A great way to understand how to provide good government is to
understand how certain cities fail at providing good governance in
particular areas. This post will be the first in a series highlighting
such examples. Today, we will dive into Washington DC’s failing
relationship with professional sports.
I wish I could come up with a fitting name for the multifaceted and interconnecting series of sports-related policy nightmares that has dominated DC local politics since election day. In the last few weeks, we’ve seen multiple very important issues arise relating to sports stadiums, practice facilities, and DC’s bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics. So, what’s happening?
First, immediately after the election, the DC City Council released a 400-plus page cost-benefit analysis of a complex deal to build a new stadium for DC United (the city’s Major League Soccer franchise) and adjoining hotel. The deal, originally based around swapping city-owned land elsewhere for land in the proposed stadium footprint, has been panned by politicians, community leaders, and the press for its cost and complexity. The stadium, if built, will be the most expensive in Major League Soccer history.
At its simplest, the deal is as follows. Another District-owned parcel of land at 1st and K streets will be traded to local electricity company PEPCO for land it owns in the stadium footprint. DC would also purchase parcels of land owned by two private parties, Mark Ein and Super Salvage. While not directly part of the deal, it is expected that DC will contract l with a to-be-determined developer to replace the Reeves Center at a site in Anacostia, leasing the space to the city. Originally, the deal included a land swap in which the DC government would trade the Franklin D. Reeves Municipal Center to real estate developer Akridge for land it owns in the stadium footprint, but this aspect has since been removed.
Confused yet? This is just to get the stadium built, saying nothing of the team that will lease it. The team is proposed to receive about $50 million in tax breaks, along with the benefits of partial public financing of the stadium in the above deal — and it gets worse. Since the report was released, public discord has grown and the troubled Reeves-Akridge land swap has been removed from the bill, with the city opting instead to offer the Reeves Center on the open market, and planning to seize the Akridge parcel via eminent domain.
Two days after the DC United report was released, rumors leaked of a possible new Washington Wizards training facility in the trendy Shaw neighborhood of Northwest DC. The facility, proposed as part of a redevelopment of a site that currently includes a school, skate park, and garden nursery. The facility would be built with funds from a new tax on Wizards tickets and concessions, so the team is effectively proposing to tax itself to pay for a new practice venue. Not content to simply sell the facility as a economic development tool or community amenity like most sports facilities, the site was sold as a means of drawing region native Kevin Durant to play for the Washington basketball team.
Outrage ensued almost immediately, largely around re-purposing what is now community space for a stadium in an area where property values are soaring and land available for redevelopment and community amenities is scarce. In response to the criticisms, Wizards owner Ted Leonsis attempted to explain the reason for building a centrally-located practice venue, complaining of lack of space and dangling a possible NBA Development League team to call the venue its home court. Leonsis doesn’t stop there, claiming that it could be used for community and charitable events. None of this placated the community, and opposition remains both widespread and nearly powerless to stop any deal that might take place.
The final cog is encompasses two inter-related parts. First is the city’s pending bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics. The other is a proposed new stadium for the Washington Redskins on the site of the current Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium on the eastern edge of Capitol Hill. Since September, Redskins owner Dan Snyder has been pushing local officials hard for a new stadium in the District. He has found a friendly ear in outgoing mayor Vince Gray, who has long supported building a stadium to return the team to the city from its current home at FedEx Field in Prince George’s County.
A new downtown stadium at the RFK site would be key to any Olympic bid. Realistically, there is simply no other site in the district large enough to build a venue big enough to placate the International Olympic Committee’s demands. It seems as though the two projects are mutually-reinforcing, as the popularity of the Olympics are used to mitigate public opinion soured by the DC United deal. What’s more, the Games are being pitched as a panacea to many unrelated problems with similarly controversial solutions. For example, the proposed Olympic Village site sits atop the downtrodden DC General homeless shelter, a site whose redevelopment has languished as replacement proposals are repeatedly shot down. A new tennis facility has also been proposed in the one of the more poverty-stricken areas of southeast or northeast DC as well as an aquatics center in Arlington, Virginia. While cheap and seemingly easy compared to what must be built in some other US city to host the games, history shows that things are unlikely to go as planned, with delays, over-budget construction, and political graft. Economic benefits will be overstated, costs understated, and still more of the city’s 58-square-mile footprint will be eaten up by venues that are only used a handful of days a year.
What ties these projects together goes beyond stadiums and the teams that call them home. It is the fundamental problem of local government: trying to solve many problems with one single, large-scale project. Be it new office space for bureaucrats, a better minor league basketball team, or better homeless shelters, the above deals demonstrate that attempting to achieve social goals through sports facilities and events makes little sense. Sports provide excellent cover for increasing spending and redeveloping areas of cities that would see opposition in their absence.
The goal of sports should be providing an entertaining and valuable experience for those who participate and spectate. By politicizing the games further than absolutely necessary, we make both sports and politics worse. Examples like these show why the combination is so dangerous.
