Field of Schemes

Fieldofschemes.com serves as the online partner to the book Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public Money Into Private Profit, authored by Joanna Cagan and Neil deMause. Since its inception in 1998, the website has focused on scrutinizing the approximately $2 billion annually allocated in public funds for the construction of new professional sports venues.

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No, the No Tax Subsidies for Stadiums Act would not end tax subsidies for stadiums

2 weeks ago | fieldofschemes.com | Neil deMause |personNeil deMause

The Center Square is an odd news outlet: First launched as Watchdog.org in 2009 with financial support from right-wing and libertarian groups like the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity, it’s veered between editorial support for conservative causes and some excellent reporting, especially on items where the issue at hand aligns with their sponsors’ political lens. Though I guess you could say similar for lots of news publications these days, so maybe it’s unfair to single them out.
Do the Whitecaps really want a new stadium, or just a cheaper BC Place lease?

2 weeks ago | fieldofschemes.com | Neil deMause |personNeil deMause

Add the Vancouver Whitecaps to the list of teams looking to build a new stadium, maybe, possibly, if the price is right:The Major League Soccer club is in talks with the City of Vancouver about the construction of a stadium at the PNE fairgrounds site, said Whitecaps CEO and sporting director Axel Schuster.
WTH is up with that “Bengals should move to Chicago” story?

2 weeks ago | fieldofschemes.com | Neil deMause |personNeil deMause

It’s always fun when you get to see how stupidity breaks out in real time, and so it was with the story growing over the last few days that the Cincinnati Bengals ownership could respond to the looming expiration of their lease by moving, and in particular by moving to Chicago.
Liveblog: What sports economists are telling us about stadiums and public funding

3 weeks ago | fieldofschemes.com | Neil deMause |personNeil deMause

Day two of the sports economics conference at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County! We’ve got a packed day of presenters and we all got lost in campus construction on the way to the meeting room, so let’s go go go:First up is J.C. Bradbury, who should need no introduction, speaking on “Franchise Relocation and Stadium Subsidies: Credible Threats or Cheap Talk?” Why do we still have so many stadium subsidies when they’re so pointless? he asks.
Friday roundup: Bucs want “major renovation,” won’t say yet who’d pay for it

3 weeks ago | fieldofschemes.com | Neil deMause |personNeil deMause

Today’s main event will be the liveblog of day two of the sports economics conference at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, which tons of presentations on stadiums and stadium-adjacent topics, but first here’s the regular Friday weekly news r0undup, written entirely on Thursday! If anyone’s roof blew off this morning, it’ll just have to wait till Monday.
LOLAthletics make Sacramento debut with tool-shed press conference, mid-game bathroom breaks

3 weeks ago | fieldofschemes.com | Neil deMause |personNeil deMause

Stadium Day at the second annual sports economics conference at University of Maryland-Baltimore County isn’t until tomorrow, so while I’m attending today, I’m not liveblogging, meaning you’ll have to wait 24 hours for this kind of nonstop excitement.
Ohio legislature kills governor’s stadium slush fund, will he veto its Browns subsidy bill in return?

3 weeks ago | fieldofschemes.com | Neil deMause |personNeil deMause

As expected, the Ohio state legislature has killed Gov. Mike DeWine’s proposal to use increased sports gambling, cigarette, and cannabis taxes to fund a $2 billion stadium slush fund, and will instead move ahead with its own plan to collect all sales and income and other state taxes from in and around a new Cleveland Browns stadium and use them to give Browns owner Jimmy Haslam $600 million toward the stadium’s construction cost.
Browns owner: If Ohio won’t give me $1.2B in tax money, I’ll keep playing in Cleveland

3 weeks ago | fieldofschemes.com | Neil deMause |personNeil deMause

Apparently all the stadium news decided to happen in the last 24 hours, that’s okay, I didn’t have any better plans for things to do with my Tuesday. Anyway, in Cleveland yesterday, Browns owner Jimmy Haslam revealed his “Plan B” if the state, county, and city don’t approve $1.2 billion in public money for a new stadium in Brook Park:Haslam said it will come down to whether Ohio lawmakers approve $600 million in funding for the stadium proposal in the budget at the end of June.
AZ senate pulls $500m D-Backs stadium subsidy from committee agenda at last second

3 weeks ago | fieldofschemes.com | Neil deMause |personNeil deMause

And speaking of people who will be speaking at this week’s sports economics conference and the Casino Night Fallacy, J.C. Bradbury had an op-ed in the Arizona Mirror yesterday on the proposed Arizona Diamondbacks tax-redirection bill, and didn’t mince words, as he never does:The funding mechanism being proposed to benefit the Diamondbacks relies upon what public finance economists call “fiscal illusion.” The tax mechanism was selected to understate the public cost.
Can a Portland MLB stadium pay for itself with “no impact” to Oregon? Ha, ha, it is to laugh

3 weeks ago | fieldofschemes.com | Neil deMause |personNeil deMause

With the Oregon senate moving forward with plans to approve up to $800 million in stadium bonds for a potential MLB expansion team, to be funded with player income taxes — it just passed its last committee vote and is headed for the full senate — the Portland Business Journal asked a “Portland economist” to explain it.