Why do mayors love sports stadiums?

Other people's money sure spends easy

"The simplest explanation is fear: because team owners can choose new cities but cities can’t choose new teams—thanks to the leagues’ government-sanctioned monopolies over franchise placement—mayors feel they must offer owners anything they want." (Neil DeMause @ The Nation)

As luck would have it Ann Arbor's stadia are all state owned property but even so the UM athletic department squeezes everybody it can for money. That "jobs, jobs, jobs" stuff the political types fall for is just BS. So we get a few parking attendants, hot dog vendors and clean up positions. We also get litter, traffic congestion, and noise along with them too. But at least UM can't threaten to move to Livonia or  Toledo either so there's that.