The Super Bowl is happening again this weekend, so I hear, and with the game taking place in the Los Angeles Rams‘ new stadium in Inglewood, it’s time for the nation’s news media to lose their collective shit over how transformative the new building will be for the city. Let’s watch!
- Spectrum News reports that the stadium has “transformed a neighborhood” that had “a perceived rough reputation” and the Super Bowl “highlights the amount of commercial development happening in the town to the tens of millions of viewers tuning into the game.” The article cites Roy Weinstein, managing director of consultants Micronomics — whose main expertise appears to be in intellectual property rights — as saying the Super Bowl itself will have an economic impact of between $234 million and $477 million.
- The Los Angeles Times reports that the Rams stadium has sent housing prices soaring by 84% since 2016, resulting in a “crisis for renters,” who make up about two-thirds of Inglewood residents.
- Sports Illustrated says residents are charging fans $1,000 a car to park on their lawns for the Super Bowl, but also traffic is such a nightmare on game days that sometimes they can’t get out of their driveways.
The takeaway is clear: An NFL stadium makes stuff happen, for good and bad! But let’s take a closer look at some of the claims.
First off, that $477 million in economic impact can easily be dispensed with: While numbers like these are claimed by the league and sports media every Super Bowl season, when economists look at the actual figures after the game has been held, they typically find numbers only about one-tenth that size. And “economic impact,” remember, is just the amount of money changing hands in your city; the actual impact in terms of added tax revenues will be a further fraction of that fraction, likely in the single millions of dollars, less than you’ll end up spending on added policing for the game.
As for the soaring rents, that’s a tougher call without a more specific breakdown of what exactly is going on with the Inglewood real estate market. Sports venues and other splashy projects certainly can act as giant billboards for new development; that’s one reason lots of developers choose to build them. But housing prices are going nuts in all of Southern California, and the way gentrification works is that lower-income areas like Inglewood will likely see the biggest price increases as wealthier residents spill over from areas that are already full up. The Times story reports that median home sales prices in Inglewood have risen a consistent $25,000 a year since the Rams moved back to L.A. and started stadium construction in 2016, but correlation is not causation, so more research is needed to determine if it’s really a big-ass stadium open 20-30 days a year that’s causing Inglewood housing prices to soar, or if this is like margarine consumption causing divorces in Maine.
One interesting item along those lines: The Times cites a local real estate broker as saying that people are eager to live near the stadium — but then, there are those poor residents in the SI story who are trapped in their homes on game days, so which is it, is the stadium a boon or a blight? Or are people moving to Inglewood because they like the view of a giant alien structure surrounded by parking lots, but then find that it’s a nightmare because of all the cars driving to those parking lots? Or does the stadium have nothing to do with the real estate boom, beyond giving the real estate press an excuse to write about how hot the Inglewood housing market is, which of course serves to make the Inglewood housing market even hotter? The science of housing values has a lot of strange feedback loops that are beyond the scope of this post — though I hope to explore them further someday — but suffice to say that pointing at a new stadium and some yuppies moving to town at the same time and saying “Look, see!” isn’t science, let alone journalism.
Yeah, this is one of the least likely “causation” arguments for a stadium.
I don’t live in LA so maybe somebody (Steve?) who does or has in the past can expand on the topic…
That said, Inglewood was never Downey or South Gate.
What does “perceived rough neighbourhood” actually mean?
That an Ivy league educated piss ant who was paid to advocate for the stadium thinks it wouldn’t have been a nice place to live without the stadium?
I bet s/he wouldn’t really want to live in Inglewood now either.
A $25k annual increase in avg home sale prices might seem impressive… but it’s less impressive if that increase is on homes that are changing hands for $800,000 than it is if that same increase is happening on entry level condos that go for $170k (yes, I know, LA, that number is impossible).
We would also need to know what the change in avg home prices across all regions of the LA basin is in order to determine whether the alleged 84% increase around the “Kroenke Center for Irresponsible Spending” is ahead of, with, or behind the rest of the market. From what we learn from other areas of the SoCal market, raging property markets are certainly not exclusive to stadium districts.
The Hollywood Park Casino, IIRC, was one of the first businesses to open as part of the redevelopment of the old site… yet I see no allowance made for the effect of that business (which runs roughly 20 times as many days as the NFL does). Maybe people want to live within walking distance (hah!) of the casino more than they do the Rams new stadium?
Lastly, economic impacts clearly include the money that the NFL (or the IOC or FIFA) vacuum up and carry out of the home market as well. And that is the vast majority of the money changing hands at any major sporting event (btw, after league distributions, comps and other tickets reserved for VIPs who don’t pay… how many of the roughly 100k tickets are actually available to the paying general public?)
If area residents are really charging $1,000 for lawn parking spaces some of that money might stay in the Inglewood and surrounding areas (or, you know, head over to Vegas into a bigger casino), but you can bet the $7,000 per ticket is pretty much all heading out of town.
Well John, since you asked…
You’re right in saying that Inglewood was never quite a Downey or South Gate, but it definitely had seen better days. One of its main drawback (which will not be going away) is that most of the city is on the direct landing pattern for 4 busy runways at LAX. The proximity to the airport creates air quality issues and some other concerns. So, a stadium, concert venues and upcoming basketball arena combined with LAX landing pattern, you have an answer on quality of life.
Butts, the long-running mayor, has never met a billboard deal he didn’t like. Entering the city on most major boulevards, you drive under huge digital billboards placed in the median. He’s leading the charge for an elevated people mover from a light rail station north of downtown to the Forum/stadium zone. There’s no stations planned between the two areas, which would have benefited the community.
The Hollywood Park Casino was relocated from a spot adjacent to the defunct racetrack (how I miss that place!) Casinos in California (other than those operating on tribal land) are nothing like Las Vegas (or even Atlantic City). Think of them more like small card clubs. It was probably cost prohibitive (and likely a deal breaker for the seller) for Kronke to have not let the casino remain somewhere on the property.
Like many stadium developments, the opportunity for Inglewood lies in the other activities planned for the property. The racetrack sold off land to the east back in the 90s for a townhouse community and big box store shopping center.
The Clippers new arena is going into an area that might need redevelopment, across Century Blvd. from the Hollywood Park complex. Increased development that would likely add to city coffers, but not improve the life of its citizens.
And there you have my full analysis on Inglewood.
Home prices in my immediate neighborhood have increased bigly, a lot more than $25,000 annually, over the last several years. All that without a stadium! Is it even possible?
Or Wrestlemania!!!
Sorry about all those people in Maine.
But I can only afford margarine…..
Before the Raiders moved to Vegas, people often brought up “oh well because the raiders are moving here, housing prices are going to skyrocket”. Which still doesn’t make any sense- I bet a deeper study of Inglewood shows no correlation between the stadium and home prices
About them Raiders (when they left LA), todays Mercury News: “How the Raiders made $189 million in taxpayer money vanish” … https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/02/13/how-the-raiders-made-189-million-in-taxpayer-money-vanish/
I guess these are no longer superspreader events?
Given that attendees must provide proof of vaccination or a negative test, and are supposed to wear masks in indoor areas, probably shouldn’t be too bad.