The ‘business’ of baseball

What to do, or not do, about baseball in Richmond is the topic that won’t go away. It seems to more we stew about it, the worse it gets, as far as clearing up the picture goes. Me? I don’t know the answer. Still, I do know what shouldn’t be done — don’t shoehorn a baseball stadium […]

January 23, 2009; 12:02 PM • by FTRea

What to do, or not do, about baseball in Richmond is the topic that won’t go away. It seems to more we stew about it, the worse it gets, as far as clearing up the picture goes.

Me? I don’t know the answer.

Still, I do know what shouldn’t be done — don’t shoehorn a baseball stadium into Shockoe Bottom.

While the list of reasons for that simple statement is long, the business/money angle is near the top of the list. To back that up read what Brian Glass writes at Richmond BizSense:

From the outset I have said that there is no documented evidence that stadiums are economic generators. I continue to refer anyone who really cares to a book titled “Public Dollars, Private Stadiums” that was the result of a collaboration between Kevin Delaney, an associate professor at Temple University, and Rick Eckstein, an associate professor at Villanova University, where the documentation exists that is necessary to prove this point.

The final paragraph of the book makes, in my opinion, the best argument for staying out of the ballpark business:

“So long as cities keep spending lots of public dollars on new sports stadiums rather than on public schools, affordable health care, and safe neighborhoods, social conditions will continue to deteriorate for a great number of urban residents. Perhaps we need an entirely new vision for what makes an American city a major league city.”

Click here to read the entire post.

January 23, 2009 12:02 PM 0