Read this post from Russ Roberts on new stadiums and how they should be financed.

USA Today reports on a study by University of Dayton economists Marc Poitras and Larry Hadley: privately financed sports stadiums pay for themselves. Tax dollars aren’t necessary to make them viable. Somehow I doubt that the study will slow the pace of publicly financed sports stadiums. While it may make it more embarrassing for franchise owners to ask for public handouts, what’s a little stigma among friends? The success of the begging strategy is mainly due to the threat of exit—owners demand public financing as a way of extracting money from cities fearful that teams will leave. There isn’t free entry into sports leagues—leagues tightly control new entrants—so cities are always vulnerable to the threat of a team leaving.

It's a form legal extortion. And Russ Roberts is right, it will do nothing to slow the pace of publicly financed stadiums. But just remeber this the next time you hear that a taxpayer funded stadium will "pay for itself." There may be reasons to go ahead with it anyway, but "paying for itself" isn't one of them.