Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf desires a new stadium for his club, one built largely at public expense, but Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker may not be inclined to give him what he wants, as the Chicago Sun-Times notes. "I start out really reluctant," Pritzker said on Monday in a press conference unrelated to the stadium issue, " … unless a case is made that the investment yields a long-term return for the taxpayers that we can justify in some way. I haven't seen that yet."
Academic studies on the public benefit of investing tax dollars in private sports facilities say in effective unanimity that it's a poor use of money. The purported economic benefits of stadiums such as the one the White Sox want to build are wildly overstated by advocates of such projects, and then there's the matter of the opportunity cost of plowing public monies into such projects.
In the White Sox's case, Reinsdorf is seeking $1.7 billion in direct public investment plus tax kickbacks. As Field of Schemes' Neil DeMause notes, that would make it the largest stadium subsidy in U.S. history.
The potential ballpark site is at Roosevelt Road and Clark Street (which might sound familiar, as Clark Street extends all the way to the North Side and runs along Wrigley Field). The move from Guaranteed Rate Field would be about 2.5 miles north and put the ballpark closer to downtown. It would be similar in latitude to Soldier Field (home of the Bears) and not far off of the famous "Magnificent Mile" (Michigan Ave.). The White Sox have called Guaranteed Rate Field home since 1991.
Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson has in recent comments sounded amenable to having serious discussions with the White Sox about the project, but at the state level persuading Gov. Pritzker to get on board seems to be a more difficult task.
