According to a September 2024 study by the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), “football fans spend about $61 million during the weeks when the Steelers play at home,” the Post-Gazette reported in advance of this past week’s NFL Wild Card game between the Steelers and the Houston Texans.
And that, a study footnote says, takes into account the “substitution effect” – event spending by local attendees “assumed to be entirely displaced, or shifted from other local expenditures.”
“For example, if a local resident did not spend money to attend a professional sporting event, it is conservatively assumed that he or she would have spent all that money on another form of purchase in the local economy. Therefore, since such spending is not considered new to the local economy, it has not been included in the estimates presented” in the analysis.
That said, we find the $61 million number suspect, considering visiting fans are a small percentage of the total game attendees.
The statistic was included in a 48-page study that PwC prepared for Pittsburgh Steelers Sports Inc. – the Steelers operations organization — that purports to show that the Steelers and Acrisure Stadium are massive economic generators for Greater Pittsburgh.
But as Frank Gamrat, executive director of the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy, notes, in addition to heavy taxpayer subsidies to build the new football stadium, “the Steelers were given very lucrative development rights to the North Shore and have benefited from them greatly — to the detriment of Downtown office buildings, retail and restaurants.
“The money has just been moved around from other areas of the city/county,” he reminds.
Ah, the “substitution effect.”
Additionally, “While some tax revenues are due to activities at the stadium, the team benefits so much more than any of the three tax entities,” those being the city, county and Pittsburgh Public Schools, the think tank scholar says.
“The city is still in financial straits and has been the entire life of [Acrisure Stadium]. And all three taxing bodies had to increase millages to make their budgets work.”
Thus, Gamrat, calls the PwC report “nothing more than self-serving junk. It’s only use is to lining the bottom of a bird cage.”
“I guess this is the run-up to the Steelers asking for either a new stadium or extensive improvements to the existing stadium,” funded at least in part by taxpayers, he says.
By the way, PwC apparently is so rock-ribbed sure of its study conclusions that it included this legal disclaimer at the bottom:
“This document has been prepared pursuant to an engagement with our Client. As to all other parties, it is for general information purposes only, and should not be used as a substitution for consultation with professional advisors.”
Nothing like the courage of your convictions in the dissemination of propaganda in support of one baron of sport possibly preparing to shake down taxpayers once again.
All this said, we cannot end today’s At Large without noting with a hearty guffaw one of the comments, in part, from a Post-Gazette reader at the bottom of the P-G story:
“The more someone has to reiterate and emphasize economic impact on a controversial subject, the more you have to check what’s running down your back to make sure it’s raining.”
All together now: Ahem.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
