Recently, there has been a lot of brouhaha about a proposal to build a soccer stadium for the area’s professional soccer team, D.C. United. For years, they have been playing at DC’s RFK Stadium which, truth be told, is old and decaying.  Yes, it’s time for D.C. United to get a new stadium.

Is Prince George’s County the Right Place?

Beginning in yesterday’s Washington Post, articles like this one, started to appear hyping all the benefits of building a soccer stadium somewhere in Prince George’s County. It seems that all the public officials and stadium developers are ga-ga over the fact that soccer may come to Prince George’s.  All you have to do is look at the photo of all those smiling faces to see that everyone is happy.

Why shouldn’t they be?  After all the cost of building the stadium will be with us, the taxpayers.

Yes, that’s right!  This will be yet another stadium built with public funds raised by selling bonds for yet another multi-millionaire sports team owner and real estate developer.

Everyone says that scarce tax dollars won’t be used to raise the estimated $180,000,000 to $195,000,000 needed to build the stadium. Of course, I wonder who will pay back the bondholders once the bonds are sold, if they are sold, in an economy alternately called a “disaster” or a “catastrophe”.

Will a New Soccer Stadium Really be a Benefit?

In an interesting analysis of this boondoggle of a plan, Marc Fisher (again, of The Washington Post), lays out all the reasons a soccer stadium is probably not the best idea on the table.

  • …In a survey of United fans, 57 percent of whom were from Virginia and 27 percent from Maryland, most said they would go to fewer games than they do at RFK, or they wouldn’t go at all…
  • Plans to rent out the stadium for concerts might flop…
  • Other uses of the stadium aren’t likely to produce much revenue…

— excerpted from A Bad Deal For Md. Taxpayers

I agree.

Too many times, the public has been saddled with huge debt to build and maintain a venue that, more often than not, benefits people already very wealthy.

  • Initial estimates for construction are always wildly underestimated.
  • Locations are always less than optimal and both the construction process and
  • Ongoing activity disrupt or outright displace homeowners who can least afford to pick up and move.

For my money, I would much rather see Prince George’s sell bonds to improve schools or roads or even come up with a way to help the thousands and thousands of people in danger of losing their homes to foreclosure.

The stadium is not a good idea, in my view, and should be scrapped…at least for Prince George’s.  After all, we are third on the list of places to put the stadium.  I wonder why both DC and Virgina took a pass?  Could it have been that they thought public money was better spent in other areas?

Just saying.