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Originally Posted by Cleveland Steam Whistle
City absolutely gets benefit from this type of project and structure, and no it hasn't been de-bunked. People on either side of the argument can come up with lots of arguments to support their case, many on both sides have merit, but there has never been anything close to a complete de-bunking as you put it.
What is very much debatable though is the amount of benefit the city will get, and how to monitise that. I won't pretend to know that answer, but I think it will be fairly easy to figure out, and is the reason why tax payers will end up spending some money on the new rink, because the government will see some form of value in having these facilities in the province.
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Anything objective I have read pretty convincingly debunks public financing of stadiums as having very little economic benefit, and is generally considered to be about the poorest investment a government can make with its public funds. If you can find something that makes a convincing case otherwise, feel free to share.
I do think there are some intangible benefits to having a sports team though, and the fact is Calgary has to compete with other cities that do benefit from public financing, so in some ways it is probably a bit of a necessary evil if you want to keep a competitive team. It's too bad though that all the levels of government can't get together and agree to get out of this business.
It really doesn't pass the "smell test" that a team can have payrolls approaching 100 million/year, but can't finance a 500 million dollar asset. To really over-simplify things: What's a mortgage on a 500 million stadium? 30-40 million per year? Seems like the obvious answer is to pay players less and pay for your own damn building? It seems that all public financing does is inflate salaries. And directing money to player's salaries is not really great for a city when the players who are making that money likely end up spending the bulk of it elsewhere over the course of their lifetime.
But Calgary is not a vacuum and they probably just have to suck it up and go along with the rest of the continent.