Why Owners Don't Build Stadiums By Themselves

You can count on one hand how many teams have built stadiums in the last 50 years without a dime of tax dollars - three, by my count, actually - the story of the Columbus Blue Jackets' disaster shows why teams don't offer to build grand facilities on their own - it's just not worth it.

The Blue Jackets, privately-owned by an Ohio family, built Nationwide Arena in 2000.  When the expense nearly forced the family into bankruptcy, the city bailed the arena out.

Now, according to Field of Schemes, the city is the entity losing money annually on the arena, while the owners of the Blue Jackets keep the profits from not just hockey games, but also the other events hosted at Nationwide.   That's the business model franchise owners desire, of course, at the expense of taxpayers.