Financing football stadiums: Bread, circuses and leather balls THE Falcons, Atlanta's professional football team, have played their home games at the Georgia Dome, America's largest indoor sports arena, since 1992. It cost $214m to build and another $55m to renovate. In those 20 seasons they have an overall losing record, including seven losses and four wins in the playoffs, and no Super Bowl titles. Attendance has been respectable, but below capacity - perhaps because fans dislike the prospect of watching a football game indoors on a beautiful autumn day. That said, many may also dislike the prospect of watching a football game in the rain, or on a sweltering day in early autumn. The Georgia Dome also hosts non-football events, such as basketball games and trade shows, that require an enclosed space. The Falcons and the GWCC have hit upon a solution: a new stadium with a retractable roof, more seats and a larger share of premium seats. The cost, according to the study's "conservative estimate," is a cool $947.7m, $300m of which would be paid for with taxpayer money. Should that plan be approved, Atlanta would get off comparatively lightly. On May 14th Minnesota's governor approved a $975m stadium for their football team. Minnesota and Minneapolis will pay $498m, with money coming from gambling revenue and a redirected hospitality tax, and the team chipping in $477m. Teams in Oakland, San Diego and St Louis are all angling for new stadiums; behind their pleas lies an unspoken threat: Los Angeles has no professional football team, and it wants one. An unhappy owner could always pick up his team and head for Hollywood. Of the 20 stadiums built since the Georgia Dome opened, four have been privately financed. Of the rest, the average public share is 73% of the total cost. Often the public money comes from hotel or rental-car taxes (the former in Atlanta's case), giving legislators the appealing option of picking visitors" pockets rather than those of their constituents. Evidence that publicly financed stadiums generate significant economic development is shaky, particularly when the stadium houses an existing team rather than one new to the city. And American football, popular and lucrative as it remains, is showing signs of late-imperial bloat. In 2011 the league endured a four-month lockout, leading to the distasteful spectacle of billionaire owners and millionaire players squabbling in public in a time of economic stagnation. As tickets have grown pricier and television broadcasts better, attendance at games has been falling. Around 1,500 former professional football players are suing the league and, in some cases, a helmet-maker, claiming they concealed information about neurological damage caused by repeated hits to the head. Kurt Warner, a retired quarterback, said he would prefer his sons not play football, and many other parents may start to feel the same as the risks become better known. On the other hand, American football has survived scandals before and cities seem willing to bet hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money that it weathers this one too.