There are many who propose that new sports venues create situations for new development around the stadium. This development is then used as a justification for using tax dollars to pay for the venue. Generally, those who make such claims are NOT economists and make the claims long before the stadium has been built. Sports economists have been fighting the good fight to disabuse politicians and the electorate from these development dreams. I would say that we have had a modicum of success as about 50% of stadium referendums fail (those who pass, however, cost more and more over time).

The May 10, 1909 NYT reports on a politician swimming upstream in the stadium-development racket:

Alderman John J.F. Mulcahy is preparing a bill which, if it passes the Board of Aldermen, will force the New York Baseball Club to seek other quarters. The bill will open a street through the centre of the Polo Grounds, and will enhance the value of much of the surrounding property, and for that reason Alderman Mulcahy's bill is receiving strong support of the property owners near the Polo Grounds.

The property owners would rather have had a road than a baseball field? Surely they were misinformed about the benefits of the Giants playing so close.

The good Alderman had this to say:

I am a lover of all kinds of sports, especially baseball, and while I do not want to work any hardships on the New York Baseball Club, I believe that the property rights of my constituents should be safeguarded, and with this object in view, I have looked the matter up, and have had a private survey made. I am not preparing the bill, which I feel certain will be passed, and will make every effort to push it to a successful conclusion.

Would that today's politicians would express concern about the property rights of their constituents when it comes to the stadium game.