Doc: The real cost of an FC Cincinnati stadium

Futbol Club Cincinnati is scouting potential stadium sites, just in case one of these years, Major League Soccer decides to grace our town with an expansion bid. Here we go again?

FC Cincinnati’s extreme success in its rookie year in the United Soccer League validated ownership’s long-term ambition to be big league. The local club hosted the MLS commissioner, it attended MLS meetings. It’s looking at the old Milacron acreage as a potential stadium site.

Please don’t tell me where this is going.

Do not say that the cost of being “major league’’ involves asking taxpayers to subsidize a soccer-only stadium. Do not rationalize the extortion by threatening to pull us from MLS consideration if we don’t build one. Do not extol the “economic benefits’’ of another new playpen.

The NFL is expert at this. It has done it for decades: If you build it, we will stay. This is pro sports at its most tasteless. The only thing sadder than capitulating is not capitulating. Ask San Diego, which loved its Chargers but decided its money would be better spent elsewhere.

MLS hasn’t ruled out Cincinnati. Not at all. It has subtly suggested we have no chance if we don’t provide FCC with its own place. Why is MLS doing that? Because it can.

Soccer is hot. It’s hot among millennials with ever-expanding disposable incomes. It’s hot with advertisers eager to ride the next wave of hungry consumers. MLS has more suitors than available expansion spots. Supply and demand = more demands.

Is this a premature rant? Sure. Maybe FC Cincinnati ownership and its partners will pay for the new place, if it comes to that. Maybe those rolling, three-year deals the team has with UC will roll on until 2030, and the futbol club will get its MLS gig anyway. We can hope.

FC Cincinnati is committed enough to Nippert in the short term, it’s spending $2 million to reconfigure the lower bowl of the stadium, to conform with FIFA standards. But everyone involved knows what’s up, moving forward.

After club ownership has paid what is expected to be a $200 million MLS expansion fee, will it then feel like financing a stadium, too? Here’s what Fox Sports soccer analyst Alexi Lalas told the Enquirer last year:

"This is a gold rush, and you’ve got to get there and stake your claim because they’re going to continue to expand, but eventually it will be capped. This is not for the faint of heart."

FC Cincinnati is a terrific addition to the local sports menu. Nippert Stadium is in an ideal home. Soccer works here, obviously. But must we do yet another slam-dance with pro sports entities over facilities?

(This likely wouldn’t be limited to FC Cincinnati. The Bengals lease is up in 13 years. We can expect them to begin making noise less than a decade from now. Won’t that be fun?)

In Atlanta, they’re ditching the Georgia Dome, 24 years after it opened. That’s bad. This is worse: The Braves have opted out of Turner Field, after all of 19 seasons. Was anything wrong with either place? Other than not making enough millions for their owners? The dome was acceptable enough to host a national semifinal football playoff game four weeks ago.

Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the Falcons home starting next fall, will cost $1.5 billion. Taxpayers are on the hook for $200 million. SunTrust Park, rising in suburban Cobb County, has a $672 million price tag, $400 million of which will be public money.

Backers of both plans say very little direct taxpayer cash will be used. Bonds and tourism taxes will do most of the work. That’s a ruse, of course. Tax money spent on stadiums is tax money that could be spent elsewhere. Economists call that “opportunity costs.’’

Economists also agree that stadia contribute very little to a city’s economy. The jobs are seasonal and low paying. Sometimes new stadiums spur development and sometimes they’re FirstEnergy Stadium in Cleveland.

By the end of January, FC Cincinnati will submit a list of potential stadium sites to the kings who rule MLS. If they are judged satisfactory, the process will move ahead. For better or worse.