00:00The NFL stadium game has kicked into high gear recently, with team owners hoping to keep up with the Joneses as franchise valuations and profits soar.
00:10That hasn't stopped teams from passing much of the costs onto taxpayers and local governments.
00:18There are two new NFL stadiums currently under construction.
00:22The Bills and Titans should be moving into their new digs in 2026 and 2027.
00:29Five other teams are in various stages of negotiations and planning for their new homes.
00:35The Browns, Bears, Commanders and Broncos have all chosen new sites.
00:39Only the Kansas City Chiefs are still in search of a location and are actively fielding offers for public assistance from prospective hosts.
00:48Journalist Neil DeMoss has been studying and writing about stadium finances for three decades.
00:53He, along with author Joanna Kagan, wrote the book Field of Schemes, and DeMoss continues to run a website by the same name.
01:02The playbook by sports owners also continues to be relevant.
01:05Very little has changed, you know, we keep updating the book, Field of Schemes, and there's, you know, it's, yep, same story, same thing going on, just the numbers go up.
01:15You know, 30 years ago we were talking about $200, $300 million in public money, and now we're talking about $1 billion, $2 billion.
01:24The Broncos and the city of Denver are touting a completely privately funded new stadium in the Burnham Yards area of the city, paid for by the team's ownership group.
01:34The mayor of Denver, Mike Johnston, is on board.
01:37We will have a brand new NFL stadium with a retractable roof where we can host the Super Bowl, and taxpayers don't pay a dollar for it, you know.
01:45And so for us, the ability to have an ownership group who says we're going to privately pay for the stadium, privately pay to acquire the land, that is a huge win-win for the city that we get a 50-year extension of the Broncos franchise.
01:56The taxpayers don't pay a dollar for it is such a selling point for Denver, NFL analyst Troy Aikman recently mentioned it on Monday Night Football.
02:05While that statement may be accurate in regards to the stadium and the land it's on, the public will be on the hook for hundreds of millions in infrastructure improvements and a development project surrounding the stadium.
02:18A fact that is not publicized and something DeMoss says is often overlooked.
02:24So the one thing I think that has changed over the years is that the costs have become more hidden, right?
02:30I think the team owners and the, you know, like the officials who are working with them have realized that it sounds worse to give a check, a taxpayer check to the team for the stadium than to say, okay, we're not going to give you that, but we will give you money for infrastructure.
02:46We will give you tax breaks.
02:48We will give you a break on land costs.
02:50A domed or retractable roof will be included in six of the seven new stadiums being built or planned.
02:56The reason?
02:57To be able to host events like concerts and other sporting events year-round.
03:02The big draw, as Mayor Johnston and others like the Kansas City Chiefs have alluded to, is the possibility of hosting a Super Bowl.
03:10But that may not be as lucrative as it's often portrayed.
03:13The fact that Arlington Heights in Illinois is talking about, well, we're going to build a roof on a Chicago Bears stadium and then we're going to get the Super Bowl.
03:21You will undoubtedly get a Super Bowl, right?
03:24Are you going to get more than one Super Bowl in anybody's lifetime?
03:27Probably not, because there are just way too many cities out there that want one.
03:31The Bears also claim their stadium will be privately funded, but they're seeking hundreds of millions in tax breaks from Arlington Heights and the state of Illinois, as well as infrastructure improvements.
03:44However teams and cities spin their need or desire for public help when planning a new stadium, DeMoss says they always have a fallback.
03:52We'll move if we don't get what we want.
03:54As Jerry Reinsdorf, the owner of the White Sox, said famously, right, after getting a new stadium in Chicago years ago by flying down to Tampa Bay and flying back,
04:06and when he was asked later, were you really going to move there, he said, well, a savvy negotiator creates leverage.
04:11The owner's playbook is still working, and as recent new deals suggest, the cost for cities and fans to keep their favorite teams from leaving keep going up, whether they know it or not.
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