Business of Sport Discussion
Discuss how city and county residents are taxed for sport venues and whether public funding should be used for sport and entertainment venues (10 points).
Research and give one example of how public funding has been used to build a stadium (5 points).
Known as one of the world’s most spectacular venues, the Mercedes Benz stadium in Atlanta, Georgia is the first LEED Platinum certified professional sports stadium in North America. The stadium is home to the Atlanta Falcons, Atlanta United FC, and the Chick-fil-A-Kickoff Game. The construction for the stadium broke ground in 2014 and opened to the public in August 2017.
Building Mercedes Benz Stadium was a controversial decision during the beginning of the proposal process in 2010. In fact, Atlanta already had a stadium downtown—the Georgia Dome—that debuted in 1992 at a cost of $214 million ($398.8 million today) and was the second largest covered stadium in the world (by capacity) at the time (Associated Press 2017). The Georgia Dome held historic events, such as the 1996 Summer Olympics, NCAA men’s final four, and hundreds of professional and amateur sporting events throughout the years. The Georgia Dome had not even reached its 20th birthday by the time discussions started on knocking down the facility and building a new one.
The Georgia Dome was demolished in 2017, and 95 percent of the stadium was recycled and reused. The lot where the Georgia Dome once stood is now used as a green space known as the Home Depot backyard, an 11-acre greenspace next to the Mercedes Benz stadium used for parking and tailgating as well as events and programming on nongame days. The new stadium was able to get platinum LEED certified recognition because
it saves 29 percent in energy usage in comparison to other stadiums,
rainwater is used for landscape irrigation,
it has 4,000 solar panels,
LED lighting throughout the facility reduces energy usage by as much as 60 percent, and
it has edible landscaping (Mercedes Benz Stadium 2020).
Arthur Blank has vowed to rehabilitate the west side of Atlanta by using Mercedes Benz Stadium as the fulcrum that will help to spread success throughout Atlanta and the surrounding communities. In fact, he created a plan called Westside Works, which is a long-term neighborhood program that is focused on creating employment opportunities and job training for residents of the west side community where Mercedes Benz Stadium is located. One of the programs within Westside Works is a six-week culinary academy that trains chefs and is a pipeline to employment inside Levy Restaurant venues in metro Atlanta, including Mercedes Benz Stadium (Solomon 2019). Since construction of the stadium was completed, Mercedes Benz Stadium has hosted many events including a Super Bowl in 2019 and the NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament in 2020, and has made the list of possible venues for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.
Both Mercedes Benz Stadium and the Georgia Dome used public funding through taxpayer dollars to secure the construction of the stadium, with both promoters saying that stadium construction in that area would help the community.
Discuss how city and county residents are taxed for sport venues and whether public funding should be used for sport and entertainment venues (10 points).
Research and give one example of how public funding has been used to build a stadium (5 points).
