Publicly financed stadiums have been sold for generations as civic investments, economic engines, and catalysts for growth. Yet again and again, the promises change while the underlying economics stubbornly refuse to cooperate.
This week, sports economist and longtime baseball fan J.C. Bradbury joins us to explore the arguments behind his new book, "This One Will Be Different: False Promises and Fiscal Realities of Publicly Funded Stadiums." Drawing on decades of research — and his own front-row view of the Atlanta Braves’ move from Turner Field to Cobb County — Bradbury examines how stadium financing has evolved from publicly built “concrete donuts” to today’s luxury-heavy, mixed-use developments.
At the center of the discussion is Truist Park and The Battery Atlanta, widely promoted as a new model for sports development. Bradbury explains why the surrounding restaurants, apartments, offices, and year-round activity still do not necessarily translate into net new economic growth, and why substitution — local spending simply moving from one place to another — remains the central problem.
The conversation also digs into hotel taxes, stadium districts, hidden infrastructure costs, luxury suites, political incentives, commissioned impact studies, the decline of local scrutiny, and the now-familiar 30-year stadium replacement cycle. Bradbury argues that the buildings themselves are rarely obsolete; the economics of novelty and revenue extraction are what keep the cycle moving.
It's a wide-ranging look at how sports facilities became public policy, why elected officials keep approving deals economists routinely question, and why every new generation of stadium boosters remains convinced that, somehow — this one will be different.
