The Money Pit in a Field of Schemes
Why Building Stadiums is Bad Business for Halifax—and Everywhere Else
“On December 7, 2010, Grant MacDonald, addressed the Halifax city council. MacDonald is the director of Major Events & Community Partnerships at Trade Centre Limited, the provincial crown corporation that has expertise in major sporting and concert events, and council had asked MacDonald to research the possibility of the city bidding on the opportunity to become one of the Canadian Soccer Association’s host cities of the 2015 FIFA women’s world cup. In order to successfully win the bid, the city would need to commit to building a stadium. MacDonald, the public official in Nova Scotia with the most knowledge and expertise with hosting sporting events, had one piece of advice: Don’t do it.”
Read more at: https://www.thecoast.ca/news-opinion/halifaxs-stadium-dreams-are-smashed-3100028
Council, however, rejected that expert advice, and voted to chase the bid, and the stadium. 18 Months and over half a million dollars later they finally gave in — but no one gave up.
I’ve written this essay at least five times, but I’m genuinely worried and openly frustrated that it’s coming around again.
Imagine if you could trade a fleet of ambulances, a dozen new doctors, hundreds of affordable housing units, and a fresh infusion of funds into crumbling infrastructure and transit for a small chance at hosting a big soccer tournament in six years time. You probably wouldn’t. Few among us would like those magic beans.
Few people make the connection but the cost of the Convention Centre and its spot in Halifax’s ‘blue light’ district — the least Nova Scotian acre you are ever going to see — is a major contributing factor to your increasing property assessments and taxes.
And yet, this gamble—wrapped in the language of “economic development” and sold on the appeal of “community pride”—is exactly the kind of magical thinking that props up stadium projects around the world. It’s a magic trick that drains the public purse to conjure colossal, gleaming structures that rarely deliver what’s promised. As Halifax’s new mayor and council settle in, here’s hoping they’re more financially skeptical than enchanted by the stadium fantasy.
I’m cutting and pasting this swing a bit from previous essays on this same subject because nothing has changed. The pitch is familiar: stadiums, boosters claim, are engines of economic growth. They’ll bring tourists, stimulate job creation, and breathe life into the surrounding area. This didn’t make sense in the old Halifax is dying, “jobs, jobs, jobs” era, and it makes less sense now. Nearly every serious study tells a different story. Led by economists like Andrew Zimbalist and Roger Noll, decades of independent research on stadium economics reveal that sports venues rarely deliver on their promises of growth, tourism, or new jobs. In fact, almost all independent studies show that stadiums have negligible impact on local economies. It turns out, the revenues don’t flood local businesses or fill the public coffers—they flow into the accounts of team owners, developers, and the occasional out-of-town investor who swoops in to flip a quick profit. Though it’s hard to see from the cheap seats, they mostly just shuffle the pieces around the board and add a few multinational chains where there used to be local business and commonwealth spaces. And yet, the myth persists, a shimmering mirage in the desert of fiscal responsibility. And let’s be clear, FIVE GUYS doesn’t come here to bring us burgers and fries; they come here to extract as much wealth as they can from our region - as quickly and efficiently as possible.
SIDEBAR: The economics of globalism and localism. When sanctions were imposed on Russia at the outset of the Ukraine war the Globalists grimly wrung their hands and said just wait and watch Russia fall economically. But it didn't. Their economy motored along. Where once global chains of all sort siphoned wealth out of the country now local businesses thrive. When McDonald’s becomes Vkusno i Tochka ("Tasty and That’s It"), it's not a loss, it's a local gain. And no one in Moscow is going without a hamburger.
There’s Nothing New Under The Sun
A closer look at recent stadiums only confirms what the economists already know. Take the Las Vegas Raiders’ Allegiant Stadium, completed in 2020 at an eye-watering $1.9 billion price tag, with $750 million coming from public funding. Despite the hype, Las Vegas tourism hasn’t seen a noticeable increase in non-local fans flocking to the games, and taxpayers are still on the hook while the Raiders enjoy box seat revenues and league-sharing profits. Another high-profile flop is St. Louis’s once-proud Rams stadium, now an echo chamber of missed opportunity and empty seats after the team’s move to Los Angeles. The abandoned venue left St. Louis with $144 million in debt—a dead weight the city will carry for decades.
