Welcome to Econ Talk, coming to you from the Library of Economics and Liberty.

I'm your host, Russ Roberts of George Mason University.

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My guest today is Skip Sauer, Professor of Economics and Chairman of the Department of Economics at Clemson University.

We'll be talking about the economics of sports. Skip, it's good to have you on Econ Talk.

Good to be with you, Russ.

Well, the baseball seasons underway, the St. Louis Cardinals are in their brand new stadium.

Other teams are either planning new stadiums or hoping to have them.

And those stadiums often use a great deal of public money.

Do you think these stadiums provide any public benefit given that public financing?

Well, I think there's a lot of public benefit to the stadiums.

I think most of that benefit is captured by the people who are selling the product.

We certainly enjoy our sports center, are willing to pay a lot of it,

a lot for it, as indicated by the salaries that we pay to the ball players.

But the question is whether it's really necessary to subsidize the construction of these stadiums,

given the tremendous demand that's out there for the sport.

I like most other people who have looked at the issue, have formed,

I think, a carefully studied opinion that the public subsidies just simply aren't necessary.

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