INTRODUCTION
The sentiment can be heard in any office break room, local tavern, or play field. The utter discontent of the increasing cost of attending professional sporting events. Distain ranges from players salaries to cost of parking and concessions. One local newscaster, channel 5 in Chicago, Illinois ? April, 2003, reports that for a family of four to attend a major league baseball game on opening day costs between $160 and $200 dollars.
The precursor to this cost was a decade of skyrocketing salaries and the trend to build huge public ally financed megaplexis to house these professional athletes. The current response to this ostentatious decade is to put forth bills to prevent and/or set limits on public financed projects (Shafroth, 1996). The history of stadiums shows that it was always the norm of publicly building stadiums, however, with the cost of these projects astronomical the public is more skeptical (Rosentraub, 1991). The reason why state and local governments continue to want to finance these stadiums has been much debated. The main debate is one of economic impact. The following two excerpts illustrate this debate:
Stadium subsidies do not increase economic activity in total and are not necessary to keep sports leagues in existence. Cities, though, face competition for sports teams; small market cities particularly might need to offer subsidies in response to remain competitive with larger markets. &nb ...