Public financing for other arena projects.
News broke Wednesday that an agreement was close on how to pay for a new $500 million arena for the Milwaukee Bucks.
Some details of the proposed arrangement between the Bucks and state and local government officials were new. But the overall cost sharing was, more or less, what had long been expected: The Bucks’ owners would pay half and taxpayers would pay half.
According to Tim Sheehy, president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce, such a split would be good for taxpayers. Here is what he said April 10 on “Here and Now,” a Wisconsin Public Television show:
“If this comes out close to a 5050 partnership, it will be much better — in terms of the portion of the public financing — than most of the other arena projects done around the country.”
In other words, Sheehy is saying that taxpayers picking up half the tab for a new Milwaukee arena is relatively low, compared with how much taxpayers have contributed toward arenas for other National Basketball Association teams.
Let’s take a look.
Other arena deals
To see how other NBA arenas have been financed, we turned to two sources: The 2012 edition of “Financing Economic Development in the 21st Century,” a textbook that has a chapter on financing professional sports facilities. And a database, last updated in August, that is maintained by Marquette University Law School’s National Sports Law Institute.
Based on the two sources we checked, at least eight of the 15 NBA arenas built since 1999 were financed with more than 50% taxpayer support. Indeed, although there is some variations in the figures in the two sources, seven of the eight arenas were built with at least 82% public money (the total cost figures are according to the textbook).
Those arenas were built in Orlando, Fla.; Charlotte, N.C.; Memphis, Tenn.; Houston; San Antonio; Oklahoma City; Miami; and New Orleans. According to the textbook, the public portion ranged between 82% and 100%; according to Marquette, the range was 59% to 100%.
Conversely, the textbook and Marquette agree that only four of the arenas were built with taxpayer contributions of 50% or less.
Those arenas were built in Dallas, Toronto, Denver and Los Angeles. The two sources agreed that the Toronto arena was 100% privately financed. The public portion for the other three arenas ranged from 16% to 50%, according to the textbook. Marquette said the range was 3% to 30%.
There was not agreement between the two sources on the public portion paid for arenas in Brooklyn, Indianapolis and Atlanta.
Our rating
Sheehy said a 50-50 public-private split for paying for a new Milwaukee Bucks arena would “be much better in terms of the portion of the public financing than most of the other arena projects done around the country.”
Of the 15 NBA arenas — composing half the cities in the league — built since 1999, at least eight were built with more than 50% of the money coming from taxpayers. Seven of those eight were built with at least 82% public money.
We rate his statement True.