Public welfare for billionaires

Ironically, the Seattle football-stadium vote came after a new stadium for the Mariners of baseball's American League already had been approved -- although not by voters. "They had a referendum and it was voted down, and the Legislature passed it anyway," explains deMause, "and then, in fact, wound up passing an extra $80 million later on when the Mariners threatened to move to Vancouver because there were cost overruns and the Mariners didn't want to pay it."

In fact, after a proposed sales tax narrowly was defeated in 1995, the Legislature held an emergency session to deal with the crisis of a threatened Mariners move. The lawmakers approved new taxes on restaurants and car rentals to pay for the $320 million stadium. When city-council members urged a delay, the team owners announced they were selling the team. Lawmakers and business leaders, most notably GOP Sen. Slade Gorton, brokered a deal in which the city agreed to pay for police traffic control, cleanup, extra transportation and the cost of compensation for the local neighborhood.

With the vote on the football stadium -- the most expensive referendum in Washington state history -- Allen did not go out of his way to acquaint the public with the price tag for the new facility. A Superior Court judge agreed with Allen that it would not be necessary to mention the $300 million in the 25-word ballot question. Likewise, full-page advertisements in newspapers around the state, funded by the software billionaire, didn't mention the public's total investment in the $425 million project. A grass-roots effort opposed both stadiums, but "they were just overspent" says Rosentraub.

Actually, Allen already had constructed an elegant new basketball arena in Portland, Ore., to house the NBA's Portland Trail Blazers, which he also owns. However, basketball arenas are different from baseball and football parks, explains deMause. "They can actually make a profit." Also, he points out, the culture of Portland made that city a much harder sell for a tax-funded stadium than its neighbor to the north.

Both the baseball stadium and football arena will be located on plots of land currently occupied by the far south end of the Kingdome parking lot. This is in keeping with a trend toward building new stadiums in the city as opposed to the suburbs.

Things may be changing. Increasingly, impartial studies show that tangible economic benefits of new stadiums are in short supply. And when it comes to holding on to the prestige and pleasure of major-league sports, fans -- many of whom also are taxpayers -- are growing increasingly sophisticated. DeMause points to Minnesota, where "they've apparently successfully held off demands by the Twins and Vikings for a new stadium," he says. After the baseball Twins said they definitely would leave the Twin Cities for North Carolina without a new stadium, the Minnesota Legislature, responding to public opposition, didn't even report the bill authorizing a new stadium out of committee. Then, voters in North Carolina overwhelmingly voted down a proposed new stadium in that state's Triad region.