Stadium Funding, AKA, Sticking Taxpayers

Deadspin crunches numbers on one of the best examples of welfare for the wealthy:

• Public financing of stadiums is not a new development; it began with the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, which opened in 1923. Los Angeles was also the first city to devise a more complex public/private-funding mix: Dodgers Stadium was 25 percent publicly funded in 1962.
• The mid-century urban-renewal movement led to a major boom in ugly stadium construction, most of it publicly funded. From 1956 to 1976, 50 stadiums were built—2.4 per year—at a cost of $10.8 billion in 2012 dollars, with 75 percent coming from the public. In the previous 47 years only 27 stadiums had gone up, at a cost of $1.0 billion, with 47 percent coming from the public. By 1957 more public money had been spent on stadiums than private, and it's stayed that way every since.
• Recessions are bad for the stadium business. In the 10 years from 1977 to 1986, during which span the country fell into a double-dip recession, only six stadiums were built, at a cost of $1.0 billion, of which 90 percent was public.
• The 1990s and early 2000s, on the other hand, were absolutely insane. From 1991 to 2004, a whopping 78 stadiums—5.6 per year—were built or underwent major renovation. This came to a cost of $26.0 billion (61 percent public).
• While stadium growth has slowed since then—only 18 stadiums built since 2004—private funding (53 percent) has actually surpassed public funding for the first time in decades. This is largely due to four mega-projects: Cowboys Stadium, new Yankees Stadium, Barclays Center, and MetLife Stadium. Combined, those projects cost $5.4 billion, of which $4.5 billion was private (83 percent).

Now that this cycle of stadium building is complete, we hopefully won't be building more with taxpayer dollars.  But if it is anything like the last time, they'll knock these down before taxpayers finish paying them off.

Update:

 Hamilton County homeowners will pay more in property taxes next year after commissioners today reduced the property tax rebate to cover a $7 million deficit in the fund that pays for the professional sports stadiums.
In a 2-1 vote -- with lone Democrat Todd Portune the no vote -- commissioners rolled back the rebate by 50 percent for 2013 and agreed to do it again in 2014. This year property owners saved $70 for every $100,000 value of their home. That means next year they’ll pay $35 more per $100,000 of home value.
In choosing to scale back the rebate promised when voters approved building the stadiums in 1996, commissioners rejected Portune’s plan to raise the county’s sales tax a quarter cent to 6.75 for 10 years. That was seen as a long-term solution, while the rollback doesn’t solve the deficit going out beyond 2014.

Hamilton County taxpayers take it on the chin.