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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Why don't European sports teams use relocation to get public money?
 
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TROIKA CURES GREEK
Jun 30, 2015

by R. Guyovich

ChinaBob posted:

Long term lurker, first time poster.

I'm working on a research project regarding reducing the ability of American sports teams to have stadiums publicly financed.

I would like to compare the situation in the US with European Sports but am not very familiar with Futball (or Rugby). Can any Eurotrash European goons, or goons interested in European sports (soccer, rugby etc.), provide insight as to why European teams don't threaten relocation in order to get public money or actually relocate when the government doesn't fork over cash for a new arena?

My understanding after some initial research is that many of the largest and most profitable clubs own their own stadiums and finance construction through various debt instruments. It's also my understanding that public money is still in play at least to some extent because European countries/cities compete to attract various international sporting events.

A few theories I've considered but have no data to back up or sense as to how valid they are:
1) Relocating is not a useful threat because local municipalities can't fund multi-million dollar stadium construction.
2) Sports club's roots run so deep that it is culturally inconceivable that a club might move.
3) The promotion and relegation system means there is no scarcity of teams and therefore teams can't credibly hold their home town hostage by threatening to move somewhere else. Other cities already have teams and aren't interested in enticing one to relocate, even if the team they currently have doesn't belong to the top tier.

It's important to realize your question has nothing to do with sports, but we will get back to that. Certainly you can look at that aspect, number 2 'feels right' --football teams are products of uk's very classist society and that tradition continues to this day. But as others have said you can boil this down to basic economics as well. Europe represents a mature market where no individual supplier (team) has the bargaining power to make such demands (and for the few that do see 2). In the states you still have mid size cities that don't have major teams and that's going to lead to new teams shopping around ( and the same for struggling teams not tied to the city they are in). An existing team that is doing well trying to play this game doesn't really happen much if ever. But anyway stadiums represents a huge investment, of course people are going to wheel and deal if that is an option because why the gently caress wouldn't you?

You can try and pass laws (probably won't work) but is it really even much an issue? Not really. Some amount of public help in building giant stadiums is extremely common world wide even when teams stay put. The real problem tends not to be in sports stadiums (because it's quite rare and arguably public assistance would be happening anyway)-- the real area where this is a problem is what happens in places like Kansas City. This is where Kansas and Missouri underwent a massive prolonged bidding war for major corporations headquarters and offices that has basically bankrupted the associated governments. All the way to the point where they came to a sort of truce to stop trying to poach business because the only winner was the corporation in the end. Or when boeing shops around for favorable labor laws.

So again, this has nothing to do with sports, large entities bartering with local government for favorable tax statuses is the name of the game world-wide regardless of industry. Focusing on sports arguably leads you to the wrong conclusions since you're too busy focusing on the tree to see the forest. I'm quite certain when you run the numbers the amount sports team receive in assistance represents a fraction of a fraction of a percent compared to overall corporate welfare.

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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Why don't European sports teams use relocation to get public money?