THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 22, 1994 TAG: 9406220562
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TOM ROBINSON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940622 LENGTH: Long
Image. Image. Image.
Never mind that there is inconclusive evidence to support the popular belief that major league sports and stadiums represent financial windfalls.
Never mind the indications that their presence can have less economic impact than an industrial plant or no more than a large department store, and that they actually can be an economic drain.
{REST} Forget that major league tickets usually outprice a significant segment of a region's population, and that the team's existence benefits primarily the corporate or political elite.
If the goal is to become ``big league'' in the eyes of the nation, few entities can rocket a community into that realm faster than major league sports.
Obtain that status, the argument goes, and untold new residents, businesses and tourists will flock to your city.
Sure, minor league can be nice, and the boom enjoyed by the Hampton Roads Admirals hockey team and Triple-A baseball's Norfolk Tides has put smiles on the faces of politicians and citizens alike. But the surest way to capture international attention, to get a city's name on caps and sweatshirts and blankets from here to Hong Kong - to get on the proverbial map - is to get a team.
And right now, Hampton Roads is the nation's largest metropolitan area without a major sports team.
``One of the things you have to have to be a big league city is big league sports,'' Tim Hagan, president of the Cuyahoga County (Ohio) Commissioners, said after Cleveland's $170 million Jacobs Field opened in April. ``And what we've done clearly benefits wealthy people. But you have to see the benefits. You've got to reinvent yourself as a community, and funding this kind of project is a way to do it.''
If Hampton Roads wanted to do it, well, it's already knocking on the big leagues' door, according to one expert on professional sports markets.
``I'm not sure that Norfolk or Tidewater is ready to make it right now, but you're right at that point,'' said Andrew Zimbalist, an economics professor at Smith College in Massachusetts. Zimbalist has written 10 books on economic development and in 1992 appeared before a Senate subcommittee to argue for the removal of baseball's antitrust exemption.
``Somebody with some foresight might very well think it's worthy of that kind of investment. (The market) is on the cusp for baseball, and it seems to me a good argument that you're over it for hockey and basketball, and might be over it for football,'' he said. ``I'm not saying you're a premier city, but it's something you should be thinking about.''
Tides president Ken Young and Admirals owner Blake Cullen have thought about it, and they agree that while image isn't everything, it's close.
``The perception of what it does to bring big business into a community, and this is the part that's so tough to put a number on . . . that has a tremendous economic affect,'' Young said. ``There's only a certain part of the community that can afford to go to those games, but still the perception is there that, hey, this is a major league town or community. I think that has a great deal to do with it.''
Absolutely, Cullen said.
``It's how you identify an area when you're a kid growing up or you're a businessman traveling the country,'' Cullen said. ``It's the No. 1 identifying part of an area. I don't think there's any question about it.''
So that's what's in it for Hampton Roads - a profile as a vibrant, growing area. But at what price, and to what benefit?
Those questions, with uncertain answers, have bedeviled economists, politicians and sports executives essentially since the late '50s, when the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants moved to California, and have merely intensified since 1982. That's when Al Davis carted his Oakland Raiders to Los Angeles and broke wide open an emotional, politically charged, multimillion-dollar contest that pits city vs. city and allows teams to engage in legal, high-stakes blackmail of localities.
The thing is, many economists continue to scratch their heads over the breathless competition for teams. Sports might give people another entertainment option, but despite the promises by public figures of great revenue streams, there is little documentation that admission into the ``big leagues'' is desirable for the fiscal health of a city.
``Rates of economic growth for cities that have adopted a sports development strategy lag behind cities that have not developed one,'' says economist Robert Baade of Lake Forest (Ill.) College, who has researched the subject extensively. ``That suggests the kind of job created (primarily seasonal and low-wage) might not be as good a job that could be created if the money was spent on something else.''
``It's kind of a quick fix for politicians,'' said Charles Euchner, a College of the Holy Cross political science professor who wrote ``Playing the Field: Why Sports Teams Move and Cities Fight To Keep Them.''
``Something with as high visibility as going after a sports team enables a mayor or governor to show they're active, energetic, kind of a can-do person. And a lot of people believe these studies that say sports can turn a whole city around.''
