LOS ANGELES is by far the biggest market missing a team from one of America’s three major sports: football, baseball and basketball (see chart). Having gone 21 years without a National Football League (NFL) team, it has suddenly been graced with three suitors: the St Louis Rams, the San Diego Chargers and the Oakland Raiders, though it will have to settle for just two. The Rams and Raiders used to call it home, but left in 1995 when the cities of St Louis and Oakland offered them taxpayer money to help cover their stadium costs, an act of generosity they must now be regretting. On January 12th the NFL announced that the first team headed for Los Angeles would be the St Louis Rams. According to The Tax Payers Protection Alliance, an NGO, 29 out of 31 NFL stadiums have received public subsidies to help cover construction and renovation costs since 1995. NFL teams argue that this is justified because their presence drives consumer spending, but the academic literature says otherwise: economists argue that in the absence of sports teams, consumers would simply spend their money on other forms of entertainment. Any public subsidies for football stadiums are effectively transfers of wealth from taxpayers to NFL owners and athletes. Professional football teams don’t need the help: according to Forbes, a magazine, the average NFL team makes $76m a year in profit, with a very healthy 22% operating margin.

One tactic commonly used by NFL owners to extort local governments is threatening to move to another city. That a city as desirable Los Angeles was without a football team made the threats all the more credible. One team, the Minnesota Vikings, managed to extract $500m of taxpayer money to build a new stadium based in part on such methods. Because the NFL has a fixed number of teams, cities wishing to serve as hosts have had to bend over backwards to accommodate them.

That was certainly the case with the city of St Louis, which tried to entice the Rams to stay by offering $477m of public money towards building a new stadium. What was different this time around was that the Rams never had any intention of staying. Stan Kroenke, the Rams’ owner, has made far more ambitious plans, purchasing 300 acres of land in Los Angeles. In addition to a new football stadium, Mr Kroenke also plans to build a hotel, housing, retail and office spaces, all without taking public money.

The Rams’ privately funded move to Los Angeles is a positive sign for those worried about wasteful public spending, and certainly reduces the amount of leverage that NFL owners will have over city governments in future. It does not, however, signal an end to the ruse. Neil deMause, co-author of “Field of Schemes”, notes that large, rich markets like Los Angeles are few in number. Smaller cities have less leverage. Assuming the Chargers decide to join the Rams in Los Angeles, the Raiders will be left in the lurch. Will they move to another city like San Antonio, or will they shake down Oakland city government?