 Former Gov. Jim Thompson’s record-long tenure in Springfield pushed a lot of
unfunded liabilities onto generations to come. But Illinoisans are probably less
aware of one decision for which they’re still paying mightily – U.S. Cellular
Field.
Taxpayers still are footing the bill for Thompson’s decades-old deal to keep the
Chicago White Sox in the state.
The ongoing tax burden is a predictable outcome of bad public policy: taxpayers
paying for billionaires’ stadiums.
The grand bargain for the White Sox started when owner Jerry Reinsdorf
threatened to move the ball club to Florida in the 1980s unless he got funding
for a new stadium. Then-Gov. Thompson and then-Chicago Mayor Harold Washington
didn’t think he was bluffing; they pulled out all the stops to make sure the
White Sox remained in Bridgeport.
State politicians went so far as to turn off the clocks in the General Assembly
to avoid a midnight deadline to provide funding for the stadium.
And while Illinois taxpayers were being sentenced to decades of subsidizing a
baseball team, Florida taxpayers were about to do the same – for the same team.
The St. Petersburg City Council voted in 1986 for $85 million in taxpayer funds
to build the Florida Suncoast Dome (now Tropicana Field), the future home of the
Tampa Bay White Sox. That, obviously, never happened. But St. Petersburg
taxpayers were left with the bill for a domed stadium that did not house a team
until 1998, when Major League Baseball brought the Tampa Bay Devil Rays to the
area.
Back in Illinois, the agreement reached to keep the White Sox also created the
Illinois Sports Facilities Authority, or ISFA, in 1987. The ISFA owns and
operates U.S. Cellular Field, and oversaw the renovations of Soldier Field in
the early 2000s. Taxpayers are still paying for Soldier Field, too, including
$36 million this year.
The Soldier Field deal provided for a “huge public-works project with plenty of
hefty contracts for friends and political allies of City Hall and Springfield.”
An alderman’s brother’s firm provided security at the Soldier Field construction
site, and a local partner for the construction team was a major contributor to
then-Gov. and now convicted felon George Ryan.
To recap: The ISFA deal burdened taxpayers for generations to provide benefits
to the politically connected and sustain businesses for billionaires.
The entire fiasco with the White Sox, which affected both Illinois and Florida
taxpayers, should show why taxpayer money for stadiums is terrible public
policy.
But it’s still commonplace throughout the country.
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 The City of Arlington, Texas, unanimously approved a plan May 24,
asking taxpayers for nearly $500 million for a new Texas Rangers’
stadium with a retractable roof. The stadium would be located not
far from the Dallas Cowboys behemoth, publicly funded to the tune of
$325 million.
Last year, the Wisconsin State Assembly and Gov. Scott Walker
approved $250 million of public funding for a new stadium for the
Milwaukee Bucks, which had been rumored to move to Seattle. Never
mind that southeastern Wisconsin taxpayers are still paying for
Miller Park, the 15-year-old home of the Milwaukee Brewers, until
possibly 2020.
Meanwhile, a former Milwaukee-based team, the Atlanta Braves, is
set to move into a new stadium northwest of Atlanta next season with
nearly $400 million in taxpayer funding. This is in addition to the
millions of dollars the Braves organization asks from taxpayers to
subsidize all of its farm teams.
The list goes on and on, with examples throughout the country, of
taxpayers being left with the tab for stadiums for which private
interests should have paid.
The practice is no different than state governments bribing
companies with gifts and tax breaks, a policy Americans generally
reject.
States and city governments – especially Illinois and Chicago, given
their financial situations – should look to change course.
But, as often is the case, the Land of Lincoln and the Windy City
continue the same mistakes for decades.
The Chicago City Council is now asking taxpayers to put forward $55
million for a new basketball arena for DePaul University, a private
university with an endowment approaching half a billion dollars. The
plan, which includes construction of an accompanying hotel, assumes
the men’s basketball team will practically sell out every home game
at the 10,000-seat arena. But the Blue Demons drew an average crowd
of only 2,200 people at All-State Arena in suburban Rosemont during
the 2014-2015 season. In the 2015-2016 season, the team finished
with an abysmal record of 9-22, landing in second-to-last place in
the Big East Conference.
Again, officials are repeating the bad public policy pattern.
Considering the state is still paying off its debts for U.S.
Cellular and Soldier Fields, it is obvious the DePaul plan would be
another bad deal for taxpayers. And considering the financial state
of both the city of Chicago and state of Illinois – with plummeting
credit ratings, mounting unpaid obligations and a desperate need for
reforms – continuing these subsidies should not be an option.
But the policy is widespread, and often adopted without a second
thought.
Even if a subsidized team wins, taxpayers lose. And over the last
several decades in Illinois, taxpayers have lost enough.
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