Sport and Downtown Development Strategy If You Build It, Will Jobs Come?

Abstract

Many policy analysts have cautioned against public spending for professional and amateur sports. Within the last year, numerous cities have received demands from major and minor league teams for investments. n e s e investments by the public sector can involve hundreds of millions of dollars and are usually ddended by the economic impact of the facilities or teams and the economic development and revitalization which will follow. Indianapolis formulated an economic development strategy which relied substantially on sports. In addition, its development policies did not involve one team or facility, but a series of

National well-being and international sports events

“…Moreover, while the construction phase may generate some employment, long term employment related to sport facilities is likely to be part-time, casual, low skilled, and low waged, thus not contributing in the improvement of the quality of full-time jobs (Baade, 1996;Hall, 2006;Whitson and Horne, 2006). Given these facts it is not surprising that the evidence suggests that the development and construction of stadiums does not generate a net addition to economic activity (Baade and Dye, 1990;Rosentraub, 1994;Crompton, 1995;Baade, 1996;Coates and Humphreys, 1999;Lertwachara and Cochran, 2007).…”

A Study of Psychological Support from Local Residents for Hosting Mega-Sporting Events: A Case of the 2012 Indianapolis Super Bowl XLVI

“…he also found that hotel occupancy rate and retail sales in a host city are not statistically increased during the Super Bowl compared to similar dates in non-Super Bowl years (Porter, 1999). Other studies indicate little evidence that hosting sporting events for the sake of community development with public subsidies provided significant positive economic impacts (hamilton & Kahn, 1997;rosentraub, 1994). Instead of economic gains, many cities that have hosted mega-sporting events have experienced a deficit after the events.…”

Sport in the city: Measuring economic significance at the local level

“…With the exception of studies such as Meek (1997), which focused on sport-related economic activity at the national level in the US and Rosentraub, Swindell, Przybylski, and Mullins (1994), which evaluated the sport-related economic development strategy pursued by Indianapolis in the 1980s, the economic activity generated by both professional and amateur sports has received relatively little attention. While comparisons can be made between Rosentraub et al (1994) and the research undertaken in Sheffield, and these will be discussed later in the article, it is essentially the studies that have measured the economic importance of sport in various European countries that are most relevant to this research. Unlike much research in North America, with the exception of those aforementioned, the European literature tends to focus more holistically on measuring the contribution of all sporting activity to output and employment.…”

“…As discussed earlier, little research has been carried out on the economic importance of sport in European cities therefore it is not possible to provide a comparative case study. However, a comparison can be made with Rosentraub et al (1994), which estimated the economic activity generated from sport in Indianapolis, a city that has like Sheffield, invested considerable resources into developing a sports strategy in response to a declining economy. Rosentraub et al (1994, p. 237) found that "…the entire impact of sports, under the best of circumstances, would amount to only 1.1% of the Indianapolis economy".…”

“…The economic importance of sport in Sheffield was estimated by measuring and adding up the value-added of the various sport-related firms in the city. However, to analyse the impact of Indianapolis's economic development strategy, a three level analysis based on employment indicators was conducted (Rosentraub et al, 1994). As the measures of economic success in the two cases were based on very different methods, caution should be exercised when comparing the results, as this alone can yield quite different outcomes (LIRC, 1997a).…”