Taxpayer Watchdog Condemns Charlotte City Council’s Approval Of $650M For B.O.A Renovations

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On Tuesday, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance (TPA) slammed the Charlotte City Council’s approval of $650 million in public support for renovations to Bank of America Stadium, home of the Carolina Panthers.

Despite proponents of subsidies claiming that economic boons are associated with the spending, one study shows that 86 percent of economists agree that stadium subsidies are a bad investment.

As a trio of economists wrote in a review of the existing research on stadium subsidies, “Even with added non-pecuniary social benefits from quality-of-life externalities and civic pride, welfare improvements from hosting teams tend to fall well short of covering public outlays.” With a net worth of more than $16 billion, Panthers owner Dave Tepper has more than enough money to fund the whole project.

Patrick Hedger, TPA’s executive director, offered the following statement: “Charlotte has joined a long and dishonorable list of cities that have chosen to redistribute wealth from taxpayers to billionaires. Stadium subsidies do not serve the public interest, and they do not increase overall economic activity. The economic data are clear on those counts.

“Time and time again, predictions made by advocates of stadiums subsidies – that they will ‘pay for themselves,’ or ‘will be recouped by the city’ – fall flat and prove false. Sports teams should pay for their own infrastructure with the profits they make. It is fundamentally unjust to socialize the costs of professional sports, moving them from the teams and their fans to all taxpayers.”