Pro Sports and Stadium Construction Trends

Multi-Use Sports Venue The trend in modern-day professional sports is for teams to make their mark -- to brand themselves into giants with millions of fans and followers wearing the jerseys of the athletes they love. Part and parcel with this devotion is the concept of a sports team having its own arena or stadium -- just like a god or goddess in ancient Athens would have had its own temple dedicated just to their worship.

Indeed, of the 30 Major League Baseball teams, 22 of them have their own publicly-owned single-purpose stadiums. In the NFL, a similar ratio is found.

Among pro-sports clubs where arenas can be shared in cities that host NBA and NHL, multi-purpose venues are not uncommon -- but when it comes to strict observance of devotion -- the lone stadium designated specifically for 8 games a year -- such as the Cincinnati Bengals' Paul Brown Stadium -- sitting dormant for 356 of the 364 calendar days -- at a cost of nearly $1 trillion to local taxpayers who footed the bill the stadium when it was built in 2000 (Florio, 2016) -- are an indication of gross misallocation of funds, if one takes away the need for communities to honor their sports' clubs.

Thus, the question of whether single purpose or multipurpose facilities are better, depends upon how one views the advantages and disadvantages of each. The question too has different answers depending upon which culture one is discussing. In Europe, for instance, the trend today is towards adopting multipurpose venues as a more cost-effective stratagem (Rhodes, 2015). In the U.S., however, team devotion takes precedence over economic sense in many cases. The advantages and disadvantages of constructing a single purpose facility versus a multi-use venue are both economical and social.

The social advantages can put succinctly: first, with the growth of pro sports seasons, overlap is now occurring. That means that while an MLB team might have concluded its season prior to the start of NFL in the past, today, both are playing at the same time. This can create scheduling conflicts if both pro sports teams are using the same stadium. The social disadvantage of this is that conflicts of interest arise and cause chaos for city planners and sports schedulers.

Thus, from the standpoint of each team needing its own space, it makes sense that they would have their own single-purpose facilities. However, from the economic standpoint, there is no question that publicly-owned single-purpose venues for teams that only occupy the venue for a brief amount of time per year are an enormous drain on the city. By footing the bill for the stadium's construction, the city is committing millions that could be allocated elsewhere for better roads, schools, public infrastructure, etc.

And the return on investment of such construction is not there: the money that is made from selling tickets and goods does not stay within the city as team owners are under no obligation to put profits back into the host city. And upkeep on the single-purpose facility costs millions per year as well, causing it to be an empty burden for much of the time -- and the only real return is the prestige that a city gains from hosting a pro sports team.

The greatest example of this waste of expenditure is the NFL, which only plays 16 games per year -- 8 at home and 8 away. Other pro sports clubs spend more time in their venues -- whether basketball, baseball, hockey or soccer and so the issue of a continual stream of income for the city is not as pronounced. Stadiums are more geared towards single-purpose activities than are arenas, which can house any number of in-door sporting events (as well as non-sporting events, such as university graduation ceremonies, public speaking tours, etc.).

Stadiums have also been used to book speaking and/or concert tours -- from political campaign stops to rock and roll shows to evangelical performances. Thus, there is no reason that stadiums which typically are built for one team's needs cannot also be utilized on occasion as a setting for a special event. Yet, the advantage of an arena over a stadium is that it is not prone to weather conditions or cancellations due to inclement changes in the climate.

It is available for use every day of the year and its potential can be maximized by as many sports clubs as are allowed to use it without creating scheduling conflicts. The change-over is an issue that has to be resolved by expert workers who know how to turn an NFL arena into an NBA court.

Constructing a multi-use facility also gives the host city an economic incentive to draw more people to the venue throughout the year, to promote more inclusion, and to provide alternate forms of sporting entertainment around the year no matter the season.

With the rise of the share space economy in today's world -- with businesses like Airbnb, Uber and the plethora of shared office space businesses located throughout cities around the world -- the advantage of a multi-use facility over a single-purpose venue is strengthened by the trend towards conservation of space and the maximizing of potential as a way to preserve energy and keep communities as green as possible (Rhodes, 2015).

It is this trend which is coming to dominate Europe today and as Europe is still something of the trend-setter in design, it may not be too long before the U.S. follows suit and begins to construct multi-use venues for a variety of teams and purposes that can have their space maximized throughout the year. Still, the trend in the U.S. is not towards such construct at this time. Currently, pro sports venues -- such as MLB and NFL -- are geared towards providing space for one team.

Paul Brown Stadium is the perfect example of this: dormant for most of the year it nonetheless embodies the football culture that America celebrates when football season finally does arrive. It stands like a special temple where homage is paid during the fall and winter months. Its social value is thus connected to the special reverence and place given the team honored by the stadium. Should the team ever move to another city, the devastating effect that would be felt by fans (St.

Louis is a good example of this) could be terrible. However, so long as the connection between sports team and city and fan base is strong, the social value of having a single-purpose stadium is elevated above.