DC Baseball - Bah Humbug!

"Our conclusion, and that of nearly all academic economists studying this issue, is that professional sports generally have little, if any , positive effect on a city's economy."

Such was the finding of the folks at Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, not a place known to poo-poo fun. And how about a left of center take?

"First, sports teams and facilities are not a source of local economic growth and employment; second, the magnitude of the net subsidy exceeds the financial benefit of a new stadium to a team; and, third, the most plausible reasons that cities are willing to subsidize sports teams are the intense popularity of sports among a substantial proportion of voters and businesses and the leverage that teams enjoy from the monopoly position of professional sports leagues."

The third point is what I wish all those God-awful annoying sports fans would just fess up and stop pretending that the subsidization of their pasttimes will benefit us all. If a business can't make it without government subsidies, something is wrong with the business. At best, all a professional sports team might provide is some abstract feeling of pride. It doesn't improve public schools and it doesn't prevent murder.