San Diego may create a special multimillion-dollar fund to attract high-profile sporting events it hopes would elevate the city’s global image and potentially pay for itself by boosting tourism.
Mark Neville, chief executive of Sports San Diego, is asking for a $2.2 million initial investment from the city to launch the fund, which he calls a global sports event fund. Additional funding could be requested in coming years.
Sports San Diego is a nonprofit that runs the Holiday Bowl and began promoting the city for global sports events in 2022. It argues San Diego is not getting as much as it could in sports tourism dollars.
There’s been no pushback from public officials yet, but spending funds on sports-related endeavors often gets pushback from taxpayers — even with the promise of increased tourism revenues.
Question: Should San Diego spend millions to lure big sports events?
Economists
Norm Miller, University of San Diego
NO: Big sports events provide lots of temporary low wage jobs that provide adequate income for residents in markets like Florida or Texas, but not here. There is no reason for the public to subsidize such events unless we have some city self-esteem deficiency that needs a fix. While it might be sacrilegious to state, the higher wage jobs like those in life sciences and biotech are the ones we should be encouraging, not sports or big event tourism.
David Ely, San Diego State University
YES: Promoting San Diego to generate more tourism is a reasonable use of city resources. But clear guidelines and processes should be in place to ensure that these funds are used only to attract events that yield a positive return for the city. Rigorous analysis of the impact of an event on transient occupancy tax and sales tax revenue is essential. Undisciplined optimism should never lead to an excessive bid to attract a sports event.
Caroline Freund, UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy
NO: The revenues from increased tourism accrue primarily to the event venues and businesses in the hospitality sector. If they think it is worthwhile to have such a fund, they should jointly support it through their industry associations. Taxpayer revenues should be used for infrastructure and services that support all residents.
Kelly Cunningham, San Diego Institute for Economic Research
YES: So long as money raised by the taxes are paid by users of the events, such as Transient Occupancy Taxes or by visitor-focused businesses, the use of funds to promote the events is justifiable. Business entities such as Chambers of Commerce or other business cooperatives are more efficient, however, in investing and promoting such efforts than public entities because profit-seeking motivations to produce the best product at cheapest price is not evident with “imposed” taxes.
Alan Gin, University of San Diego
YES: Big sporting events don’t usually generate the impact touted when they are announced. Some visitors will come from outside the community and spend money, which is positive. But that is offset by locals spending money at the event instead of the local economy, regular visitors being crowded out of hotel rooms, and a lot of the money leaving the region. What’s positive is promoting San Diego to the rest of the world. That could lead to future bumps in tourism.
James Hamilton, UC San Diego
NO: The city’s solution to every problem is to spend more money. Much of the proposed fund is intended to provide fee waivers for selected events. Why does the city need a dedicated fund in order to lower the fees it charges? The answer is they’re addicted to the revenue, even though collecting the revenue is hurting the city. The city should look first for ways to lower the costs it imposes on economically beneficial activities.
Executives
Bob Rauch, R.A. Rauch & Associates
YES: The economic benefits include increased tourism, job creation and local business boosts. If we do it right, San Diego’s global exposure will position us as a world-class event destination. Mark Neville has proven himself through his stewardship of the Holiday Bowl and related events. The combination of Petco, Snapdragon and a potential arena makes it ideal. San Diego deserves to be No.1 in sports. Go for it.
Austin Neudecker, Weave Growth
NO: San Diego should spend to win more large sports events. I would pursue high attendance, less famous events like the X-Games, All-Star games, college finals, or bolstering our existing outdoor races. Related to this proposal, I am weary of allocating money to a private organization that currently runs an existing event versus establishing a new committee that has oversight and approval requirements.
Chris Van Gorder, Scripps Health
NO: While I’m a big sports fan and would love to see more major sporting events in San Diego, it’s obvious we are struggling to maintain our basic infrastructure with public dollars so I don’t think we could justify spending taxpayer resources to bring more sporting events to San Diego. Having said that, if a legitimate business plan could prove me wrong, I’d love to change my opinion.
Phil Blair, Manpower
YES: With a very clear profit-making approach. Just like with large conventions, the return on investment has got to be predictable and beneficial to the community as a whole. Building large stadiums and arenas that support teams that have limited interest but huge annual bond payments is not the correct approach. Let the private sector take that risk. Bringing in talent and events that leave lots of money in San Diego is a good investment.
Gary London, London Moeder Advisors
NO: I can only offer a visceral response because I do not fully appreciate how much promotion the attraction of sporting events requires. Relatively speaking this is not a great amount of money if success is measurable. However, in this fiscally challenging era, maybe the distraction of this type of ephemeral spending seems unnecessary relative to fixing potholes. After all, who really doesn’t know that this is a great sports town with a pleasant climate?
Jamie Moraga, Franklin Revere
NO: While it would be great to incentivize and lure large sporting events to San Diego, this isn’t the route to obtain funding. The city’s budget faces a significant deficit in fiscal year 2025. To address the shortfall, the mayor’s approved budget focuses on funding essential services and key issues including housing, homelessness and infrastructure. Taxpayers shouldn’t have to fund sports tourism efforts. Instead, alternative funding could be state grants or state funding, raising of own funds, or private investment.
Haney Hong, San Diego County Taxpayers Association
NO: Pouring millions into attracting high-profile sports events is a risky play. There’s no guarantee that these events will generate enough tourism revenue to cover costs, and taxpayers are often left footing the bill when promises of economic payback fall short. San Diego’s limited funds might be better allocated to more pressing local needs, like infrastructure or housing, rather than speculative spending on events that may not deliver.
Not participating this week:
Ray Major, economist
Have an idea for an Econometer question? Email me at phillip.molnar@sduniontribune.com. Follow me on Threads: @phillip020
