Question

Explain the three main “eras” in U.S. stadium funding: entrepreneurial, public infrastructure, and public-private partnership. Economically, why did we see a shift from one era to the next?

Answer 1

Acording to Judith Long there are 3 phases of stadium funding.The first phase is the entrepreneurial period from 1890 to 1930.The owners of base ball team and hockey team , during this period built their ball parks. Baseball was the dominant sport of US at  that time.Ball parks were funded by team owners. But football teams did not have money to built their own stsdium and basket ball lacked stable league.There were two common features of these facilities ,firstly only baseball had the word stadium written in its title and all others had Wrigley field or Shibe park written in title.Secondly,the ball parks bear the name of the owner of the baseball team for which the stadium was constructed.However the changing nature of American cities led to the disappearance of these facilities and only Wrigley Field and Fenway park stil exist.

The second period is the era of civic infrastructure when stadiums were regarded as centerpieces as a result of urban development .During this period public sector was responsible for bearing the cost of stadium funding.This period wsa from 1953-1980 and Milwaukee's county stadium and Baltimore's memorial stadium were constructed during this period.Many of the stadiums built during this period was named after the cities or countries  that had financed the stadium like Atlanta Fulton County stadium.

The third period is the public -private partnership which began in 1980 and is still going on.Locals and stategovernments funded half the cost of the stadiums and the teams and leagues funded the remaining cost.With fall in public subsidies teams tried to find new ways of income and one such source was private sponsors.

The great depression and second world warcreated an environment in which ball park construction was not given imprtance to other national priorities . After the end of the world war ii the third era of ball park construction unfolded when many changes were taking place in America like creation of interstate highway system,development of communication technologies, etc and sports development wsa woven in that process of evolution.