This post has been updated and adapted from a post at Unbreaking Cities.
I wish I could come up with a fitting name for the multifaceted and interconnecting series of sports-related policy nightmares that has dominated DC local politics since election day. In the last few weeks, we’ve seen multiple very important issues arise relating to sports stadiums, practice facilities, and DC’s bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics. So, what’s happening?
First, immediately after the election, the DC City Council released a 400-plus page cost-benefit analysis of a complex deal to build a new stadium for DC United (the city’s Major League Soccer franchise) and adjoining hotel. The deal, originally based around swapping city-owned land elsewhere for land in the proposed stadium footprint, has been panned by politicians, community leaders, and the press for its cost and complexity. The stadium, if built, will be the most expensive in Major League Soccer history.
At its simplest, the deal is as follows. Another District-owned parcel of land at 1st and K streets will be traded to local electricity company PEPCO for land it owns in the stadium footprint. DC would also purchase parcels of land owned by two private parties, Mark Ein and Super Salvage. While not directly part of the deal, it is expected that DC will contract l with a to-be-determined developer to replace the Reeves Center at a site in Anacostia, leasing the space to the city. Originally, the deal included a land swap in which the DC government would trade the Franklin D. Reeves Municipal Center to real estate developer Akridge for land it owns in the stadium footprint, but this aspect has since been removed.
Confused yet? This is just to get the stadium built, saying nothing of the team that will lease it. The team is proposed to receive about $50 million in tax breaks, along with the benefits of partial public financing of the stadium in the above deal — and it gets worse. Since the report was released, public discord has grown and the troubled Reeves-Akridge land swap has been removed from the bill, with the city opting instead to offer the Reeves Center on the open market, and planning to seize the Akridge parcel via eminent domain.
Two days after the DC United report was released, rumors leaked of a possible new Washington Wizards training facility in the trendy Shaw neighborhood of Northwest DC. The facility, proposed as part of a redevelopment of a site that currently includes a school, skate park, and garden nursery. The facility would be built with funds from a new tax on Wizards tickets and concessions, so the team is effectively proposing to tax itself to pay for a new practice venue. Not content to simply sell the facility as a economic development tool or community amenity like most sports facilities, the site was sold as a means of drawing region native Kevin Durant to play for the Washington basketball team.
Outrage ensued almost immediately, largely around re-purposing what is now community space for a stadium in an area where property values are soaring and land available for redevelopment and community amenities is scarce. In response to the criticisms, Wizards owner Ted Leonsis attempted to explain the reason for building a centrally-located practice venue, complaining of lack of space and dangling a possible NBA Development League team to call the venue its home court. Leonsis doesn’t stop there, claiming that it could be used for community and charitable events. None of this placated the community, and opposition remains both widespread and nearly powerless to stop any deal that might take place.
The final cog is encompasses two inter-related parts. First is the city’s pending bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics. The other is a proposed new stadium for the Washington Redskins on the site of the current Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium on the eastern edge of Capitol Hill. Since September, Redskins owner Dan Snyder has been pushing local officials hard for a new stadium in the District. He has found a friendly ear in outgoing mayor Vince Gray, who has long supported building a stadium to return the team to the city from its current home at FedEx Field in Prince George’s County.
A new downtown stadium at the RFK site would be key to any Olympic bid. Realistically, there is simply no other site in the district large enough to build a venue big enough to placate the International Olympic Committee’s demands. It seems as though the two projects are mutually-reinforcing, as the popularity of the Olympics are used to mitigate public opinion soured by the DC United deal. What’s more, the Games are being pitched as a panacea to many unrelated problems with similarly controversial solutions. For example, the proposed Olympic Village site sits atop the downtrodden DC General homeless shelter, a site whose redevelopment has languished as replacement proposals are repeatedly shot down. A new tennis facility has also been proposed in the one of the more poverty-stricken areas of southeast or northeast DC as well as an aquatics center in Arlington, Virginia. While cheap and seemingly easy compared to what must be built in some other US city to host the games, history shows that things are unlikely to go as planned, with delays, over-budget construction, and political graft. Economic benefits will be overstated, costs understated, and still more of the city’s 58-square-mile footprint will be eaten up by venues that are only used a handful of days a year.
What ties these projects together goes beyond stadiums and the teams that call them home. It is the fundamental problem of local government: trying to solve many problems with one single, large-scale project. Be it new office space for bureaucrats, a better minor league basketball team, or better homeless shelters, the above deals demonstrate that attempting to achieve social goals through sports facilities and events makes little sense. Sports provide excellent cover for increasing spending and redeveloping areas of cities that would see opposition in their absence.
The goal of sports should be providing an entertaining and valuable experience for those who participate and spectate. By politicizing the games further than absolutely necessary, we make both sports and politics worse. Examples like these show why the combination is so dangerous.
This post has been updated and adapted from a post at Unbreaking Cities.
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