Halt stadium subsidies during Maryland’s budget crunch

Gov. Wes Moore’s recently disclosed Blueprint for Maryland’s Future shows an expected shortfall of $81 million in the next state budget – a shortfall expected to balloon to $2.1 billion in fiscal year 2028. Based on this, Maryland taxpayers are entirely likely to be handed a tax hike.

Despite this, the Maryland Stadium Authority’s board just authorized one of the largest pieces of multiyear taxpayer-subsidized corporate welfare in Maryland history.

M&T Bank Stadium is at the beginning of a three-year renovation, which includes expanded concourses, a redesigned north plaza with new tailgate areas, a concert venue and a new team store, along with luxury suites, field seating and club spaces for fans who pay top dollar.

The stadium authority’s board just approved a memorandum by which the authority would have to reimburse the Ravens organization up to $35 million for the stadium improvements, meaning that the Ravens would contribute only about $20 million toward the renovations, while the remainder of the roughly $489 million project would have to be funded by the state.

The deal still needs to be approved by the Board of Public Works, composed of Moore, Comptroller Brooke Lierman, and Treasurer Dereck Davis.

Upgrades to the state-owned stadium, completed in 1998, were made possible by a 2022 state law that contemplated future renovations. The law allowed the stadium authority to sell bonds to improve both M&T Bank Stadium and Oriole Park at Camden Yards ($600 million each) — provided that debt service on the bonds did not last past the end of the team’s lease.

Under the law, the state’s debt on the bonds must be paid off with state lottery funds. Those funds otherwise would go to the state’s general fund and presumably could be used to mitigate the large projected budget shortfall that the state is now experiencing.

Policy analysts, including the Tax Foundation, point out that the promised tangible economic benefits to subsidizing stadiums — economic growth, income growth, wage growth, employment growth, and higher tax revenues — do not occur the way that sports teams claim. Often, such economic benefits occur only directly near the stadium itself and fall far short of expectations, with no tangible benefits for the rest of the state.

The problem of lack of tangible economic benefits to the citizens is even more acute where the subsidy is used to fund luxury improvements to an existing stadium in a time of state budgetary stress.

We view this as a poor use of government dollars that could go to more urgent uses. We urge the Board of Public Works to withhold its approval of this deal.