Football in Greater Manchester: Growth Effects of Premiership Status Teams.

An extensive body of economic literature suggests that in the United States, there is little gain to a city from using tax revenues to subsidize or in other ways support professional sports franchises. One of the difficulties with these studies is the stability of professional team location. Manchester, England provides an opportunity to examine the growth effects associated with adding and subtracting top tier teams from a single sport in a single area over the course of several decades. Five different Greater Manchester area teams have been in the Premiership with as few as one and as many as four in any given year since the founding of the Premiership. Using Greater Manchester borough level data from 1991 through 2013 we look for changes in gross value added overall and in categories associated with professional sports when Premiership status changes. We find no sustained role for Premiership status, but do find a one off gain in gross value added growth when a team is promoted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]