Re-imagining RFK: Using DC's Captive Audience as a Revenue-Driven Incentive for a Privately-Funded Stadium

Abstract

NFL stadiums are expensive, consume tremendous amounts of land and materials, and oftentimes require a significant amount of taxpayer funding. Additionally, outside of the ten to twelve football games held per year, infrequent concerts, and rarely hosted events like the Super Bowl, an overwhelming majority of sporting and entertainment events don’t require a facility of this size. Although a substantial amount of evidence suggests these facilities are poor financial investments for cities, they continue to be taxpayer funded due to circumstances that have been in place since the 1950s. Because sports are such an integral part of our culture, it is important to provide venues that can host NFL games and other large scale sporting events. To address the issue of publicly-funded stadiums, this thesis will investigate how these venues can be designed to generate year-round revenue as an incentive for privately funded construction.