Sports · Public Money

The Spurs Asked San Antonio for $800 Million and Couldn’t Prove It Pays Off

On November 4, 2025, Bexar County voters narrowly approved Proposition B, clearing the way for roughly $800 million in public money to help build a new $1.3 billion downtown arena for the San Antonio Spurs. The county will put in up to $311 million through a hotel-and-rental-car venue tax; the City of San Antonio is committing another $489 million through tax-increment financing. The Spurs, valued in the billions, agreed to a $500million “minimum” of their own.

The pitch, branded “Project Marvel,” is that a publicly subsidized arena will revitalize downtown and pay the city back many times over. The problem is that no independent analysis ever showed it would. The city’s own consultant built its rosy projections largely on numbers the Spurs supplied — and when San Antonio’s mayor asked for a genuinely independent study before the vote, she didn’t get one in time.

That gap matters, because the economic literature on stadium subsidies is about as settled as economics gets. Decades of peer-reviewed research find that publicly funded arenas do not generate the growth their boosters promise — and that the subsidies routinely cost far more than any benefit they return. San Antonio just voted to test that consensus with hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.

$800M+ — combined public money pledged toward a $1.3 billion arena — Bexar County's $311M venue tax plus the city's $489M in tax-increment financing · Source: San Antonio Report; city/county term sheet
52.1% — share of Bexar County voters who approved Prop B on Nov. 4, 2025 — weeks after a UTSA poll found them opposed to the venue-tax plan 46–40 · Source: KENS5 election results; UTSA Center for Public Opinion Research
23 years — age of the Spurs' current home, Frost Bank Center — the 12th-newest arena in the NBA, refurbished a decade ago — when ownership asked taxpayers to fund a replacement · Source: San Antonio Current / J.C. Bradbury

§ 01 / The Ask

The deal that went to voters splits a $1.3 billion arena three ways. Bexar County’s share — the lesser of $311 million or 25% of the total — would come from raising the hotel-occupancy portion of the county venue tax to 2% and extending the existing 5% short-term rental-car tax. The City of San Antonio committed roughly $489 million, drawn largely from tax-increment financing and a state-authorized Project Finance Zone that captures sales-tax revenue from hotels near the site. Spurs Sports & Entertainment pledged a $500 million minimum and said it would cover cost overruns.

Add it up and the public is on the hook for about $800 million — well over half the building’s sticker price. The arena would rise on the site of the former Institute of Texan Cultures at Hemisfair, anchoring a sprawling downtown sports-and-entertainment district that backers value at $3 billion to $4 billion once convention-center expansion, a new hotel, and an I-37 land bridge are folded in.

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§ 02 / Who Pays, Who Profits

Boosters insist the venue tax falls on tourists, not residents — hotel guests and rental-car customers, not Bexar County homeowners. But the structure is more fragile than that framing suggests. The funding leans on three revenue streams — the venue tax, tax-increment reinvestment zones, and the Project Finance Zone — that all depend on visitor spending hitting projections. When those revenues fall short, the gap doesn’t vanish; it migrates to the general fund, which is to say, to ordinary taxpayers.

And the projections are already running into headwinds. National tourism softened through 2025, and San Antonio hospitality revenues slid in some recent months — exactly the wrong backdrop for a deal underwritten by hotel taxes. Meanwhile the asset that the public is helping to build accrues to a private franchise whose reported revenue ran in the hundreds of millions of dollars a year. The taxpayers carry the downside; the team keeps the upside.

Hotel and rental-car taxes funneled toward a privately owned Spurs arena — The county's $311 million comes from a hotel-and-rental-car venue tax; the city's $489 million from tax-increment financing tied to visitor spending.

“Public subsidies for stadiums are like reverse Robin Hood.”
David Macpherson, professor of economics, Trinity University · San Antonio Current

§ 03 / The Economists' Verdict

Few questions in applied economics draw a cleaner answer. In a 2024 review for the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, economists J.C. Bradbury, Dennis Coates, and Brad Humphreys surveyed more than 130 studies of stadium projects published between 1974 and 2022 and concluded that local economic activity is largely unaffected by sports venues — and that “the level of venue subsidies typically provided far exceeds any observed economic benefits.” A confidence-weighted 83% of the University of Chicago’s panel of leading economists, including several Nobel laureates, has agreed that stadium subsidies aren’t worth the cost.

