Public financing of sports

I don't know why 26-P doesn't use permalinks, so I'll start by re-posting his piece below:

My problem here is the statement, "Sports can and does bring money". This conveniently misses the point, which is do sports investments bring in more money than they cost? There is much controversy on this. Here comes the research (pdf):

• By 2001, the public sector had spent $16 billion to participate in major league construction projects
• Stadia were found to provide little economic benefit once substitution effects were accounted for
• Real costs of public funding are likely to be under-reported.

It is difficult to argue using this type of reasoning, however, when a more politcally powerful argument is being made to the decision-makers.