When the National Football League next month chooses a new team from among four rival cities, fans in the victorious hometown should think twice before taking to the streets in celebration: Most pro sports teams are not big winners for their host economies.
From an economic standpoint, a rejection by the NFL next month could be a victory of sorts for the fans of all four prospective teams: the Baltimore Bombers; Jacksonville, Fla., Jaguars; Memphis Hound Dogs; and St. Louis Stallions.A snub by the NFL will be a blessing in disguise if, as a result, city officials and would-be team owners invest in local industry instead of playing fields, say economists who analyze sports. (The groups still competing for ownership of an NFL expansion team have plenty of money on hand; each has raised the franchise fee of $140 million.)
The economies in cities that have coupled themselves to pro teams as an engine of growth lag behind cities that instead invest in building a solid foundation for private industry, says Robert Baade, an economics professor at Lake Forest College in Lake Forest, Ill.
Fundamentally, businesses do not choose a city because it fields a professional sports team. They do so to take advantage of good transportation, an educated work force, tax breaks, low-cost gas or electricity, and other profitable factors, according to economists.