Miller Park

Nathan Burke

In order for our communities to have great wealth and fame, we absolutely need professional sporting events. We also need new, fashionable arenas for those events to take place in. Of course the marginal cost will be large over time, it will still be worth it because of the marginal benefits. New professional sporting arenas will bring great wealth to the community economically and will benefit almost everyone in the community. For example, Miller Park added nearly $300 million to the local economy annually (Journal Sentinel). Now that the Brewers are getting better as a team, more and more people will purchase tickets for their games and their revenue will continue to raise. Just look at what that small amount does for the economy in such little time. This park created a positive externality for mostly everyone around it.

Although there are a lot of positives, there are still some negative externalities. For example, because so many people go to the games at Miller Park, there is an unsteady flow of traffic and it creates another couple rush hours on the highway on the days that the Brewers play at home. Miller Park was an opportunity cost that worked out for the better. The community really needed this and it helped out local businesses and most people, if not everyone.

The park is also used for certain events, like concerts, which bring in people from all over Wisconsin and other states near us. Miller park is a public good that has private goods within it. It’s sort of like a mall. You can walk around the mall without spending a dime, because it was paid for by the community, but the stores within the mall are privately owned, therefore they are private goods. The same goes for Miller park, you pay a small fee to get in, but you don’t have to pay the full price of the park (public good). On the other hand, if you buy something within the park, it’s yours to keep (private good). This gives people the pleasure to go out and have fun.

Overall, communities should raise taxes to help pay for professional sporting arenas. This will help the community to become more wealthy and it will also help create jobs. There is such a little opportunity cost that leads to marginal benefits. In the long run, raising taxes will create wealth in our communities.

Sources

Behm, Don. "Distant Brewers' fans have $263 million annual impact." IIS7. Journal Sentinel, n.d. Web. 29 May 2017.

Kirchen, Rich. "Miller Park adds $300M to local economy: MLB study." Bizjournals.com. Milwaukee Business Journal, 13 Mar. 2013. Web. 25 May 2017.

Staff, BizTimes. "Study validates economic impact of Miller Park." BizTimes Media Milwaukee. BizTimes Media Milwaukee, 20 Aug. 2015. Web. 29 May 2017.

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