The new Democratic Governor of Maryland is considering subsidies for the Commanders. He should do the opposite.
Timothy P. Carney
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Liberal Democrat Wes Moore is the new governor of Maryland, which is where the Washington Commanders (formerly the Redskins) currently play. Dan Snyder, the widely loathed owner of the Commanders, has agreed, under pressure, to sell the team.
Politics is already injected deeply into this transfer. For one thing, the team is based in the National Capital region — it’s the local football team for the center of American politics. Also, the pressure under which Snyder is selling includes an investigation by Congress.
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Then there’s the fact that three governments — Maryland, D.C., and Virginia — might be competing to be the home of this team, whose name changed, by the way, under political pressure.
Moore told reporter Mike Allen, “I’m absolutely willing to leverage taxpayer dollars if we know there’s going to be a significant societal return on the investment.”
I’ve got a spoiler for the governor: There will not be significant societal return on the investment.
One of the most consistent findings of economics is that subsidizing football stadiums is a cost sink. A leading expert on this question works right there in Maryland, Denis Coates of the University of Maryland.
Yes, subsidies can bring more consumer spending into the stadium and sometimes into the surrounding neighborhood, but that’s not new spending — it’s reallocated spending.
Check out my video on this from a few years back.
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Moore styles himself as a progressive who looks out for the little guy. It would be hard to square that with subsidizing whichever billionaire or mega-firm that buys the Commander. A football stadium is not a state park. It is part of a for-profit enterprise, and the industry has developed many effective ways to monetize the stadium, such as requiring tickets for entry.
Meanwhile, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin sees himself as a pro-business governor, and so he may be tempted to revisit the push to pay for part of a new Commanders stadium. But Youngkin also believes in free enterprise, and he realizes that big business has its own agenda that is at odds with the good of the public.
D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser has a consistent fondness for bad policy, though. She will be very tempted to give her constituents’ money to the next owners of the Commanders.
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But these three leaders could really do a favor for residents of the Beltway region and also set a great precedent for other cities by standing together on stage and pledging zero subsidies to the Commanders.
Moore is the new guy on the scene. He could instead lead in the opposite direction, declare zero subsidies for billionaires, and try to bring his neighbors together to form a consortium against corporate welfare.