Athletes don’t typically speak about billionaire owners asking for money from taxpayers to help fund a sports facility, but Richard Sherman aired his thoughts on John Clayton’s radio show for 710 ESPN Seattle while talking about his potential agenda if he were elected president of the United States.

AD

AD

“I’d stop spending billions of taxpayer dollars on stadiums and probably get us out of debt and maybe make the billionaires who actually benefit from the stadiums to pay for them,” Sherman said Monday. “That kind of seems like a system that would work for me.”

Many teams use the threat of moving to a neighboring area or another state entirely to help gain support for public funding for these enormous athletic facilities. Oftentimes, claims of economic growth and help building an identity for a region come alongside these plans for using taxpayer funds. As a result, $4.7 billion in taxpayer money has been used since 1997 to build 20 NFL stadiums, according to CNN.

This, however, is disputed by academic studies on these exact promises. A 2015 study from Stanford University came to the conclusion that professional sports stadiums did not live up the promises of local economic growth.

AD

AD

“NFL stadiums do not generate significant local economic growth, and the incremental tax revenue is not sufficient to cover any significant financial contribution by the city,” said Roger Noll, a Stanford professor emeritus in economics who headed up the research, in the study.

The Barclays Center, which opened in 2012 in Brooklyn, fell short of expectations in regards to revenue generation. While the facility cost $1 billion to build, it was valued at $825 million in January 2016, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The problem has gotten so out of hand that John Oliver put together a comprehensive report on the topic. And when Oliver is leaning over his desk and ranting, you know something is officially out of hand.

The money drains that these stadiums are causing have had negative effects before the buildings are even finished. Cobb County is trying to pass a tax increase to fund a public parks project because the money originally set aside is now going toward building the new stadium for the Atlanta Braves, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The $40 million public parks project was approved in 2008, more than five years before the announcement of the new field for the Braves. John C. Malone, the chairman of Liberty Media who is the controlling partner of the ball club, is worth $5.6 billion, according to the Denver Post.

AD

AD

Several teams have publicly stated that they would not be using taxpayer money to build new stadiums, three of which are in the same market. The Golden State Warriors are privately funding a $1 billion arena, the San Francisco 49ers built Levi’s Stadium with minimal public funding, and the Oakland Raiders have stated that they would not take a dime of public funding to build a new stadium.