I certainly hope this would fail miserably in Athens. I would hope it would fail miserably in ANY city. While I think its ridiculous for a city to gift wrap a venue for any football/baseball/basketball/hockey team, its doubly stupid for a city to do so for a (State) University! What're the Zips going to do if its voted down: relocate their basketball program to Las Vegas? Toronto?* This is not something a city should pay for.

If Akron's city government were clever, they'd announce that they're going to support the construction of this arena with 100% of the money that the University of Akron pays the City*

*From the PlainDealer article, I do realize that this isn't being done solely for the University (who won't own the venue), but its still dumb.




 

I have said for a while in most parts of the country the only way growth occurs is 1) State or Federal funding (new highway spurring growth), 2) Generous Private Donation (for a transformative building), 3) Passing an tax levy to fund a public need (new High School). The arena project sounds reasonable for a city of the size of Akron. If it can create 1,000+ jobs then the 76 million is justified and I'm sure it will create far more in the long term.

 

From a economics point of view I'd say its equally bad: both take from the local (in some cases city, in this case county) tax payer in exchange for the promise of economic development/increased economic activity. By the way, this promise is based on, at best, shoddy studies. A more cynical person might say that they're bunk, and all that is accomplished is a movement of resources from the public at large to a much smaller number of beneficiaries (i.e. fans of the team, the coaches and AD). 

So from a Responsible Spending point of view, I'd say its equally bad for the residents of Summit County. For the rest of the State of Ohio its a great deal, as its money that the state isn't spending on the school. Likewise, from the perspective of an Akron student's family its not coming out of student fees. I'd also note that while, yes, it is a tax payer funded university, its "owned" by the State of Ohio, not Summit County. For this to make sense for Summit County, it would have to be drawing tens (hundreds?) of thousands of people a year from outside of Summit County.

From a fan extortion point of view, a professional team can threaten to relocate. The Zips can just threaten to...try to suck as much as Miami?

 

Don't even think on an long term basis. Think in one year's time. Divide 76 million by 1,000 jobs and you get 76,000 dollars per job. If you could create 1,000 jobs for one year with an annual average compensation package of 76,000 (think union pay scale) then the project has paid for itself. Take that number and make it 500 jobs over 2 years or 250 over 4 years if you want. 125 over 8 years. I'm not even talking about the labor costs of completing the project which in itself is a job creator. It will be more than recouped easily with the secondary development. My guess is a 50 million dollar economic impact for the city every year. Charleston WV hosts a High School basketball tournament and that brings in 7.5 million dollars to their city annually by itself. 

www.wvexecutive.com/milestone-for-boys-basketball-championship-in-west-virginia/