When the Buffalo Bills play their 2026 season home opener in the newly built Highmark Stadium, it will mark the first game to take place at one of six new NFL venues scheduled to open over the next six seasons.

The Tennessee Titans will move into a new dome in 2027. The Cleveland Browns’ stadium is on track to be ready for the 2029 season, while the Washington Commanders are planning to inaugurate their new stadium the following year. The new homes for the Kansas City Chiefs and Denver Broncos are scheduled to open in time for the 2031 season.

When the Bills stadium was announced in 2022, economists called the US$850 million public contribution from New York and Erie County taxpayers a terrible deal.

That public expense would soon be eclipsed by subsequent NFL stadium projects, with subsidies averaging more than $1 billion and totaling $5.74 billion for the venues whose budgets have been announced. The Chiefs, recipients of $1.8 billion from Kansas taxpayers, lead the pack. Denver’s stadium costs are not yet known.

Economists have been studying the public financing of stadiums and their escalating costs for decades, consistently finding that the meager economic benefits to host communities simply don’t justify the massive public outlays they receive.

My recent book, “This One Will Be Different: False Promises and Fiscal Realities of Publicly Funded Stadiums,” summarizes and explains the dour findings. Stadiums fail to generate economic growth because they mostly reallocate existing spending from elsewhere in the community, rather than stimulate new commerce. And any localized development and intangible benefits tend to be limited – nowhere near enough to justify the subsidies provided.

But I also consider another important question: If research demonstrates that sports venues are unwise public investments, why do state and local governments continue to subsidize them?

New stadiums a no-brainer – for owners

Even though many of today’s stadiums........

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