the New Boston Post in Massachusetts.
