Watchdog Mississippi takes a look at JSU's proposed Taj Mahal, otherwise known as the $200 million domed stadium. The story reveals a few uncomfortable facts about the actual reality surrounding the proposal:
Jackson State University is planning a $200 million, 50,000-seat domed stadium, and, according to the school, state taxpayers will foot about $75 million of the cost.
The school says the state funding would come from general obligation bonds. It will also seek funding from the city of Jackson, Hinds County and from federal grants.
According to Neil deMause, editor of the Field of Schemes blog that explores the public financing of stadiums, Jackson State isn’t the only school seeking a domed stadium using taxpayer money.
“It’s no crazier than (the University of Nevada-Las Vegas) trying to build a domed 50,000-seat stadium,” said deMause, co-author of the book “Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public Money into Private Profit.”
“Which is to say, pretty crazy. I’m sure there are crazier ways to waste taxpayer funds, but I can’t think of any right now.”
JSU’s football attendance doesn’t justify it having the largest stadium in the state as it plays in the NCAA Division I Football Championship Subdivision, which is smaller in terms of football scholarships, attendance and athletic department budgets. The University of Mississippi, Southern Miss and Mississippi State all play in the top tier of NCAA Division I, the Football Bowl Subdivision.
The good news is the JSU football program was ninth in football attendance in the FCS. The bad news? The Tigers drew 17,286 fans per game in Jackson Memorial Stadium, which seats more than 60,000 and was signed over to JSU in 2011....
The school says the university would use the stadium 45 nights out of the year; other events will account for 100 more nights. According to the school, those would include marching band competitions, concerts and even NBA and NFL preseason games. The last preseason NFL game in Jackson, which pitted the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts, drew more than 58,000 fans in 2006.
But how many big music tours that would make a stop in Jackson? According to PollStar, the top 10 highest-grossing concert tours in 2013 stopped in an average of 39 cities. Even when two tours with 12 or fewer dates — such as the Rolling Stones and Jay-Z and Justin Timberlake’s twinbill — are removed from the equation, the biggest-grossing tours only hit 46 markets. In the U.S. Census Bureau’s rankings of metropolitan statistical areas, the Jackson-Vicksburg-Brookhaven metro area had 576,382 in population, ranking it 93rd among U.S. metropolitan areas.
And the cost of tickets for those top 10 tours was $111 per ticket, a hard sell in a market with a median household income of $34,234. Rest of article.
18 comments:
go look at the photos of the dome--the header computer generated photo of a basketball game-looks like 10k in attendance--and the people are white.
Just as crazy as the plan to build a convention center. Ooops, they built that and it is bleeds red ink just as the experts in the field predicted.
I have nothing to say about the dome, but I MUST say that I tried to attend that NFL pre-season game. I must emphasize 'TRIED' because the traffic jam getting there was so bad I couldn't get there till the 3rd quarter and had given myself enough time to be there an hour and a half early!
NEVER AGAIN. I will not EVER try to attend a 'big' event in downtown Jackson simply because I think the city is so inept at traffic control that I wouldn't be able to get there anyway.
What JSU and Jackson really need is a new monorail.
woo hoo
Looks like its designed to meet Mayor Marys building requirements to me.
9:58--the current JSU stadium is not downtown.
BTW--Syracuse plays in the ACC--Florida State comes to play football there. UNC and Duke play basketball there.
I'm guessing that Prairie View and Alabama A&M don't bring the same numbers of fans as FSU, UNC, and Duk...
The only way I can see this project coming in at or below budget is to turn it over to an expert. David Watkins is my first choice.
I agree on the monorail but more specifically, a bullet Train from Gluckstadt Road with stops in Madison, Ridgeland, and North Jackson on the way to the Dome station. A bullet proof bullet train with a bullet proof walkway leading from the Dome station right into the Dome. Build it and they will come!
There is still plenty of property available for a large parking lot and train station out here in Gluckstadt.
The dome looks quite similar to the Georgia Dome. Since the ATL is building a new fleece (stadium) for Atlanta, why can't they move the Georgia Dome to Mississippi piece by piece. That way at least the waste of tax payer dollars can also prevent the filling of a landfill with tax dollars.
Dead. Solid. Perfect @ 2:41 PM.
looks like a good project for the JRA!
A monorail put North Haverbrook, Odgenville, and Brockway on the map!
seriously, can the state afford to waste money like this. There's a Republican governor- speak out against!
"the filling of a landfill with tax dollars. "
Fair warning: I am stealing this wonderful bit of poetry.
11:00 Stop picking nits. The traffic handling at Veterans Memorial Stadium by JPD was and embarrassing disaster (downtown or not). The way they handle parades, etc, downtown may be slightly better because more people are familiar with alternate routes downtown than around UMMC (which had all their roads and parking lots blocked during the Colts-Saints game).
Note that the Saints have not played one pre-season game here since that mess.
All you naysayers are a bunch of racial racists spreading your racism about race.
People forget that preseason game was here only because the Saints were displaced from their stadium due to a little storm named Katrina. Thats the only reason it happned.
Also, as far as entertainment, big names stopped coming to Jackson way back when because Jackson has one of the highest entertainment taxes in the country from what I have been told. Might be something worth investigating.
Build a casino with a stadium on Town Creek.....problem solved.
@822 The only color being talked about in this fiasco is GREEN.
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