Zimbalist writes in his book, ``Baseball and Billions'': ``While a city may benefit both culturally and financially from having a baseball team, that does not mean the city gets fair market return for its investment.''
The investment is the arena a city must build to lure a team. And a city almost certainly must build one. Few arenas are built with private funds.
``If you build it, they will come, right?'' said Cuyahoga County's Hagan. ``Well, you don't know until you get it there. But you should damn well know if you have a building that is fit only for a dying city, the determination will be that your city has a past but not a future. So, basically, this is an investment in the future. We know there is a benefit. We just aren't exactly sure what it is.''
While some economists believe the resulting multiplier effect - the number of times a dollar turns over in a community - from a sports enterprise is too large to ignore, Baade determined that it could be negative, that sports could eliminate spending on other activities that contribute more to local economic strength.
And $100 million toward an arena is $100 million less to be spent on things that could benefit the entire community. Besides, Baade said, evidence suggests that most of the money spent at sports events comes from within the community and would just be spent elsewhere in that community.
``Professional sport does not show up as a statistically significant thing,'' Baade said. ``If you're bringing people in from outside the community, yes, there's an inflow of funds. But it turns out that must not be very large, given the size of the economic impacts I've seen.''
But what about the argument that sports franchises are magnets for economic development, as quality-of-life boosters that tip the scales favorably when businesses seek to relocate or open regional branches?
``I think that's a gross exaggeration,'' Baade said. Of the factors that businesses evaluate when looking to move, ``professional sports might be way down the list, but it's not decisive. It's just not borne out by any statistic that I've ever seen.''
All of which supports Euchner's warning. Because leagues and franchises hold all the cards, he writes, ``the task of proving worthiness as a potential major league city is greater, and small cities must therefore be willing to spend more to attract a team in the first place.''
Euchner contends that if acquiring a sports franchise is the linchpin of an economic development strategy, that strategy is doomed to failure.
Norfolk City Councilman Paul Fraim, a longtime sports proponent, agrees.
``Do I think I would support (major league sports) and it would be beneficial? Yes,'' Fraim said. ``Am I willing to support it at all costs? No. It has to make good business sense. If things are done well, it could be win-win for everyone.
``Professional basketball for the sake of professional basketball probably doesn't make sense. But if you create an arena where you can do basketball and hockey, complete with all the amenities and skyboxes that the corporate community wants, you can put enough oars in the water that the thing will float and move forward.''
Indianapolis, for one, rose with the tide of its increased sports offerings, according to its former mayor, William H. Hudnut III. Hudnut believes that his city boomed in the '80s through sports development, especially by becoming known as the country's amateur sports capital.
A 1991 study by the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce indicates that the city's $164 million investment in sports reaped a benefit of $1.89 billion in direct and indirect spending from 1977 to 1991.
``That's just one economic study, and there are others who pooh-pooh it and say it's not so, that this is not an efficient way to make an investment,'' said Hudnut, who was mayor from 1975 to 1991. ``There are a lot of students of urban investment who say it's not a smart way to make a city try to grow. But in our case, I think it worked out.''
Examples like that are why Norfolk is beginning to look into its big league sports options.
The Tides' Young is in the early stages of talking to potential investors should he attempt to bid for an NHL franchise.
Michael Barrett of the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce says sports development is an important part of the region's Plan 2007.
Virginia Beach even made an out-of-leftfield stab a couple years ago to lure the Washington Redskins.
This small scale alone illustrates how demand for major league sports franchises swamps supply. The woods are apparently full of more economic losers than winners, but financial success is possible if approached with caution.
``Study it very carefully because times have changed,'' Hudnut said. ``We had a window of opportunity that may not be open for others.''
Baade warns that ``there's a lot of political bluster in this business, and often too little in the way of sound and adequate planning. It's an emotional, political and substantial cultural issue, and people are not being quite as honest as they should be when they try to see this as a cash cow.''
There is no question, however, about the authenticity of the self-esteem argument. Ask the wounded sports community in Minneapolis, which despite solid fan support lost its NHL North Stars to Dallas last year and may lose its NBA Timberwolves.
Talk about image problems. Today, if not having a major league team is considered bad, losing one could be even worse.
{KEYWORDS} PROFESSIONAL SPORTS MAJOR LEAGUE SPORTS
by CNB