Stadium Schmadium

Is the new Yankee Stadium a "flop?" The Yankees - I must confess I am a Newark-born life-long fan - are losing and tickets aren't selling. The Wall Street Journal asks:

"The question is whether all the trouble ultimately will be worth it. If the new stadium fails to augment the Yankees' payroll advantage over competing clubs, and if its propensity to allow home runs makes it difficult to craft an effective pitching staff - what was the point?"

The real question is what these expensive, publicly bankrolled behemoths add to their local economies. The consensus across every, single serious study ever done of the economic impact of sports stadia is "absolutely nothing." As the old song goes, "say it again."