Florida Stadium Consultant Built a Questionable Model to Justify Stadium Deals

"Florida State professor, Mark Bonn, has become the go-to economist for teams in Florida looking to secure public financing of their stadium or arena," Kevin Draper reports for Deadspin. This economist who has been used by Florida teams trying to get money for their teams’ stadiums was told by teams that his projections were unrealistic, but Bonn insisted the team keep the estimates, saying that more realistic numbers would only stoke arguments against the stadiums.

"If Bonn’s studies don’t sound very economically robust, perhaps it is because Bonn isn’t actually an economist! He is a professor at FSU’s School of Hospitality, where he teaches marketing and wine-tasting, and his degree is in resource development," Draper writes.