The Cleveland Browns essentially are renovating their stadium rather than using the $120 million to clean the streets or hire more of a police force. The Mayor, Frank Jackson, assured that the money will go to good use as the city will only being paying some of that bill, where the general fund of Cleveland will get the rest. The explanation for such expenses being taken is that stadiums and teams are usually obligated to. Teams don’t just secure public money for construction, they get promises for upgrades too, and those upgrades have to be substantial to meet terms of the lease. So teams like the St. Louis Rams ask why don't we get a new stadium that we are in need of? If cities don’t hold their end of the deals, teams can opt out of leases, and opting out of leases means they can ask for new facilities or threaten to move elsewhere.
Is it financially worth it to add 5,000 seats to a stadium or are teams better off waiting until major changes are in the works?
Stadium subsidies have good and bad implications on the city and the people of that city. It creates jobs for the projects and infuses money locally, but the costs of the projects can also be costly as explained above. Therefore the projects must be worth it or the teams are better off either saving the money or they can opt out of unfavorable deals. The use of public funds to construct and maintain facilities has been occurring more frequently for a number of years now and with organizations being pressured into constantly staying lavish and state of the art, major renovations or rebuilding are turning over venues sooner than ever before.
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