Detroit City Analysis

One city that has been negatively impacted by the arrival of professional sports teams is the city of Detroit, Michigan. At one point essentially in shambles, Detroit, though still bankrupt and not very well off, at least now has something positive associated with its name. As the article by Joe Drape of the New York Times explains, “where even keeping the streetlights on has proved a struggle…”, Detroit is a city in complete and utter bankruptcy due to the reduction of population within the city in addition to the very high unemployment rate compared to the national average. In this city, it is primarily the baseball team, the Detroit Tigers, that are contributing to the city in ways that other businesses could not. One of the vendors at Comerica …show more content…
In 2012, the city of Indianapolis hosted the Super Bowl. This was a wonderful way for the city to attract more people and show itself off. It did this not only through the nearly 100,000 fans who came from all over the country to watch the biggest football game of the year, but also through the people watching on television. This might sound like an odd way for the city to get its name out there, but there were well over 100 million viewers for this particular event, and not many people had seen Indianapolis in its new glory, or at least in comparison to what it used to be. Due to the increase in tourists for the weekend, there were special events all over the city, including a “family friendly festival” which included restaurants and other businesses that would help make the city money. The people of the city were smart too, unlike the people of Detroit. The investments made in these buildings and businesses were designed to last for years and years to come, unlike the minimal amount of job creation in the city of Detroit. Hosting the biggest football game of the year had not only the benefit of creating a name for the city, but also helped out the worse off people of the city. Despite having to be moved around a little and restricted from certain areas, the homeless population of Indianapolis was the recipient of a new grocery store in a location that previously had …show more content…
As simple as it may seem, it remains true that having sports around means that there are more jobs around. There are obviously the athletes, but there are also the umpires and officials, the writers and reporters, and the fitness instructors and medical staff. Each of these jobs are constantly growing due to the fact that more and more teams are arriving in cities. This is not only true for the four major sports of the United States, but also for up and coming emerging sports like soccer. It has been reported by multiple sources that sports jobs have a multiplier of about 2.3. This means that for every one job in sports, there are an average of 1.3 created due to new and emerging needs for the initial job. Many would think that the primary effect of the sports industry is the initial money being thrown around, the payments to the workers, no matter what they may do. However, these initial payments only make up 72 percent of the total earning generated by the industry. The other nearly 30 percent was generated by the both the major purchases by the industry and the needs for the industry to survive. For example, making up about 18 percent of the total earning of the industry, are the purchases by the industry, which include uniforms, equipment, and whatever else