{"id":18743,"date":"2017-01-02T20:29:35","date_gmt":"2017-01-02T20:29:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/?p=18743"},"modified":"2017-01-02T20:29:35","modified_gmt":"2017-01-02T20:29:35","slug":"pistons-palace-potential-effects-branding-detroit-sports-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/pistons-palace-potential-effects-branding-detroit-sports-city\/","title":{"rendered":"Pistons, the Palace, and the Potential Effects of Branding Detroit as a Sports City"},"content":{"rendered":"

A bit over a month ago, the Pistons<\/a> made the news by (finally) announcing their move Downtown, part of partnership between the Ilitch Family and Tom Gores. As a basketball fan and (to my own dismay as of late) a Pistons fan, I\u2019m ecstatic. Hockey, Basketball, and Football all within walking distance? Sign me up. I\u2019ll leave out Baseball because, frankly, I think it\u2019s boring – Sorry.<\/p>\n

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The city seems to be in the midst of a branding decision. Is \u201cnew\u201d Detroit a booming Metropolis featuring its sports teams as the core of its economy? Or are the teams simply meant to be an added benefit – a side effect of a rapidly growing economy. When I ask friends, some hear \u201cbasketball\u201d and don\u2019t need another answer. Others protest to the inevitable hole the move will leave in the Auburn Hills economy when the Palace slowly but surely (and sadly) dies, unable to hold up its own weight as a full time concert venue.<\/p>\n

Sports fan me was initially baffled by the accompanied mixed public opinions, with many Oakland County residents outraged by the abandoning of a “perfectly good” arena in The Palace. Moreover, many doubt the economic feasibility of the move, doubting the idea of a sporting arena as an “economic stimulus”, citing the tax dollars it will take (34.5 million in addition to the overall cost of Little Caesars Arena<\/a>) as a prime example of the public getting duped once again.<\/p>\n

Experts have decidedly negative views on sports\u2019 relationships to cities. Oftentimes, publicly financed arenas have very little effect on the economy of a struggling city. People drive into the arena to see a game and immediately drive out – the fiscal winners? Billionaire owners.<\/p>\n

A 2012 study in The Journal of Urban Affairs<\/a> notes that while Basketball Arenas may have a positive effect on their local economies, this effect is lessened or even negated when other sporting arenas are in close proximity. That is, all by itself a franchise can be a positive, but when you add in additional sports, there\u2019s a diminishing return. Yet, most alarming is a discovery of a \u201cdecline in per capita income of about $2,430\u201d that tends to accompany the newest basketball arenas. While local economies may experience regional income increases, the tax subsidies involved in construction of the arenas often negate this.<\/p>\n

All of this may seem negative, but, as the above study concludes, \u201c (arenas) are not primary catalysts of economic development but are instead economic complements. The present research is generally consistent with the notion that professional sports are not the cause of development so much as they are the effect.” As a natural optimist, I\u2019m inclined to focus on the bold statement above. What if Little Caesars Arena is yet another sign of Detroit\u2019s rapidly improving economy? That is, the arena and both the Wings\u2019 and Pistons\u2019 tenures there could be yet another sign of Detroit\u2019s boom.<\/p>\n

Regardless, the Pistons are coming back to Detroit, and this sports fan can\u2019t help but crack a grin.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A bit over a month ago, the Pistons made the news by (finally) announcing their move Downtown, part of partnership between the Ilitch Family and Tom Gores. As a basketball fan and (to my own dismay as of late) a Pistons fan, I\u2019m ecstatic. Hockey, Basketball, and Football all within walking distance? Sign me up. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":289,"featured_media":18746,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/289"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.challengedetroit.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}