Bradbury, who teaches at Kennesaw State, was blunt about San Antonio specifically. “San Antonio already built the Spurs a brand new arena. It’s not even 30 years old, and it was refurbished a decade ago. This is insane,” he told the San Antonio Current, calling the financing structure “indefensible public policy” and saying the owner “should be embarrassed for asking.” Frost Bank Center opened in 2002 and ranks as the 12th-newest arena in the NBA.

Field of Schemes

@fieldofschemes · Sept. 2, 2025

San Antonio's Spurs arena 'explainer' leans on the team's own rosy numbers. Decades of research say publicly funded stadiums don't pay for themselves — and this $800M-plus public ask is no exception. Voters should read the fine print on the venue tax.

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§ 04 / The Missing Analysis

The single clearest accountability failure in the whole episode is that nobody ever produced an independent case for the spending. The economic study the city relied on was conducted by CSL Consulting and paid for by the city — but it leaned heavily on data the Spurs themselves supplied, and critics noted it never rigorously evaluated the arena on its own merits. Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones (D) said that wasn’t good enough for a public commitment of this size.

In August 2025, Jones called for a “strategic pause” and a genuinely independent economic analysis — pointing to the kind of detailed, 73-page study CSL had produced for Philadelphia’s arena debate as the standard San Antonio should meet. “If an independent economic analysis corroborates the numbers that the Spurs have provided,” she said, “then I think we can have the conversation. However, if it’s different, then we should also understand that.” The vote went forward in November anyway, with no such independent corroboration on the table.

Officials debate the Spurs arena economic justification before the venue-tax vote — The city's economic study was funded by the city but built largely on Spurs-supplied data; the mayor's call for an independent analysis was never satisfied before the vote.

“The owner should be embarrassed for asking. It's indefensible public policy.”
J.C. Bradbury, sports economist, Kennesaw State University · San Antonio Current

§ 05 / Who's Spending the Money

A deal this size has fingerprints. Spurs Sports & Entertainment managing partner Peter J. Holt told KSAT that public funding “has to happen” for the project to pencil out, while framing the team’s $500million as a generous, “almost unheard of” private share. On the public side, the elected officials who carried the ask to voters are the ones now accountable for whether the projections hold.

Who's Spending the Money

Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai (D) — led the county’s push to put the venue-tax measure on the ballot; the county will commit up to $311 million in hotel-and-rental-car tax revenue.

San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones (D) — demanded an independent economic analysis before the vote, then backed the roughly $489 million city contribution; the mayor’s office is officially nonpartisan, but Jones is a two-time Democratic congressional nominee and former Biden Air Force official.

Bexar County Commissioners Court — voted to send Proposition B to voters, authorizing the venue-tax increase that funds the county’s share.

Peter J. Holt, Spurs Sports & Entertainment — majority owner who said public money “has to happen”; the franchise keeps the arena’s long-term value.

§ 06 / What Comes Next

With the propositions passed, the question shifts from whether to build to whether the books balance. Design work is expected to run into 2029, with construction following and the arena potentially complete in the early 2030s — years over the timeline first floated when Project Marvel was unveiled in 2024. In the meantime, two San Antonio City Council members have proposed a public dashboard to track every promise tied to the project and the public dollars flowing into it — an implicit acknowledgment that, absent the independent analysis the mayor wanted, accountability will have to be built after the fact.

The Spurs make a fair point that an aging arena on the city’s east side limits the team and the downtown core alike, and that a marquee venue can anchor real development. But “can” is not “will,” and the research is clear that the public rarely recoups what it puts in. San Antonio bet roughly $800million of public money on the optimistic case — without ever requiring anyone independent to show the math.

San Antonio Report

@SAReport · Nov. 4, 2025

Bexar County voters back county funding for a new $1.3B Spurs arena. Prop B passes with about 52% — weeks after a UTSA poll showed residents opposed to using venue-tax dollars on the project. The county's share: up to $311 million.