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Originally Posted by Erick Estrada
The Georgia Dome was only 25 years old so I'm not sure how they justified a new stadium but the new one certainly looks pretty nice. It seems that teams are going to domes/retractable domes with a lot of glass to let in daylight. Where do they go from here? What other improvements will they be able to make to make this new stadium obsolete in 25 years?
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I dug into this this morning and how the numbers work in Atlanta and it is very interesting. We can compare it to the situation in Calgary if we wish.
Mercedes-Benz Stadium (MBS) was made possible by some quirky city/state dynamics that don't exist in many other places (Maybe only Vegas, and I'm not even sure of that). Atlanta pulls in enormous amounts of hotel tax revenue for a city of its size because it is a year-round convention destination. But it doesn't really get to decide what to tax or what to spend it on all of that is micromanaged by the state. The tax revenues could theoretically pay for a lot of things, but the state has decided that it should pay for things that contribute to tourism. It's not a totally unreasonable line of thought since Georgia can't compete with Florida's beaches and theme parks and resorts, so its tourism business largely relies on Atlanta having world class convention facilities and a stadium that can bring in Super Bowls, College Championships, Final Fours, etc.
As a result, by state law, 40% of Atlanta's hotel tax money must go towards the operation and management of a "multipurpose domed facility". In the past, that was the Georgia Dome. Now it is MBS. The only new obligation that the public took on was to pay $200M of construction costs, which will also be paid for out of that 40% hotel tax bucket. There was also a substantial private contribution, financed by the sale of personal seat licenses to Falcons fans. So there was no real meaningful debate. City residents did not vote on it, and for the most part, they won't be paying for it. The only cost to the city is the theoretical lost ability to use that 40% to pay for other things, but it is truly theoretical, since the city can't amend state law.