WASHINGTON, D.C. — The new wave of U.S. stadium construction is being celebrated as a triumph of private investment — but the reality is far more complex. Cities eager to attract professional sports teams are still using taxpayer-backed incentives, land deals, and financing mechanisms that shift much of the burden back to the public.
When the Denver Broncos unveiled plans in September for a new football stadium and adjacent mixed-use district, city and state leaders hailed the project as a milestone for privately funded development. Yet, as the team’s ownership group — which includes members of Walmart’s Walton family — noted in fine print, “The project will include city and state support for public improvements.”
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According to sports economics experts, that kind of hybrid approach — mostly private funding combined with targeted public support — is now the dominant model as a new generation of billion-dollar sports facilities emerges.
“During the big stadium-building boom from 1992 to 2007, about two-thirds of those stadiums were financed by taxpayers,” said Victor Matheson, a professor at the College of the Holy Cross who studies sports economics. “But then the great recession hit in 2008, and people found it pretty distasteful to spend taxpayer dollars on sports stadiums.”
In theory, taxpayer-financed stadiums have fallen out of favor with voters who are reluctant to approve new taxes for pro sports teams. A national database compiled by Geoffrey Propheter, associate professor at the University of Colorado Denver, shows just how narrow public support has become.
Since 1980, there have been 81 voter referenda on financing new stadiums or arenas in the major professional sports leagues — and only 52% have passed.
The most recent example came in Missouri in 2024, when voters rejected a proposed sales tax to fund a new Kansas City Royals stadium and improvements for the Chiefs’ Arrowhead Stadium. Despite the Royals’ owners promising to pay half of the $2 billion price tag, 58% of voters turned it down.
“Taxpayer subsidies for stadiums aren’t popular,” Matheson said. “Not everyone likes a team. Even in places that have a rabid fandom, like in Buffalo, taxpayer subsidies for their new [football] stadium never polled much above 50%.”
Faced with that resistance, many city governments are sidestepping public referenda altogether, opting instead to approve deals through city councils or legislative votes.
Propheter found that in the past two and a half years, 38 local councils across the U.S. voted on stadium funding packages — and every single one passed.
A striking example is Washington, D.C., where the city council voted 11–2 in September to give the Washington Commanders football team $1.15 billion in taxpayer money to relocate from Maryland. The team has committed to contribute $2.5 billion for the new stadium, which is expected to open in 2030.
City officials say the project could generate as much as $4.2 billion in tax revenue over 30 years by anchoring a new mixed-use district. But critics argue that the deal contains serious long-term tradeoffs.
The Commanders’ deal waives property taxes for 30 years and gives the team exclusive development rights to 24 acres of prime riverfront land for just $1 a year over 26 years.
“This is prime riverfront property that the district could develop without the Commanders,” Propheter said. “The council is basically mortgaging the taxpayers’ future, leaving on the table billions of dollars of rent they could charge for this land.”
A recent poll found that 60% of D.C. residents oppose the stadium deal, citing similar concerns about tax breaks and land giveaways disguised as “private” financing.
As the 30-year leases from the 1990s and early 2000s expire, teams are once again pushing for new facilities — this time under the banner of private funding. Matheson estimates that roughly two-thirds of stadiums currently under construction claim to be privately financed. But those claims often come with caveats.
“Look at the Carolina Panthers’ stadium,” Propheter said. “It was built in 1996 with private financing and is still privately owned by the team. But last year, the Charlotte city council voted to fund $650 million in stadium renovations, with the team owner paying $150 million. So, a stadium may start out privately financed, but that doesn’t mean it stays privately financed.”
The Broncos’ plan in Denver’s Burnham Yard follows a similar pattern. The state purchased the abandoned rail yard in 2021, and city leaders are now considering tax increment financing (TIF) to fund infrastructure improvements.
Tracy Huggins, executive director of the Denver Urban Renewal Authority (DURA), said that if the property is declared an urban renewal area, TIF funds could legally be used for public-purpose improvements.
“That includes infrastructure like utilities, streets, sidewalks, environmental cleanup and site preparation — the elements that make redevelopment possible and accessible to the public,” Huggins said. “For any stadium project, DURA could reimburse costs that provide a clear public purpose, such as life-safety systems or ADA compliance within certain facilities.”
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Despite the headlines and political fanfare, economists remain skeptical about the real financial benefits of stadium subsidies.
“In the case of the Broncos, they’re a business building a new establishment — they’re no different than a mall developer or any other sort of a developer,” Matheson said. “But when a sports team is involved, politicians lose their minds.”
Propheter agreed, noting that sports represent a tiny fraction of any city’s economic base. His current research focuses on Oakland, California, where the city recently lost all three of its professional sports teams after refusing to meet stadium funding demands.
“Preliminary results show we’re only talking about the city of Oakland losing a couple million dollars in sales tax a year,” he said. “With a city budget of over $2 billion a year, that’s less than a rounding error.”
As cities and teams enter another wave of stadium development, the term “privately financed” has taken on a new, elastic meaning. While direct public subsidies may be smaller than in decades past, indirect incentives — from tax breaks to infrastructure spending — continue to tether these projects to taxpayers.
Experts say that unless cities adopt stricter definitions of private financing and greater transparency in negotiations, the line between private investment and public burden will remain blurred.
Originally reported by Vicky Uhland in Construction Dive.
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