Unsportsmanlike conduct

For over a year now, the Eagles and the Phillies have been showing off artists' conceptions of their forthcoming, state-of-the-art stadiums. The glossy pictures almost make claims that new stadiums will bring Philadelphia into the upper echelon of American cities believable. But the messy process of erecting these stadiums -- complete with public protests, thinly veiled threats to move the teams elsewhere and whispers of mob involvement -- has put Philadelphia on the road to economic instability and confirmed its historical reputation as the worst-governed big city in America. From the beginning of the process two years ago, Philadelphia has been swindled and embarrassed -- a second-rate city held hostage by two second-rate sports teams. In all fairness, the city was put in a tough position by the Pennsylvania state legislature. At the beginning of last year, Pennsylvania ear-marked $320 million for two stadiums in Philadelphia and two in Pittsburgh, handing down a mandate that backed Philadelphia into a stadium-building corner. But if the mantra of "revitalization" nervously repeated by city, state and team officials is true, why did every neighborhood in the city refuse to open their gates to a stadium? If stadiums are such profitable ventures, why do private investors -- in Philadelphia and elsewhere -- consistently refuse to open their wallets to teams pining for new homes? It's because citizens and investors are smart enough to know that stadium investments are always heavily skewed in the team's favor and seldomly, if ever, yield them significant returns. Case in point: Baltimore's Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Credited with starting the new stadium craze when it was constructed in 1992 and cited as the premier example of the fusion of professional sports and urban revitalization, Camden Yards has proved to be a wash in terms of giving new life to run-down areas. Johns Hopkins economists Bruce Hamilton and Peter Kahn estimate that Camden Yards has generated only 550 new, low-paying, seasonal jobs at a taxpayer cost of $363,000 per job. For perspective, a Maryland job program called the "Sunny Day Fund" costs the government only $6,250 per job. Camden Yards has also failed to bring new development to surrounding neighborhoods. Instead, the development has only served to strengthen the existing businesses in Baltimore's attractive Inner Harbor area --that were already doing quite fine on their own -- and stifle new construction after bulldozing surrounding land for parking. All in all, Camden Yards operates at a net loss of $11 million per year for Maryland citizens while Orioles officials smile at their increased attendance. The present deal to which Philadelphia and its two teams agreed in principle last week includes every ingredient of this money pit recipe, except that it leaves out Camden Yards' one benefit and adds a dash of a local flavoring: money wasting and political corruption. Being built in the middle of a concrete sea of parking spaces far from any commercial hub, the stadiums will not benefit any existing businesses. That fact makes Mayor John Street's prediction that new wage, sales and business taxes will help pay off the city's $304 million investment laughable. The deal also wastes $50 million to $70 million on the purchase of new land for the stadiums, even though the city already owns sufficient space in the area. A fishy odor emanates from these land purchases because two of the five plots being bought are owned by generous contributors to Street's 1999 election campaign. According to The Philadelphia Daily News, one contributor has a history of making over-priced land deals with the city and the other only recently bought his property after serving on Street's stadium planning committee. A third plot is owned by a man with alleged connections to organized crime. The only benefits of this deal accrue to shady real estate characters and two sports teams that have given Philadelphia nothing but grief. Meanwhile, $474 million is being diverted away from schools, police departments and valuable small business programs -- projects that are the only proven way of luring middle-class residents and their economically nourishing tax dollars back to the city. Those artists' conceptions of the stadiums look real slick. Being a sports fan, I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't enjoy natural grass and better sightlines. But the final product never looks as good as the artist's conception. And for the city of Philadelphia and its citizens, it's bound to look much, much worse.

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