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Does the Flyers and Sixers Joining Together Change Governor Shapiro’s Stance on Stadiums and Taxpayer Money?
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Governor Shapiro was in the Poconos this weekend for the The Great American Getaway 400 and the topic of taxpayer funding for sports arenas came up. Local guy Dan Gelston wrote this for The Associated Press:
LONG POND, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro declined to get into specifics on the potential for the state to provide funding for any new sports arenas — a possibility that looms with the Eagles’ lease set to expire in 2032 — and said there were conversations about bringing NASCAR to Philadelphia as he championed the state’s full sports slate next year during an appearance Sunday at Pocono Raceway.
Shapiro said he would continue talking with Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie and the Rooney family in Pittsburgh about what — if anything — the NFL teams need when it comes to the state of their stadiums.
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If a new stadium is proposed, it won’t necessarily come with state money — Shapiro said the state would not provide any when the 76ers considered building a new arena (ownership did not ask for the funds) last year.
“I’m very worried about the overall budget,” Shapiro said Sunday at Pocono. “I’m very worried about the overall economic situation given the federal cuts. You want to balance investing in tourism, investing in sports, investing in great arenas and facilities, with making sure that you’re also investing those dollars in things that Pennsylvanians need most.”
Shapiro was firm in his stance that no taxpayer money would be used for 76 Place. The Sixers also said they did not need taxpayer money, but would be open to it at the state and federal level if subsidies existed for something like solar panels. But 76 Place was scrapped anyway, so we never got far enough to find out.
Comcast’s Dan Hilferty, meantime, told us last summer that nascent plans for a music venue, hotels, living space, apartments, restaurants, maybe even a Philadelphia sports museum, would all be privately funded. The only thing he anticipated requiring public dollars in South Philadelphia was infrastructure, telling us this, in part:
“…We’re hoping to work with SEPTA around connecting the various neighborhoods. Broad Street Line, it stops right at the arena. I don’t know the water table, if they can continue. There’s gotta be an easier way to access this emerging, beautiful neighborhood that’s going to have apartment buildings and all sorts of other things in the Navy Yard and Bellwether District. So there’s a need for public transportation, anywhere. We would anticipate that government would be supportive and helpful in that regard. The second piece is, we need direct access to 95, both north and south, so a combination of getting people in and out of the Navy Yard faster and getting people in and out of the complex to the major highways. That includes 76, better access there. I would anticipate that whether it’s PennDOT, SEPTA, a lot of it would be SEPTA money unless it’s highway, and I don’t know that federal money would be involved. But infrastructure is where we would anticipate (public dollars being involved)…”
Obviously SEPTA funding is one of the biggest topics not just here, but through the Commonwealth, so we’ll see how the next year shapes the approach moving forward.
When it comes to taxpayer money, you have to ask yourself two basic questions. One, what does the public get back in return? Two, how much of the cost can you offload on visiting Washington and New York bums?
RE: #1, the sports complex is an economic driver in Philadelphia and you’re talking about updating and upgrading transit both public and private down there, be it taking the BSL down to the Navy Yard and/or adding new ramps for I-95, working on the outdated grid, etc. Even if you’re not a sports fan and you don’t to the arenas for games, you might be in the area for Disney on Ice at the new hockey+basketball arena, or Taylor Swift at Lincoln Financial Field or whatever the Eagles decide to build, and the attractiveness of a nicer sports complex with new stadiums and a mixed-use, Atlanta Battery-looking design generates money that goes right back into the economy at the local and state level. Think about the economic boost that the Super Bowl would bring, should the Eagles, for instance, depart the Linc for a new building with a roof. And think about traffic flowing smoothly out to the interstates and Columbus Boulevard in a much more palatable fashion. That’s a potential public benefit for everyone, even people who hate sports but drive that stretch of 95 or 76.
RE: #2, It’s probably fair that the teams fully fund their arenas and the various attractions down there, while taxpayer dollars are used only for the larger infrastructure things Hilferty is talking about. What typically happens is that the taxpayer cost is made up with various forms of sales tax, hotel occupancy tax, bonds, and/or car rental tax. This is still how most North American stadiums are financed, and it shifts some of the burden off of the locals and onto visitors instead, like Tailgate Ted. We did a huge study last summer, titled “Sixers Arena Proposal, and Philadelphia in General, an Outlier in Public/Private Stadium Financing,” and found that the overwhelming majority of new and renovated stadiums took taxpayer dollars. The only outliers were the Chase Center, Intuit Dome, SoFi Stadium, and the hockey arenas in Vegas and Long Island. That’s less than a half dozen that were 100% privately financed.
Going back almost 25 years now, both Lincoln Financial Field and Citizens Bank Park were close to a 50/50 public/private split. The local portion of the money was funded with a 2% car rental tax, which affected very few people actually living in Philadelphia. The state chipped in as well, contributing about $170 million to the pair of stadiums while the city’s portion amounted to a little more than $300 million. The rest was private money. Similarly, when Xfinity Mobile Arena opened in 1996 as CoreStates Center, Comcast paid for most of it. There was a little more than $30 million from Philadelphia and the state that went towards infrastructure costs, but the land was given by the city.
From Shapiro’s perspective, he has to balance two different cities here against the backdrop of uber-important, state-wide transit funding. The Pittsburgh Stadiums aren’t centered in some sprawling complex that has the potential to become this huge mixed-use “Mecca” like Philadelphia, but there are hotels and restaurants, plus a casino near Acrisure. What Pittsburgh gets should be similar to what Philadelphia gets. You can’t give Philly $300 million in state funds and give the Yinzers $75 million, though the Pirates have earned a grand total of 0 dollars from anybody in either the public or private sector. Philadelphia’s project is potentially huge, but there’s already this thought out there that the Governor is pro-Southeast PA at the expense of Yinzerville. He’s from here, he’s a Philly sports fan, and the new license plate has a Liberty Bell on it, right? They think he’s some Philly-first Governor.
So there’s a lot to think about moving forward, and the Gov is gonna have quite a bit on his plate, as if there wasn’t enough already.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com