The real kicker? Even when stadiums do manage to attract visitors, these visitors bring steep, often unaccounted-for costs. There’s the traffic congestion, the need for increased policing, and the additional stress on over-stressed infrastructure—costs that rarely make it into the stadium’s initial economic forecast. Then there’s maintenance, which cities almost always bear long after the allure of the “new” stadium has worn thin. The hidden costs of stadiums often exceed their supposed benefits, leaving cities facing higher taxes, reduced services, or both. And the opportunity costs are monumental: every dollar spent on a stadium is a dollar that could have gone toward housing, healthcare, or public transportation. For perspective, Boston once estimated that stadium subsidies drained $18 million in local economic activity away from other city needs. Imagine what Halifax could do with even half that for public programs or infrastructure repairs.
So why do cities continue to bite on the stadium bait? It’s part economic rent-seeking, part hometown pride, and part huckster con artistry. Owners and investors have mastered the art of framing stadiums as “gifts” to the community, conveniently leaving out the part where they skim the profits. Take a closer look at the financing of most stadiums, and you’ll find tax breaks, subsidized land deals, and direct cash contributions. The setup is, in effect, a public subsidy for private gain—a handout for the rich that leaves the poor to pay the bill while they also pay for season passes and get chastised for not cheering loud enough. When public funds prop up these private businesses, taxpayers assume all the risk, while owners and developers get to pocket the upside and bureaucrats get to… well, what do you even call it? Play. If this were a movie plot, it would be a Wall Street style heist.
Recent examples are enough to make even the hardiest booster cringe. Look at Miami’s Marlins Park, completed in 2012 with over $500 million in taxpayer funds. Billed as a game-changer for Little Havana, it’s instead become a legendary money pit with attendance figures so poor it could hardly fill a school gymnasium. Residents are stuck with the bill, and Miami is now infamous for having one of the worst stadium deals in sports history. Or take Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Built at a whopping $1.6 billion, with nearly $700 million in public funds, the project was supposed to spark neighborhood development. In reality, crime rates remain high, and the surrounding neighborhoods show little sign of economic transformation.
But times are changing, and a tide of public sentiment is rising against these white elephants. Across the United States, from St. Petersburg, Florida, to Tempe, Arizona, voters — when given a say or an alternative — are rejecting new stadium projects and the debt that comes with them. They’re asking hard questions: why should taxpayer dollars support billionaire owners while residents struggle to afford rent and healthcare? Why should public money be siphoned off into a stadium when it could be used for infrastructure, education, or mental health? This shift in sentiment marks a long-overdue skepticism toward the idea of stadiums as public investments.
Halifax, in particular, should be immune to stadium fantasies. With an affordable housing crisis, crumbling infrastructure, and a healthcare system that can barely keep up, Halifax has neither the budget nor the luxury for grandiose stadium projects. Stadiums don’t serve everyday residents—they serve sports fans, event-goers, and occasional visitors, people who don’t contribute meaningfully to the community’s long-term well-being. Halifax doesn’t need a stadium; it needs affordable housing, functioning transit, and hospitals that don’t leave patients waiting in the hallway. Ultimately it needs a working plan — not just for the downtown, but for all 200 communities roped into the mega-box-metropolis.
So let’s be honest about stadiums for what they are: monuments to vanity, not civic progress. We need leaders who see through the hype, who can channel funds into real, sustainable projects—projects that create jobs, add housing, and support essential services.
In the absence of that we should get a say — an actual vote where we decide all the viable alternatives for whatever the price tag is, along with the DO NOTHING option. If given the choice, I doubt Stadium would even be in the top ten of citizen’s needs list.
Yes/No Let’s Vote
Halifax should say no to stadiums and yes to common sense. Instead of stadium subsidies, we could invest in housing programs, green spaces, and infrastructure — or just an actual working plan that more nuanced than just Urban and Up at all cost, and somehow immigration will fix everything. We need a plan that benefit everyone, not just ticket-holders.
In the end, stadiums don’t solve problems; they create them.
As Halifax weighs the future, we can only hope that our new mayor and council refuse to gamble with taxpayer money on a hollow dream. If “build it and they will come” is the myth, let “enough is enough” be Halifax’s answer. Stadiums are a relic of a time when cities could afford to play fast and loose with public funds. Today, we need investments that matter. In a world of crumbling bridges, unaffordable housing, and strained public services, stadium dreams belong in the past.