The Super Bowl will be played in Glendale, Arizona but the suburb’s push to become a sports center has not exactly paid off:

As the Coyotes and Cardinals sought new facilities in the early 2000s and efforts failed to build them in other parts of the Phoenix area, Glendale stepped in. The city helped pay for the Coyotes’ arena with $167 million in bonds in 2003, and as the hockey team’s finances began to fade during the recession, Glendale went all-in to keep the team in Arizona. The city dished out $50 million earlier this decade to keep the team and continues to make annual payments toward the arena, but the money it is getting in return has not met expectations.

The football stadium was built in 2006, but Glendale was not on the hook for the costs of the $450 million retractable-roof facility. It was funded primarily with new taxes on car rentals and hotels in the Phoenix area, but that financing hit a snag last year when a judge ruled that the car rental tax was unconstitutional, leaving a major funding source for the Super Bowl venue in jeopardy. The issue is still being argued in the courts.

Glendale is far from alone. Cities and states nationwide have long struggled with how much public money to spend on stadium projects. The effort to build a new stadium for the Minnesota Vikings became embroiled in controversy over a financial commitment by the state that opponents said was excessive. The St. Louis Rams are at the center of a debate over whether to spend public money on a new stadium. Topeka, Kansas, is immersed in a fight over a motorsports track that has drawn comparisons to hockey in Glendale…

In the case of the Super Bowl, he believes the city is paying dearly. He said Glendale will actually lose a “couple million dollars” by hosting the event. It’s spending huge amounts of money on overtime and police and public safety costs associated with hosting the Super Bowl but getting very little in return.

Super Bowl visitors are mostly staying in Phoenix and Scottsdale and only showing up in Glendale on game day, meaning the city won’t see much of a boost in tax revenue. And the city was hoping the state would reimburse Glendale for its police overtime costs, but lawmakers have scoffed at the idea.

Teams and cities typically sell stadiums as engines for economic development. Think of all the fans who will be there! You can build around the new facilities! This will put your city on the map! But, such stadiums come with big costs including tax money that is often used as well as a whole host of other infrastructure concerns (from police to building hotel rooms). And the winners in such schemes are often the team owners who don’t have to pay completely out of pocket for facilities that can immensely boost the value of their team. (A thought: just imagine a team owner selling the team for a big profit – and many current sports franchises would turn such a profit today – and having to reimburse the community for costs incurred.)

But, if Glendale hadn’t built these stadiums, some other community might have fallen over themselves to make it happen…