SAN DIEGO — The $850 million stadium deal the NFL and Buffalo Bills wrangled from New York politicians will keep the popular football team in Greater Buffalo, where a Super Bowl parade is a real possibility next winter.
But the massive subsidy, which will surge past $1 billion as lease terms play out, has brought a sharp backlash from dispassionate observers.
According to critics who include two former NFL executives, it's a bad deal for the public. They say $850 million is too much public money to a football industry that generates more than $18 billion in annual revenue and has said it will reach $25 billion annually in 2027.
"It has some elements that are better than you would expect for a city of that size," Smith College economic professor Andrew Zimbalist said by phone, "but, overall, there are bunch of serious questions about it. And, I would expect it to create a financial deficit, rather than do the wonderful things that it claims to be doing economically."
Joe Banner was more blunt in his criticism.
"This is a horrible deal. Period. Nothing to rationalize," wrote the former Philadelphia Eagles president and former Cleveland Browns CEO. "I have negotiated these kind of deals myself and have advised on others. I can't imagine what the people negotiating on behalf of the public were thinking."
Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, Bills fan and native of Greater Buffalo, approved state funding of $600 million toward the proposed $1.4 billion construction. County funding will provide an additional $250 million.
"Hochul needs better negotiators," Andrew Brandt, a former Green Bay Packers executive, wrote. "Couldn't the state of New York have negotiated say, half a billion rather than $850 million?"
Brandt added: "The Bills will eventually be sold for a price north of $4 billion and the state of New York's share of that will be $0.00. NFL owners socialize cost and privatize profit. What a business."
Both former NFL executives said the Bills had less leverage than New York politicians perceived.
"Would the Bills really have taken their football and left had they not received this extraordinary sum?" wrote Brandt. "And gone where exactly? To Austin? St. Louis? Toronto? Really???"
The Bills originated in Buffalo as part of the American Football League's launch in 1960.
The Chargers, who began their San Diego tenure in 1961 at Balboa Stadium, began in the AFL as well.
In stadium negotiations, fervid decades-long support for the Bills throughout Western New York strengthened the team's hand.
Politicians didn't want to be blamed if the team relocated, although it was unclear where the Bills would go.
When Dean Spanos and his three siblings were deciding whether to move the Chargers from San Diego to Greater Los Angeles, much of their leverage came from the $5.5 billion stadium Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke would be building in Inglewood.
Zimbalist suggested if Bills owners had decided to relocate, San Diego may have become an option.
Seeing no other current NFL team as a plausible relocation candidate, the longtime sports economist said NFL expansion represents the better option for San Diego to get an NFL team (although that scenario is fraught with large obstacles).
"I would certainly hope that as the U.S. economy grows and as our population grows over time, there will be expansion in the NFL," Zimbalist said, "and San Diego would warrant a team because of its size. … San Diego had kind of a raw deal with an owner who was not very effective for a long period of time."
The NFL last expanded in October 1999 when owners chose to place a 32nd franchise in Houston, rather than Los Angeles. The winning bid of $1 billion came from Houston businessman Bob McNair. It included a $700 million franchise price and $310 million in financing toward a retractable roof stadium.
Houston was home to an original AFL team, the Oilers, from 1960-1996. Renamed the Tennessee Titans, the franchise has played in Nashville since 1997.
As part of any NFL-San Diego alliance on a new team, certainly a new stadium would have to be built.
In that hypothetical scenario, Zimbalist said the $850 million the Bills got wouldn't necessarily affect the price tag in San Diego.
"San Diego would be one of the smaller (media) markets in the NFL," he said, "but (overall) it's a lot bigger and a lot wealthier than Buffalo. And, that should mean that San Diego has more bargaining leverage that Buffalo had. So, it would certainly set a lower bar. And, San Diego ought to be able to negotiate a deal for itself that would be more beneficial."
The Chargers were to receive $1.15 billion toward a new stadium (and convention center annex) in the East Village in the measure San Diego voters rejected in November 2016. That money would've come from an increased tax on hotel visitors.
Don't bet on the price of NFL subsidies going down.
In these high-stakes games of poker, public officials are often at a disadvantage. The NFL plays the long game 365 days a year, in pursuit of ever-increasing public money. Though cities can and do enlist experts in these matters, politicians come and go and are subjected to electoral pressures the NFL preys upon.
It's not just the Bills, noted Brandt.
Virginia has offered the Washington Commanders $1 billion plus a cut of sales tax revenue. In Tennessee, Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, has earmarked $500 million toward a new facility for the Titans (whose current stadium opened in 1999). Bidding competitions may be emerging that will enable the Chicago Bears and Kansas City Chiefs to squeeze out better deals.
"Even without the previous stalking horse of Los Angeles and Las Vegas, NFL owners are still dictating terms to their municipalities, and it is working," Brandt wrote. "No public official wants to be the one to lose a precious NFL franchise, even to a neighboring area."
Want to keep an MLB (or MLB team) in your city?
It will cost you.
